Speakers
Corporate Governance and Ethical Leadership in Maritime Trade
As a Marine Engineer and Officer in the Royal Navy for nearly 19 years, I have found that decision making that may at first appear quantitative and numeric requires values-based judgements. Judgements around levels of safety and Risk to Life (RtL) inherently require an ethical values-based judgement that balances delivery of military effect against potential harm to our own people. The Royal Navy has a process that allows a nominated officer to decide that a warship may sail on operations, and that the level of RtL to the crew of that warship is acceptable. This RtL may be impacted in several ways, for example, a maintenance item may be incomplete, or a system may have a defect, or the level of crew training may not have been maximised. The requirement to deploy, on the other hand, may be impacted by a changing geopolitical situation, the deployment of adversary units or by the requirement to relieve another warship currently on operations. The aim of my presentation is to explore the ways in which Royal Navy decision makers may, from an ethical perspective, balance the operational imperative to deliver a military effect, with the necessary requirement to subject its people to some level of RtL.