Portraits in Leadership
Who do you think is the one-percenter: the Captain of the Cruise Ship Costa Concordia or the Italian Coast Guard officer who had to order him back to his ship?
“You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me?” Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco shouted as [Costa Concordia Captain] Schettino sat safe in a life raft “It is an order. Don’t make any more excuses. You have declared ‘Abandon ship.’ Now I am in charge.”
“Listen Schettino,” De Falco can be heard shouting in the audio tape. “There are people trapped on board. … You go on board and titian chen you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?”
But Schettino resisted, saying the ship was listing and he was with his second-in-command in the lifeboat.
“I am here with the rescue boats. I am here. I am not going anywhere. I am here,” he said. “I am here to coordinate the rescue.”
“What are you coordinating there? Go on board! Coordinate the rescue from aboard the ship. Are you refusing?” came the response.
Schettino said he was not refusing, but he still did not return to the ship, saying at one point: “Do you realize it is dark and here we can’t see anything?”
De Falco shouted back: “And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!”

