The title is exciting. The salary is rewarding. The responsibility is the part that keeps you awake at three in the morning.
A couple of seasons under your belt now, sea legs are strong, and you know this is the life for you. You've done back-to-back boss trips and charters, refined your skills, and you look back on your greenie days with a smile. How naïve you were, the mistakes you made, the lessons you learnt. And now you're ready to step up: Chief Stewardess.
There Isn't a Set Route
There isn't a set route. Most Chief Stews have spent several seasons building experience as a Second Stewardess, refining their practical skills while gradually taking on more responsibility. Experience is essential, but experience alone doesn't always teach you how to lead people, manage an interior or make confident decisions under pressure.
That's exactly why I created The Art of Leading. Not to teach you how to be a stewardess, but to help prepare you for the responsibilities that come with becoming a Chief Stewardess.
What the Title Actually Demands
Chief Stewardess as a title carries recognition. It's symbolic that you're no longer that naïve greenie. You can fold napkins in your sleep, turn around a cabin in a heartbeat, and seamlessly open and pour a bottle of wine at the correct temperature for its vintage. These are the practical skills practised and perfected across your seasons as a second stew.
But does leadership come naturally just because you've refined those skills? Are you able to bring calm, grace under pressure while delegating tasks to your interior team on a short-notice boss trip? Do you show the level-headed leadership required when unexpected guests arrive for dinner, or the boss's favourite champagne hasn't arrived and you're about to leave the dock?
Leadership is about guiding and inspiring your team throughout the season. Management is about the day-to-day procedures and yacht interior operations. As a Chief Stewardess, you do both, and together they stretch far beyond the practical skills you've mastered over previous seasons.
The Captain will walk through the interior before the guests arrive, and he won't expect to find anything wrong. That's your job. You're trusted, as Chief Stew, to have walked through, checked, double-checked, and to be confident everything is in place. Your team are briefed. They look immaculate. Minutes before the guests arrive, the rest of the crew making their way to the aft deck, ready with a smiling welcome and to carry luggage to the cabins, you see it: a greasy mark on top of the sideboard, under the socket where a plug-in air freshener was fitted incorrectly and has leaked. The stain is darkening, and you have seconds to act. Quick, efficient, invisible. How you handle it is what separates you as a Chief Stew. Knowing how to lift the stain. Knowing exactly where the products live. The speed with which you and your team deal with it, all while staying calm, professional, and smiling, because now is not the time to lose your head.
Keeping your head is one of the key skills a Chief Stew needs. Whether your interior team is two people or six, staying calm under pressure while they watch you is essential.
When Everything Goes Wrong at Once
There are incredible days to experience as a Chief Stew. The gratitude of a guest who genuinely sees you. Whales gliding past at sunrise. And then there are the days when everything goes wrong at once.
Ice cream trailed through the salon and up to the cabins by one of the boss's children. Madam scrutinising your every move, then raising her voice at you in front of the interior team for a mistake one of your own crew made. You're doing everything you can just to keep it together, to breathe, and then you see the chef do something unacceptable in the galley. You know it needs addressing. You don't have the mental energy left to do it.
You don't want to break down in front of your team. Then a guest asks if everything's okay, and you realise your face has already given you away. You have to snap out of it. Rise above it. The tears are seconds from arriving.
Those are the moments nobody trains you for.
Inspiring your team through a long, hard season, when exhaustion has set in for both you and them and there are still weeks to go, takes patience, judgement and leadership. None of that comes automatically with the title. As a chief stew myself, I worked alongside my team. I did the same jobs they had to do. I didn't remove myself from the work because I had a title, if anything, I went the other way. I didn't favour myself above them, and I didn't take more breaks. That earned respect from my team and kept me approachable. I even helped on deck where necessary, and that bought me kudos from every department. You can be Chief and still be a team player, but there's a thin line between being a leader and being friends.
Leadership Isn't One-Size-Fits-All
I've said before that I don't believe one-size-fits-all training suits every new stewardess. The same goes for leadership. Every crew is different. Every personality is different. What motivates one stewardess can completely miss the mark with another. Some thrive with independence, others need more guidance before their confidence grows. One of the most valuable skills you'll develop as Chief Stew is recognising the difference and adapting your approach. Reading people becomes just as important as reading a preference sheet.
If you're thinking about taking that next step, remember this. Becoming a Chief Stewardess isn't simply a promotion. It's a shift in the way you think, the way you lead, and the responsibility you carry. Those are skills that can be learned, practised and developed.