He describes five major categories of leaders and gives some examples:
Command and Control (Autocratic) - General Patton, Bob Knight
Relational - Anson Dorrance
Expert - Phil Jackson
Charismatic - President John Kennedy
Synergistic (Balanced) - John Wooden
He recognizes that these categories are not mutually exclusive. But within the "Relational" category he lists legendary North Carolina soccer coach Anson Dorrance. I thought this could be an opportunity to explore both the Relational style and Dorrance.
What characteristics belong to a relational leader? She must be a good listener, learning the hopes and dreams of team members. Listening alone isn't enough. Communicators teach and give correction and criticism without making it personal. "Be warm and demanding."
Player's coaches inspire trust to elicit buy-in. Establishing trust demands honesty and fairness. "You can't fool children, dogs, and basketball players." They know how to engage and energize team members...they push the psychological buttons that help players grow and teams become more than the sum of their parts.
Relational coaches own the 'living room'. This helps them excel at recruiting potential targets. They establish relationships that transcend the playing field and can last a lifetime.
The vulnerability of relational leadership is the potential for teams to take advantage of their good nature. In professional sports, we often see a cycling between relational and "task-oriented" leaders. The "player's coach" gets replaced by the "hard guy."
Anson Dorrance
What's his resume' highlight? This says enough: "Dorrance's UNC teams have won 22 NCAA Women's Soccer Championships." You might say that John Wooden is the Anson Dorrance of NCAA Men's Basketball.
What does he say?
The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching.
At UNC, we talk about transcending ordinary effort. Ordinary effort is when you’re comfortable.
One of the crucial aspects when we play with defensive presence is getting "stuck in," a common British expression for an aggressive player who gets in tackles, or sticks her face in where the ball is going, risking taking a knock or getting whacked.
Being liked is not as lasting as being respected. You don't want to gain friendship just by being passive, or giving in to try not to offend anyone.
A lot of female players know what to do on the field, but they hesitate to say anything to others, like, "Hey, back off," "pull back," or "get wide." So they stand there and watch disaster take place, just because they are reluctant to hear their own voice.
Dorrance empowers players to be their individual and their collective best. He stresses conditioning and competition. He insists that players leave their comfort zone and find solutions to the inevitable adversity of sport.
"You play for each other..."
