Extraordinary leadership is rarely tested when conditions are calm.

It’s tested when resources are limited, the environment is hostile, and the future is uncertain.

That’s why Mutiny (Channel 4) still resonates today. Not as a historical curiosity, but as a leadership case study under extreme pressure. A small crew. Conflicting motivations. A leader under scrutiny. And decisions that would shape survival.

When I ask leaders to reflect on that story, I don’t ask them to judge Captain Bligh.

I ask them something harder:

What would your priorities be if this were your boat?

Because extraordinary results don’t come from strategy alone.

They come from something deeper.

The alignment of three things:

Purpose. Belonging. Belief.

When these are strong, teams become resilient.
When any one of them is missing, performance might look ok for a while, but it’s fragile.

Clarity of purpose turns turbulence into flow.
You’re no longer fighting the current — you’re carried by it.

Purpose: Why We’re Sailing

Without purpose, teams drift.

Purpose is not a slogan on a wall. It’s a shared understanding of why this matters. When leaders articulate a clear purpose, tasks turn into missions and effort becomes commitment.

During the Mutiny series, the crew selected by Channel 4 has wildly different personal motivations and yet when the purpose was clear they pulled together.

A bit like the analogy of two rivers.

One is turbulent, unpredictable, exhausting.
The other flows smoothly, carrying everything with it.

Clarity of purpose turns turbulence into flow.
You’re no longer fighting the current — you’re carried by it.

One of the most powerful examples I witnessed was in 1993, when I joined a Ukrainian sailing team racing around the world in the Whitbread, just two years after the country gained independence from the former Soviet Union.

This wasn’t just a race.

It was a declaration of identity.
A statement of resilience.
A way to show the world who they were becoming.

That is what purpose does.
It gives meaning beyond the task.

Up Next: Why Belonging is the glue that enables teams to endure.