Viva Chile: Leadership and the Rescue of the Miners

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera made a decision early on to go all in to bring the miners home. He marshaled all of his country's resources and the talents and technology of experts from around the world to get the miners back alive. He put himself on the line by so visibly leading the rescue effort and standing by at the mine as the final recovery phase began. If it had gone wrong, he would have been the face of a tragic failure in front of 2,000 journalists broadcasting live to the world. Thankfully for everyone, it worked. In no small part, it's because Pinera went all in. The rescue operation appears to have been a model of private and public sector cooperation and coordination. Chilean government ministers and officials coordinated the rescue masterfully. An important aspect of that was accepting and effectively deploying the assistance of resources from outside of Chile such as NASA engineers and the American drilling crew that tunneled through the rock to the miners. When the miners were first found alive, the estimates were that it would likely be Christmas before they could be recovered. When the final recovery phase started this week, it was stated that it would take 48 hours to bring everyone to the surface. All of the miners were recovered within 24 hours from the time the rescue capsule first descended. With family members camping at the rescue site and with the cameras of the world upon them, it would have been easy for the Chilean officials to buckle to the pressure and offer overly optimistic assessments on when the crisis might be over. They didn't. They managed expectations and created the margin they needed to prepare the rescue attempt in the most thorough way possible. One of the most impressive aspects of the rescue operation is how much attention was paid to the overall health and well being of the miners and their families. As a servant leader would, the Chilean officials appeared to regularly ask themselves, "What would I want or need if I was in this situation?" and then delivered on their answers. The leaders of the rescue operation assembled physicians, psychologists, nutritionists, exercise specialists and spiritual counselors to attend to the total spectrum of needs of the miners. As the energy showed by the returning miners demonstrated, that approach paid off. It was also impressive to see how the rescue leaders kept the loved ones of the miners engaged and informed throughout the process. One of the first things the Chilean rescue leaders did when they knew the miners were still alive was lower a small fiber optic camera through the tiny shaft into the mine. Through that camera they and the world could see the faces of the miners. Being able to see real, live human beings down there undoubtedly focused the energies and commitment of everyone involved in the rescue. In the days and weeks that followed, more communications technology was lowered into the mine. All of this enabled the miners to participate in their rescue, the rescuers to care for the miners and the families to stay connected with their men. The importance of establishing strong communication channels in a crisis cannot be overestimated. As one of the Chilean readers of this blog wrote to me in an email a few weeks ago, Viva Chile! Congratulations on the miracle you've achieved and thank you for showing the world what great leadership looks like.