Entry & progression
11.325(a)(3)(ii) and 11.327: leadership and managerial skills is required approved training for both management-level endorsements. It is not the same course as the operational-level leadership and teamworking skills, and it is not optional.
The competence has a name in the regulation and a meaning on the boat, and they are closer together than engineers usually expect. Management level is defined at 10.107 as serving as Chief Engineer Officer or Second Engineer Officer "and ensuring that all functions within the designated area of responsibility are properly performed."
NOTE — The verb is the whole job Operational level — maintaining direct control over the performance of all functions, under the direction of an individual serving at the management level.
Management level — ensuring that all functions are properly performed.
Direct control is something you do with your hands. Ensuring is something you do with a system, a department and a standard — and it does not stop when you go to bed. That single verb is the difference between the two levels, and it is the whole of this competence.
The department you are now responsible for
On a large yacht the engine department is small and the span is enormous. A chief, perhaps a second, perhaps an ETO, perhaps one or two ratings. The same handful of people own main propulsion, generation, HVAC, hydraulics, tenders, water, waste, fire systems and — because it is a yacht — the guest experience, which fails the moment the air conditioning does.
Nobody is going to send you more people. So the management skill you actually need is not delegation in the abstract. It is knowing precisely what each person can be trusted with unsupervised, and having the honesty to know where that line sits today rather than where you would like it to sit.
What the competence covers
- Workload and manning. Rest, fatigue and watch systems are safety-critical machinery, and they are yours.
- Task and workload management. Planning, allocation, and the discipline of not starting the third job before the first is closed out.
- Standards. A standard is what you accept when you are tired. Everything else is a poster.
- Training and development. Your ratings and juniors are building sea service against a credential of their own. You are, whether you like it or not, part of their career.
- Decision-making under pressure, and the willingness to make a call with incomplete information — because at management level, waiting is also a decision.
You will be signing things
A chief signs sea service letters, and signs assessments. 46 CFR 10.232(a)(4): owners may attest to their own service; everyone else needs a letter from the owner or a credentialed officer. That credentialed officer is frequently you.
WARNING — The Qualified Assessor deadline — 1 January 2029 All STCW assessments must be signed by a Qualified Assessor approved by the Coast Guard in accordance with 46 CFR 10.405. Under the transition in NVIC 19-14 (CH-5), a non-approved assessor meeting 46 CFR 10.405(a)(3) is accepted until 31 December 2028, and assessments signed before 1 January 2029 are accepted until 30 June 2029.
After 31 December 2028, QAs must be approved by the National Maritime Center. QA approvals run 5 years (10.405(d)). If you are the chief signing your second engineer's task sheets, that deadline is about you. Any belief that 'any chief can sign' has a hard expiry date.
Get approved early. The engineer whose file collapses because their assessor was not on the list will not blame the Coast Guard. They will blame the chief who signed.