5 Lessons In Leadership From Open Water Diving
Deep Dive
Takeaway: On the one year anniversary of my open water diving certification, we’re revisiting this reflection on the broader lessons I learned in leadership from leading a dive team off the coast of San Diego as the final test of my certification.
It’s also a perfectly matched topic for this week’s “Deep Dive.” :-)
5 Leadership Lessons From Open Water Diving
In February 2023, I traveled to San Diego to escape the Michigan cold and to visit my brother and his family.
The day before I left I decided to do something crazy.
I signed up to get open water diving certified.
It was a tight schedule, needing to pack in the mandatory three days of diving during my trip, accounting for potential weather issues that might delay one or all of the dives.
And I had to study the material.
I ordered the textbook from Amazon while I was on the plane and had it delivered to my brother’s address the next day. (Score for Amazon Prime.)
My experience becoming dive certified was an adventure. In reality though, it was also one of the best practices in leadership training I could have asked for.
If you don’t care to learn about my experience with the process, including shark-infested water, then skip down below to “The Test of Leadership” heading to dive right into the reflections.
From Swimmer To Psychopath
In those three days, you spend the first in a pool learning the basic skills—how to use the equipment, how to navigate safety issues (i.e. running out of air), and to control buoyancy, etc. (“Buoyancy, Alex WTF?” I didn’t know what it meant either.)
My partner and I were doing so well the instructor, Lando, decided to challenge us.
At the bottom of a 12-foot pool, he had me sit on my knees facing the wall. Then had my partner do the same on the opposite end of the deep end. Neither of us knew what was next.
I quickly learned that Lando turned off my air without me realizing. (I didn’t know I was diving with an underwater ninja. I digress…)
What I should have done was immediately swim to my partner and begin to use his reserve air, but that’s not what I did.
I did the natural survival instinct.
Instead of using my precious time to reach my partner, I did what our brains do when they’re trying to protect us from danger—pretend nothing was wrong.
So I tried to breath again, as in disbelief that I’d run out of air. And still, nothing.
It’s amazing how we can often trick ourselves into thinking there isn’t a problem in front of us, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You think not having any air to breath would be good sign that something was wrong, but my brain kept trying to explain away the problem.
“There must be a mistake, try to take another breath. It will surely work this time…” (Stupid brain.)
It’s at this point I realize he must’ve turned off my air. I reach for my reserve regulator. Nothing.
I should have known. The reserve regulator is meant for a partner who has run out of air. They’re connected to the same air source. If there is a problem with the air source then neither will work.
At this point I’m out of air and swim to the surface.
I failed the task.
As Lando comes to the top, he’s visibly laughing at me through his regulator. He admitted he cut off my air without saying anything, but he was curious to see what I’d do.
What happens next shocked him.
I asked him to turn off my air again at some point so I could get it right.
In eight years he’s been certifying open water divers, I was the only person to ever ask him to cut off their air a second time. Pretty sure he thinks I’m a psychopath.
Shark-Infested Waters
Day two was reviewing those basic skills in the ocean. The biggest challenge here was trying to get your fins on, while carrying the full weight of your gear, in the few seconds you have between each wave as you enter the water from the beach.
And the surf was unforgiving that day. A storm the night before meant we were battling eight-foot waves. Each time you missed getting the fin on in the few precious seconds you had, you’d brace yourself for the next wave crashing against you.
It took us twenty minutes to finally get on our fins and through the surf.
Lando also failed to mention—until we reached deep water—that this particular beach, La Jolla Beach, is known for most Great White sightings in California.
WONDERFUL.
Because of the storm the visibility underwater was only about ten feet. Not seeing what was around me could have been a blessing or a curse…
The Test of Leadership
Day three is where my leadership was tested.
On this day, me and my two dive buddies were responsible to plan the entire dive, start to finish. Then, we had to execute that plan without input from the instructor (unless he noticed we were going to do something very stupid.)
One of my dive buddies was from Indiana, but had lived in SD for four years. He was an avid surfer. The other—a gentleman from Canton, Michigan of all places—was a former firefighter and now working as a traveling EMT.
For some reason they chose me to lead the dive.
And let’s just say everything went smoothly, until it all turned into a s***show 60ft below the surface.
Let me walk you through it:
Lesson #1: Know your team’s skills and trust them.
Part of our dive planning involved choosing where and how to enter and exit the water. I don’t have much experience in reading ocean water, but our surfer buddy has spent plenty of time doing that very task.
We left it up to him to decide and trusted his judgement.
We were able to enter the water smoothly, avoid any big currents, and that was probably the most well executed part of the entire dive.
Lesson #2: Your team’s safety is your responsibility.
For a shore dive you have two options with your air: turn it on before you enter the water, or turn it on when you get to about chest height in the surf.
Some divers choose the latter because, occasionally, the pressure of the waves can activate your regulator and cause a free flow of air, which, unless you catch it and turn it off, will waste your air and shorten how much time you can spend underwater.
We had one team member wait to turn on his air.
In the distraction of the surf, he’d all but forgotten he still had to do this. Good thing the rest of us had remembered, and we caught him to turn it on before he got too deep.
Lesson #3: Make sure everyone has—and agrees—on the important information.
As part of the dive planning, we had to set a course that we’d use to navigate our dive. Underwater it’s easy to get disoriented with sense of direction, so you use a compass to navigate. We’d set a landmark on the shore to set our compass bearings, a lamppost on the beach.
When we got out to our drop point, I double-checked with everyone that their compasses were set the same so that no one would get lost (and they could double check that I wasn’t leading us off course while underwater).
It turns out they and I were talking about different lamp posts and I would have been taking us to a much different place than we had intended.
Additionally, our goal was to reach a depth of sixty feet, three times as deep as any of us had gone in the prior dives.
We were all confident, but we all knew there was a chance of anxiety or other issues as we went deeper. Here’s why that depth can cause anxiety:
At twelve feet in the pool, you can easily get to the surface on one breath.
At twenty feet, you can probably reach the surface on one breath.
At sixty feet, there is no chance that you’ll reach the surface on one breath.
If you have oxygen issues at that depth your only hope is to trust your skills and use your dive buddy’s reserve regulator. That fact can cause people to feel a bit of anxiety the first time going to that depth.
The last thing we want is someone getting anxious and going to the surface without the rest of us knowing. Visibility underwater this day was maybe fifteen feet, so we’d have no idea where they went or if they were safe. That would be a bad situation.
To help avoid this, our plan was to swim in a flying “V” shape. (An homage to the Mighty Ducks.)
I’d be in front navigating and the other two guys on either side, about half a body’s length behind. (Lando would tag along above to monitor.) With the goggles, you don’t have a particularly wide field of vision. Unless I stop and turn I can’t see either of them.
We agreed that after reaching thirty feet of depth, I’d stop and check on everyone every ten feet of additional depth to make sure everyone was ok. We agreed that unless they were facing a catastrophic issue, they’d try to make it to one of these checkpoints if they had concerns (such as anxiety).
If it was something serious, they’d gently grab and tug on one of my legs. This way, no one surfaces without the rest of us knowing.
We agreed on this system on shore, and I reviewed with everyone again before we dropped below the surface. As you’ll see in a bit, it’s a good thing we were all on the same page as we definitely faced some unexpected issues…
Lesson #4: It’s your responsibility to be aware of small, important details the team might miss.
Once we swam out to about twenty feet of depth, that was our drop point. I remembered from the day before that the visibility was horrendous, maybe ten feet. Anything beyond that and you can’t see anything.
When you’re below the surface it can be frightening to not know where anyone is.
I’d set a plan with everyone that we’d start in a circle and drop down until we hit the bottom, trying not to spin. Then, once on the bottom, slowly move forward until we can see each other. That’s when we’ll get into formation and travel to our dive site.
As your dive group gets larger, it becomes easier to lose track of people. This small detail ensured we got a smooth start regrouping on the ocean floor.
Sometimes, the little details matter.
Lesson #5: When sh*t hits the fan, everyone is looking at you. If you can’t keep it together, neither will they.
We’re now on the ocean floor, the dive is going as planned. We drop, regroup and get into formation. I begin navigating us on our heading to the dive site. We hit that thirty-foot depth mark and we come up on an underwater cliff that seemingly drops into the abyss.
There’s nothing but darkness below. I turn to check on everyone. Ok on both sides. I go over the cliff and swim into the darkness.
Forty feet, I turn to check on the team now above me. All good.
Fifty feet… No issues.
We hit sixty feet and I turn to do my check. One of my dive buddies begins signaling me that he’s having issues equalizing. This is where the problems begin.
If you’ve ever swam to the bottom of a deep pool, you’ve likely felt your ears pop.
This happens because the water pressure on the outside of your eardrum is unequal to the pressure on the inside, and it presses your eardrum inward.
To avoid this you have to equalize the pressure on both sides. You do that by plugging your nose and mouth and gently blowing a bit of air, which then travels through your sinuses to equalize the pressure in your head.
There are a number of reasons why you might have issues equalizing. If you have any congestion and air can’t flow properly, it can get trapped and stop you from equalizing.
Or if you wait too long to equalize and pain sets in, it can be hard to equalize to the point of comfort.
Once you equalize at a depth, you are usually good to go back to that depth without issues. The solution is to go a bit higher, and then try again to equalize as you descend.
Dive buddy #1 is signaling that he can’t equalize, so I stop everyone and have him go a bit higher to try again.
While we wait, dive buddy #2 starts signaling that he’s also having issues equalizing. He’s a bit more frantic, so I try to calm him down and get him back to a higher depth too.
Keep in mind you can’t talk underwater. We are communicating entirely through hand signals.
Dive buddy #2 starts to settle a bit, so I turn my attention to the other diver who Lando, the instructor, was now communicating with.
I turn back after just a moment and dive buddy #2 is frantic again. He’s not out of air, but continues to signal he can’t equalize.
We’re at roughly forty-five feet of depth, and he only becomes increasingly frantic. I decide to signal him to go to the surface.
I turn back to Lando to signal him that we have a diver at the surface. He tells me we’re going to do our last exercise and then we’ll surface.
The three of us remaining underwater complete this final exercise, then we rejoin our team member at the surface.
The Aftermath
It turns out that dive buddy #2 had gotten dizzy. Once we got to sixty feet, the entire ocean bottom was spinning and he became severely disoriented. It’s no wonder he became frantic.
As dive buddy #1 removed his goggles we saw a stream of blood running down his nose. He’d blown an eardrum from the pressure build-up.
Neither were having a good day.
At the surface, and given the circumstances, we decided to swim back to shore. (With a diver who was now bleeding in shark-infested waters. But who’s paying attention?)
Upon return to the shore, Lando pulled me aside, and in his typical direct manner said to me, “Alex, that was sh*t show. But you handled yourself well and I’m impressed.”
I realized how important it was to keep cool even though the others were having issues. Who knows what would have happened if we all got frantic. When you brain is in that hyper-emotional state, your rational brain shuts off.
In that state, you don’t make good decisions.
And when those decisions could be potentially life or death, they’d better be good.
A Tale To Tell
In the end, we achieved our goal (hitting the proper depth) even if we couldn’t stay very long. I became open water certified and can now continue to explore the world beneath the surface.
The most rewarding part for me, aside from the story to retell, was the message Lando had sent me a few days upon my return home to Michigan:
“You did a great job leading the group and your skills have gotten better. You’re definitely a leader!”
It was written in a dive logbook he’d mailed me, which was adorned with a giant shark on the cover. What a sense of humor.
~ Coach Alex
P.S. There is still time to sign-up for my Meal Prep Magic Workshop. I’ll teach you to use free technology to design your own customized meal plans to give up the stress of knowing what to eat every day.
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