Warships, Boardrooms and Boats: Lee Goddard’s lessons in leadership

A career of excellence

When you think about what Rear Admiral Lee Goddard CSC has achieved in his life, and 34-year military career, it’s hard not to think of what he hasn’t done, rather than what he has.

Goddard joined the Royal Australian Navy in 1987, graduating from the Australian Defence Force Academy with a Bachelor of Science and the RSL Sword of Leadership.

His seagoing career spanned Australian, Canadian, Malaysian and US warships, including exchange postings and operations in the Middle East and on Australia’s maritime borders. He commanded the ANZAC Class frigates HMAS Parramatta and HMAS Perth, was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in 2007, and later served as Commander Surface Forces, Commander Maritime Border Command and Commander Joint Agency Task Force–Operation Sovereign Borders, leading complex multi-agency operations across Defence, Border Force and intelligence agencies.

His strategic and policy experience includes senior roles at the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and Defence Headquarters, and international study at the US Naval War College, where he graduated with the International Leadership Prize and later taught as a Fellow. He holds a Master of Strategy and Policy (US Naval War College), a Master of Arts in International Relations (Deakin University) and a science degree from UNSW.

Since transferring to the Navy’s Active Reserve in 2021, Goddard has built an extensive board and advisory career, including Non-Executive Director roles with Austal Ltd, DroneShield, Southern Launch, the Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, Pymble Ladies’ College and the Leeuwin Ocean Adventure Foundation amongst others, alongside strategic advisory positions with defence and technology companies including Ocius and Saronic Technologies.

A lifelong sailor, Goddard then channelled decades of command experience into leading the fleet safely to Hobart for half a decade.

It’s an incredible resume and the leadership skills he honed provide lessons for all.

Why the CYCA and Rolex Sydney Hobart

Goddard was a natural fit for the challenging role as Race Committee Chair. He had all of the off water skills, knew sailing well and loved the atmosphere and history of the CYCA.

“I’m not a natural sailor or as experienced a sailor as some of the fantastic female and male club members of the CYCA,” Goddard humbly explains.

“I’ve been sailing since I was a kid, and in particular offshore sailing I enjoyed a lot because it’s gritty and it’s tough, and because I grew up in Melbourne and in Port Melbourne in winter at the Williamstown Yacht Club.

“It’s a gritty, tough existence, but it was always really enjoyable.

“Then early in my time here in Sydney, after leaving the military academy, being over at Garden Island, coming over to the CYCA on a Wednesday afternoon or a Friday night and sailing at the CYCA or the Sydney Amateurs with just some great personalities who taught us not just about sailing, but they were older men and women of Sydney, and told some great stories and they were really kind to us as well as we were finding a home here in Sydney. It was quite inspiring to be with them.

“So, I always had an affinity with the sailing community, and of course, the CYCA in particular has a very important relationship with the Navy. I mean, look at its founders. They were naval officers. The first winners of the Sydney Hobart were naval officers.

“So that association, and of course, Rushcutters Bay was always a navy area as well, so there’s that natural affinity.

“When I left full-time navy more than five years ago, I guess one thing I was conscious of is was not letting go of the things which were important to me in my career, and that was things like making decisions, being involved in high-performing teams, being involved in, to be frank, edgy, dangerous activities such as I experienced in the navy.

“So, it made sense, and had previously, that often the chair or the race director of the Sydney Hobart has been a senior naval officer, and I think there’s three reasons for that.

“One is that a senior naval officer generally is independent and while they’ve maybe been associated with a CYCA or a yacht club, they usually haven’t been involved in the politics of the yacht club. So, they’re quite independent, which is good. Second, they probably have experienced the full range of scenarios, in particular when things go wrong, and of course, I experienced that a couple of iterations ago (the 2024 Sydney Hobart that tragically saw two sailors lose their lives), and I saw it firsthand in the early ’90s when racing and in 1988. And the third is, to be frank, we are generally strong leaders, so we are used to, if need be, standing up to people in more challenging circumstances, which could be a governance or a regulatory body or another group or individual. We are not wallflowers, so we’ll make the calls that need to be made.”

Preparation, roles and responsibilities

In his CYCA and RSHYR roles Goddard instituted his military training and transferred decades of learnings and skills to the operational needs of the club and the race, especially when it came to aligning volunteers, staff and the myriad of stakeholders involved in staging high profile offshore sailing events.

“I had the dual roles, so I actually would hold board-type meetings as race committee chair and then of course the on-water race director,” Goddard says.

“They’re kind of interrelated roles, but separate.

“So, running, whether it be the preparation meetings, engaging with the Commodore and the CYCA or the key stakeholders, particularly the race committee, you’re effectively the chair of a board.

“You listen, you get inputs and then, only when you need to, you intervene and make sure you’re working towards collaboration.

“Or, if there’s something you clearly aren’t going to agree with, (you) make sure you understand the reasons why as well.

“The most important thing for a chairman of a board is at the end of a meeting, everyone knows exactly what has been decided and which direction you are going. I think that’s the critical part.

“Chairing scenario planning is really important too because when you actually go through preparations for an event, you actually need to understand all the risks. You need to understand all the stakeholder positions.

“The most important factor is role clarity: who is doing what, whether that’s from a tactical or operational perspective.

“As a leader or in this case, the chair, it’s absolutely making sure role clarity is always clear.”

The five traits of high-performing teams

Across his more than three decades in the navy, for Goddard, being part of a high performing team was crucial, with national security and the lives of fellow servicemen and women, and civilians, at stake.

In his post military career Goddard has tried to impart the character traits of those high achieving teams into dozens of organisations in his advisory and non-executive board member roles.

He believes the behaviours common in success – and that often means safety – are transferrable across environments and are relevant to skippers and crews in races like the Sydney Hobart.

“I often get asked ‘what’s a high-performing team’ and I do revert back to yachts,” he says.

“People often say, ‘high-performing teams must take years and years to build’, and I say, ‘with a Sydney Hobart crew, sometimes they’re forming in early December, and they’ve only got a couple of weeks really to become a high-performing team’.

“And the question is, ‘but how do they do that?’.

“I’ve seen some do it really well because they’ve got five traits.

“One, is they have a common vision, a common purpose. To get to Hobart safely, we’ve got to work together.

“Secondly, they have great communications. Up, down, sideways, and even in silence. I mean, the best communication is often silence because people are just doing their thing.

“Thirdly, they’ve got good processes and principles and behaviours.

“The last two are the most important out of the five traits. One is trust. They really trust each other.

“The fifth one is there’s really good role clarity.

“I reckon of all the traits: common purpose, communication, good processes and principles and behaviours, it’s trust and role clarity, which are the ones you need to get right.

“Good chairs of boards create trust, and they create absolute role clarity as well.”

Finding time amongst chaos

For those who haven’t served in the military, and even more so in the theatre of war, it seems almost impossible to imagine the madness and danger you operate under every day.

We all though, navigate our way through our own version of drama on a sometimes daily basis.

Sailing to Hobart in confused or chaotic seas is probably the zone in between, but as Goddard points out, how we handle those situations successfully is usually the same.

“All through my career, you’re taught leadership, situational leadership, and adaptive leadership,” Goddard says.

“So, there’s the theoretical, prescriptive components of that, and then they often, through the military, teach you a whole lot of scenarios where there’s no black and white answer, so you’re already being exposed to situations where you need to either adapt, you need to look around the situation and evolve.

“A good example is when you’re at sea and it’s the same when you’re on a yacht, you can tell things aren’t going right when people start behaving differently, including yourself, and you’ve got to actually understand it.

“For example, people who normally talk a lot, shut up, and those who normally don’t so much, start talking.

“You think things aren’t going well because people actually are starting to behave differently and you realise then, as the leader or the commanding officer or the skipper, it’s your role then to set the tone, to just try and work out exactly what the situation is.

“It’s not even join the dots. It’s actually working out where the dots are and starting to help the people around you join as soon as possible.

“A captain or skipper, he or she are in a pseudo executive role, a kind of CEO of a ship or yacht.

“Often the job of the captain or skipper is to actually to pull back and actually just allow the team time and space, and that’s the critical thing I always found.

“When things would be going wrong and there wasn’t a prescribed answer or it wasn’t a situation I’ve been in before, the first thing I would do is actually try and create space and time and you often have far more time than you think. It might be three seconds rather than one second, or five minutes rather than one minute.

“So always try and create time around you. But I would just go back to that first point. Look around you and see how people are behaving.

“One final thing I’d say as well: the number of times I’ve been surprised in the most challenging circumstances, especially at sea, that people potentially that I rated highly did not perform as well as I thought they would, and some people I regretfully actually didn’t rate that highly, but when it really counted, performed brilliantly. You have to remind yourself of that as well.

“You need to really watch the situation and adapt and situate it.

“There’s a saying that’s very famous that says ‘often you have to appreciate the situation rather than situate the appreciation’. So don’t try and situate it. Appreciate what’s actually happening, and don’t try and wish away what the sort of problems are.

“Just deal with exactly the situation you’re finding yourself in.”

Sound advice from a man who has just about seen and done it all.

Marc Pavillard

With Goddard’s time as the CYCA Race Committee Chair over, another decorated Naval officer, Marc Pavillard, takes the reins.

Pavillard has over 35 years in the Royal Australian Navy, appointed to the rank of Captain. While working with the RAN, he specialised in Naval Aviation as Seahawk Co-pilot, Tactician and Test and Evaluation Specialist.

His calm and collaborative leadership style combined with excellent communication skills makes him highly effective in engaging stakeholders to drive positive outcomes.

Sound familiar?