Your Staffing Problem May Be A Leadership Problem.

Ask almost any marina operator about their biggest challenges and staffing will probably make the list.

“We can’t find good people.”

“Nobody wants to work anymore.”

“We finally get someone trained and they leave.”

There’s no question that finding and retaining good employees has become more difficult. Marinas compete for many of the same people as hospitality, construction, landscaping, marine trades, and other seasonal businesses. But when staffing problems become persistent, it’s worth asking a harder question: Is this really a staffing problem, or is it a leadership problem?

Good People Want to Know What Good Looks Like

One of the most common operational problems isn’t a lack of effort. It’s a lack of clarity. Employees are told to “take care of the customer,” “keep the property looking good,” or “help out wherever needed.” Those are reasonable expectations. But they aren’t management systems.

Does the dock team know exactly what is expected when a customer arrives? Does the launch team understand what a successful Saturday morning looks like? Does everyone know who makes the call when something goes wrong? Are standards clear enough that employees can tell the difference between acceptable and exceptional performance?

People perform better when expectations are clear, and clarity is a leadership responsibility.

Accountability Has to Work Both Ways

Accountability is sometimes treated as something management imposes on employees. It works the other way, too. If an employee is expected to arrive on time, management should be prepared for the shift. If employees are expected to maintain the property, they need the equipment and resources to do it. If customer service is important, managers need to model it. If employees are expected to communicate, leadership needs to communicate with them.

Nothing damages credibility faster than holding employees accountable to standards leadership doesn’t follow itself. The strongest marina cultures aren’t necessarily the strictest.  They’re the most consistent. Marinas where the team knows what is expected, and they know those expectations apply to everyone.

Your Best Employees Have Options

This is particularly important with your strongest employees. Great employees don’t stay simply because they’re comfortable. They stay because they feel valued, challenged, supported, and connected to what they’re doing. They want to work with competent people. They want their effort to matter. They want opportunities to grow. They want to know that poor performance will be addressed rather than quietly transferred to everyone else. 

When your best dockhand, service advisor, office employee, or assistant manager leaves, compensation may be part of the reason. But it shouldn’t automatically be the explanation. Ask some different questions. Were they receiving meaningful feedback? Did they understand their opportunities for advancement? Were they learning? Was strong performance recognized? Did anyone ask for their ideas? Did they believe their manager was helping them become better?

Those answers may tell you more about your staffing problem than an exit interview ever will.

Leadership Becomes Visible When Things Get Busy

It’s relatively easy to be a good leader on a quiet Tuesday in February. Leadership becomes much more visible on a Saturday in July. The launch list is backed up. The fuel dock is busy. Someone called out. A customer is angry. A forklift needs attention. The phone won’t stop ringing. Everyone watches what the manager does next. Does the manager stay calm? Set priorities? Communicate? Jump in where necessary? Trust the team to handle what they’ve been trained to handle? Or does pressure roll downhill? Those moments teach employees far more about the culture than anything written in an employee handbook.

More Layers of Management Don’t Necessarily Create More Leaders

As the marina industry has consolidated and operators have grown into larger, geographically dispersed portfolios, a Vice President (VP)/Regional Manager (RM)/General Manager (GM) structure has become increasingly commonplace. There are good reasons for it. Multiple properties require greater oversight, consistency, financial discipline, communication, and accountability. But there is also a risk.

Every additional layer of management can become another layer of approval. A general manager who once made decisions begins calling the regional manager. The regional manager looks to the vice president. Department heads learn to wait for the GM. Frontline employees quickly figure out which decisions they are allowed to make and which ones they are better off avoiding.

Before long, an organization with more managers can actually have fewer people leading. The purpose of a regional structure shouldn’t be to move decision-making farther away from the marina. It should be to create stronger leaders closer to the customer.

That requires something more difficult than adding positions to an organizational chart. It requires leaders who are willing to give authority away.

Push Authority Toward the Information

One of the most useful leadership ideas I’ve encountered comes from former submarine commander L. David Marquet in his book, Turn the Ship Around! By pushing decision-making authority to where the information lived, his crew, Marquet helped transform one of the Navy’s lowest-performing submarines into one of its highest-performing.

In a marina, the person closest to the problem often knows more about it than the person several levels above them. The dockmaster knows what is happening on the docks. The forklift operator understands the rhythm of the launch operation. The service manager knows what is holding up a repair. The GM understands the customers, employees, competitors, and physical realities of the property better than someone hundreds of miles away.

That doesn’t mean everyone gets unlimited authority. It means leadership establishes clear boundaries, provides good information, develops capable people, and then allows them to make decisions within those boundaries. Instead of creating an organization where people constantly ask, “What do you want me to do?” the goal is to develop people capable of saying, “Here’s what I intend to do, and here’s why.” That distinction is powerful. One creates followers, the other develops leaders.

The Leader’s Job Changes as the Organization Grows

This becomes particularly important for regional managers and senior operators. The job is no longer simply to be the best marina operator in the room. It is to create better marina operators. That means resisting the temptation to solve every problem personally.

A regional manager who constantly jumps in with the answer may solve today’s problem faster. But if the GM learns that the safest response is always to call the regional manager, the organization becomes more dependent rather than more capable.

The same thing happens between GMs and department heads. Strong leaders don’t measure their value by how many decisions require their involvement. They measure it by how many good decisions can be made without them.

Give People a Chance to Win

This connects with another leadership idea I’ve always found useful: people generally want to succeed. That means they want to be part of a good team, they want to be trusted and they want to know that their work matters.

But wanting people to succeed isn’t enough. Leadership has to create the conditions that make success possible. That means clear expectations, training, feedback, the right tools, appropriate authority, accountability and recognition. That requires a manager who is willing to coach rather than simply correct.

When those conditions are missing, organizations often label the resulting behavior as an employee problem. Sometimes it is. There are poor performers. There are bad hires. There are employees who simply aren’t a fit. Good leadership includes recognizing that and acting on it.

But when the same staffing problems repeat themselves across seasons, departments, or properties, leadership should be willing to look upstream.

Before You Blame the Labor Market

The marina industry will continue to have real workforce challenges. Seasonality is difficult. Skilled marine trades are in short supply. Housing is expensive in many waterfront communities. Younger employees have different expectations about work. Competition for good people is real.

Leadership cannot eliminate those realities. But it can determine how effectively an organization competes within them.

Before concluding that you simply can’t find good people, ask:

• Do employees know exactly what is expected of them?

• Are managers consistently modeling those expectations?

• Are people trained before they are held accountable?

• Do employees have enough authority to do their jobs well?

• Are good decisions rewarded or second-guessed?

• Are managers developing people or simply directing them?

• Can a strong employee see a future in the organization?

• Does each level of management make the level below it more capable?

Those questions are harder than blaming the labor market.

They’re also more useful because you may not be able to change the labor market, but you can change how you lead, and over time, that may be one of the most effective staffing strategies you have.