March Madness Biggest Surprise

This year’s NCAA tournament surprise team West Eastern State University provides some great messages for all leaders.  Maybe the best message is that great leaders take adversity and figure out how to turn it into success.  Often the traditional or conventional way of doing things does not work when you are disadvantaged in regards to resources, tradition or talent.  Faced with almost certain failure Coach Holton found a way to be successful by looking for non-traditional recruits and then adapting his teaching style to allow those recruits to use their unique set of talents.  Then figuring out how to fit those skills into the team setting and having all the players buy-in with no jealousy toward the Ivan Brothers was the true test. Remember quite often the axiom of “big risk, big reward” is what makes great leaders great, West Eastern University took a big chance and it paid off with a huge return.  The attached video is a great lesson.

http://www.youtube.com/user/CapitalOne

Conventional wisdom and the Jets

Interesting enough this year the New York Jets qualified for the playoffs and made it to the second round.  When comparing this result to last year, one would would have to scratch his noggin and wonder how you could get a better result this year with a rookie quarterback compared to last year with a guaranteed hall of famer.  You have to give credit to the Jets leadership this year as they controlled the situation and developed a system that  uses the talents of Mark Sanchez while minimizing his shortcomings.  They put him in a position to succeed and accepted the responsibility of making that decision.  With Brett Favre last year they pretty much handed over the reins and then sat back and hoped for the desired outcome.   Conventional wisdom is—- rookie quarterbacks don’t win—-reality is—–good leadership wins.

Can Ochocinco Still Help Bengals?

Chad Ochocinco (Johnson) has publicly stated that he was not satisfied with his performance last year and is working harder, in better shape and committed to having a great year. This little bit of new attitude has seemed to throw some cold water on some of the heated comments that Bengals’ players, coaches and executives have uttered over the last six months. For leaders, one of the big questions is “how much is enough?”

In many situations the most talented producer is also the most difficult to deal with. Creative, dynamic people often are successful because they do not fit into the mold. They think in their own way and do not feel bound but by arbitrary rules in which they see no purpose. Sometimes these “free spirits” can add to the diversity of an organization and do great things and sometimes these same folks are viewed as disruptive and a deterrent to productivity. Quite often the result is determined by the ability of the leader to figure out how to use the talents of the “free spirit” while having the group realize that this individual is very helpful to helping the team become even more successful.

Dennis Rodman is a perfect example.

With the Chicago Bulls, the Worm was an important ingredient of the Bulls championship years with his defense and rebounding. However, with the Lakers and Spurs he became a distraction and had to be extricated from the team. Why? Because of strong leadership from Mr. Jordan and Mr. Pippin.  All three knew what the desired result was and filled their role. Jordan and Pippin did not let Denis’ idiosyncrasies detract from the championship focus and the rest of the Bulls followed suit. Dennis also respected His Airness and Scotty and realized what the acceptable boundaries were. That respect which traveled both ways was the key.

Locker Room Leadership…Perception or Distraction?

Yesterday I saw an interview with Terrell Owens on ESPN and he had a sound bite with and interesting perspective, especially when you take a look at team dynamics and leadership. Terrell said that when “he barked at other players he viewed it as leadership but others perceived it as being disruptive”.  Terrell’s take on leadership…

Additionally Trent Edwards (the Bills’ QB) indicated he thought that Owens’ willingness “to get on” on teammates would be a positive and help Buffalo become a playoff team.

Once again the question of what leadership is comes to the forefront.  Looking at Owens’ track record, it appears that initially his team performs better but ultimately his “leadership” wears thin and the organization is very willing to sever the relationship.  True leaders are in this for the long haul.  As you work to implement your leadership plan, realize that leadership is a journey and not a one-time event.  The great organizations, the great teams and the great leaders all understand this concept.  As Henry L. Doherty said, “A great man is one who can have power and not abuse it.”

This leaves us with an interesting dilemma considering short-term vs. long term.  It is your job as a leader to weight these options and make the best decision possible given the facts, environment and potential risk and reward.

Branded Leadership Builds A Following

One concept you never hear much about in leadership literature is brand development, yet I feel it is critical that every leader be very aware of their brand, and manage it to the fullest.  Before a leader can do that, they have to understand what a brand is.

Think of a brand as mind space.  Every time a leader engages in an activity, makes a comment or acts in a certain way, that perception of the follower is filed away in the mind space of the follower. There are positive experiences, negative experiences and neutral experiences all relative to the aggregate perception of the leader.

In athletics, players and coaches become brands themselves.  Think of your perception of some of the world’s greatest athletes.  Naturally people and teams want to follow individuals who have very positive brands.  The New York Yankees have Derek Jeter, the Cleveland Cavaliers have LeBron James.  Both are leaders on teams  that have the world’s greatest athletes with great wealth, public acclaim and big egos (which is not necessarily always bad, but a topic for a future post), yet they follow the “captains” because Derek and LeBron both have created an extremely positive brand.  That positive brand then manifests itself into respect, which creates the environment which allows Derek and LeBron to lead.  Great teams must have great leaders.

When you look at the brand of some of the greatest physical talents in the history who have very negative brands, you understand why some teams never meet their physical potential.  Michael Vick offers an interesting case study…what do you think?

Student-athletes say Honesty

Two years ago I did a research project where we asked 421 current college athletes to choose from 20 personality traits that were the most important personality traits (in their eyes) of a good coach. They were asked to pick the five most important and rank them in order from one to five. The one that by far and away was considered most important by the student-athletes was honesty. Earlier I talked about trust being so important in creating commitment and buy-in for the leader.  Are honesty and trust the same thing?

No. Honesty is just one piece of developing trust amongst your followers.  A good example is Bobby Knight.  Coach Knight is brutally honest, yet some people have not been able to reach that level of trust where they buy-in to his leadership.  Others have nothing but great things to say.  To me trust includes the following:

• Honesty
• Competence
• Dependability
• Consistency
• Loyalty

I think every leader should really look at themselves to evaluate where they are in those five areas.

Listeners Needed – FOLLOW UP…

Yesterday I conveyed how watching the total undivided attention that Anthony Grant received from his players, coaches, managers and trainers during a timeout truly demonstrated that he is a great leader. Clearly the reaction that he receives from his team speaks volumes for his leadership talent, yet the critical learning element is “how did Coach Grant get that total commitment?” The answer is Anthony developed a personal relationship with each and everyone of those “followers”. They believed that Coach Grant had their personal well-being as a major focus of the program and that they were very important to the teams success. Each and everyone had developed a belief (fostered by Anthony Grant) that their contribution was important and actually critical to the success of the team. How do you build that buy-in?

• Communicate freely
• Build trust
• Define goals bigger than an individual
• Manage individual goals
• Make individuals accountable
• Eliminate fear of failure
• Celebrate successes
• Learn continuously

How many times have you seen very individually talented teams or groups not succeed because they have not bought-in to the some element of the program. Intuitively a team such as the Phoenix Suns with Shaquille O’Neal, Steve Nash, Amar’e Stoudamire, Grant Hill and Jason Richardson should be able to compete with anyone, but in spite of the individual talents, leading this group is a tough job.