After being trapped for almost 70 days, the 33 Chilean miners are finally rescued in one of the most amazing dramas and breath-taking rescue operations we might have witnessed as the whole world watched enthusiastically this capsule going down and up rescuing these extraordinary ordinary people one by one to the surface of the earth.
In the coming days we will hear and find out lots of details about the miner's ordeal since they went missing on Aug. 5th 2010. Their fears, their doubts, their hopes and their anxieties in the first two weeks when no-one knew if they were alive and enter into contact with them. We'll also find out more about "how did they make it?", "where did they get the strengths to survive such an ordeal?". Of course, there is no single answer to such a simple question! Courage, hope, faith, optimism, self-discipline, mental & physical strength and spirituality just to name a few have certainly played a critical role in keeping the miners alive. But I think that something else has contributed to the happy ending we have all witnessed on our TV screens. An exceptional person or a group of people was among the miners. People with exceptional leadership, personal and team building skills must have emerged from the group and helped keeping the miners together and upbeat during the tough moments they have had to endure. The "leaders" team had few critical tasks to accomplish in order to succeed in their role:
1. Counseling & Influencing skills: Especially in the first two weeks, the group had to deal with lots of anxiety and fear that a few miners could exposed. They must have managed to ease their fears and give them enough assurances to avoid a general panic that would have had disastrous consequences.
2. Logistics skills: With a limited amount of food and water supplies available, the group leaders must have devised a solid and realistic plan to ensure the longest survival time using scarce available resources.
3. Organizational skills: No one person could have knowledgeable in all aspects of survival skills. The leaders must have tapped for resources in the group to assign specific roles to those who were the most qualified and/or willing to assume these roles.
4. Charisma and Inspiration: The "leaders group" had an innate charisma that enabled them to emerge as leaders with the consent and approval of the other group members. They have inspired the miners and kept their moral up using both their charisma ability to inspire the group. I'm sure we'll find out more about what tactics and tips they to inspire the trapped miners but one can already think about faith, family, hope and love as "mines" for inspiration. The miners ordeal and their quasi-miraculous rescue is a great story of hope, love, courage, compassion and humanity. The spread of joy through out the world as each miner came out of the capsule was such a uniting moment for all of us. To the 33 Chilean heroes We say: welcome to freedom. As for the hundreds of unknown heroes who made that rescue a reality, we say: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.
