What does leadership mean to you? No leadership score exists, instead a representation and perception of what we have done. I want to help young people become their better versions at home, at school, in the community, with each other, and on the court.
Simon Sinek asks, "what is the common factor in all of my failed relationships? Me." If nobody wants to play basketball anymore, if they leave for other sports or private schools, is that coincidence or a vote of no confidence for the program?
When management leads, they have power, status, and money. None are synonymous with leadership. The "leaders" at Lehman Brothers drove their business into the ground. The "leaders" at Enron misrepresented their actions. The "leader" of a professional basketball team disrespected team members because of race. We can go on and on.
Leadership is a skill. You can train leaders. But a three hour seminar on leadership doesn't create leaders, define leaders, or sustain leaders. Leadership requires practice, just as weight lifting or running require practice.
Leaders aren't only managers of teams or products. Leaders own the stewardship of their people. My mentor used to say, "are we making choices for ourselves or for the patient?" For example, does the patient need a test for your curiosity or their welfare?
Leaders inspire trust and better performance. If I work in a business and distrust those in authority, are they fulfilling their leadership responsibilities? When forty percent of women college distrust coaches, is that leadership?
If I lead, how am I helping my employees do their job? We had a head of Environmental Services, Troy. Troy dressed impeccably and presented himself well. Troy was not meant to be around long. He was highly visible, showing his charges how to do their job, changing into work clothes when necessary to demonstrate. Troy might have been the best leader in the hospital. He got a better job within a year...as he surely deserved.
In Good to Great, Jim Collins discovered that superior companies have leaders with both ambition and humility. They have the "professional will" to drive the company forward, but the humility to know they serve and care for employees. They are humble enough to know they can do better.
Leaders are calm and decisive under pressure. They can't have tunnel vision, panic when timely decisions arise, or suffer indecision. The "leader" for trainees in The House of God, was the Fat Man, a caricature of knowledge and coarseness. I learned that some of the interns called me the Fat Man, although I was neither fat nor crass.
Leaders model 'right behaviors' almost all the time. Even in the dystopian world of city drug dealers, according to Freakonomics, they have a structure including a leader for "community service". After all, in their view, they're business people not "bad people".
David Cottrell writes in Monday Morning Leadership, "people don't quit jobs, they quit people." Do you love your "job" and do your superiors care that you are doing your job as well as possible? Do they show you by helping you do your job more efficiently and more effectively?
We create leaders by modeling and through training. We help them understand what the "end state" and intermediate stages will look like. We help them by modeling responsibility and fairness. We provide clarity through describing both priorities and emphasis. We support them by catching people doing things right.
Be a leader not a manager.
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Bulls half-court set under Thibodeau:
