'Below Deck' Captain Kerry watched his own management style on TV. It changed how he leads.

Captain Kerry Titheradge has something few leaders ever get: game film of his own management style.

When the show is being filmed, "I don't know what's going on, other than my intuition and just being observant," said Titheradge, a native of Australia who now lives in Florida. "If you're the employee or the employer, you only see your side."

"When I am pissed off, and I'm trying to be nice, my face is still pissed off," he said. "So it doesn't matter that I'm speaking softly."

Titheradge has also changed how often he weighs in on employees' performance. Instead of unloading a litany of criticisms in an annual review, he said he's learned that it's better to space out corrections.

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He tries to be just as quick with praise. If a crew member does something well, he'll say so right away rather than wait until the end of the charter.

"This is your chance to lean in and become a better manager," Titheradge recalled telling him.

Another takeaway for the 50-year-old is that today's leaders need to adapt to the workforce they have, rather than expect employees to adapt to them.

"Now I want to earn the respect of my crew," Titheradge said. "The title doesn't make you a leader."

Adapting doesn't mean lowering the bar, Titheradge said. Sometimes it means recognizing that what seems obvious to one generation may not be to another, he said.

That lesson recently hit home while Titheradge was working with his 17-year-old son on his yacht management business, Yachting Concepts, where he is CEO. He grew frustrated when the teenager couldn't figure out which of several keys started a boat, until he realized his son had grown up with keypad locks and keyless cars. What seemed obvious to him, he said, wasn't to someone raised in a different era.

The experience also reinforced another lesson for Titheradge: Before faulting an employee for a mistake, make sure they were equipped to do the job. During the filming of the upcoming 13th season of "Below Deck," a crew member mishandled a potentially dangerous anchoring procedure. Safety is paramount, he said, "and you'll see my reaction."