Passions Collide: Leadership and Sports

Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am fanatical about both leadership and sports. I've been thinking about these two facets of my life a lot lately for a couple of reasons. First, it's a great time to be a sportsfan. Both college and professional football are in full swing. Baseball playoffs are down to four teams, and it's been a wild, wild postseason already. NBA is also starting up. In addition, I've been thinking a lot about what sort of PhD program I'd like to pursue in two years. I've started doing some initial research about various programs and strands of research, and will continue to meet with an organizational leadership professor at Miami University to think through my decision.

Despite the personal attention that these two topics consume, I rarely think about them together.

Sports fans hear a lot about leadership if they even tune into a single game or read any editorial. However, I tend not to pay attention to much of this talk mainly because it simply reinforces the positional, elitist, "leaders are born" mentality that plagues our society. "So and so is the leader of this team," or "Which one of these guys is going to step up and be a true leader?" seem to be all that one hears. However, I think that the savvy sports fans are witnessing a paradigm shift in sports in recent years, and even more so, right before their own eyes.

The 2006 Detroit Tigers were picked to finish last in their division. Coming off a 119 game losing season just two years prior (for those who aren't baseball dorks, the all-time loss record for any team in baseball is 120 games), the Tigers were picked to finish in last place. Furthermore, they didn't have any "big name" players, their payroll wasn't very substantial, and there were many more "big market" teams that had everything the Tigers lacked. Somehow, despite overwhelming doubt, the Tigers won over 90 games this year. Once they entered the playoffs with the 7 other teams, no one gave the Tigers a chance. After all, their first round opponent was the highly touted New York Yankees. With a $220 million dollar payroll (almost 4 times that of the Tigers), a roster full of all-starts and proven winners, and and endless pit of money and talent at their disposal, the Yankees should have won. All 25 ESPN analysts picked the Yankees to defeat the Tigers, and 18 of those picked the Yankees to win it all. Well, the Yanks were bounced from the playoffs in 4 short games. After their monumental loss, their underperforming star (Alex Rodriguez) was rumored to be on the trade block, their hall of fame manager who has led the team to 11 straight postseasons was almost assuredly going to be fired, and the entire city of New York was in disarray.

What this simple example illustrates is that thinking about leadership in terms of accolades and positionality will undoubtably fail. And when the ship sinks, the blame game takes center stage. After the Yankees loss, headlines were filled with blame: Alex Rodriguez can't get the big hit, their starting pitching stinks, and their manager isn't doing his job. I could go on and on.

Very few had the real story: the leadership of the Detroit Tigers.

A group of committed, passionate, selfless individuals who weren't concerned about what others thought, but rather about playing the game of baseball.

Listen to any of the Tigers talk about their success. They rarely talk about themselves individually, their stats, or what others say about them. Instead, they all do their part to ensure that they are creating an environment where everyone can contribute to the team's success.

A key ingredient in the Tigers success is their manager, Jim Leyland. He is the definition of a humble, committed leader. Consider this: he is the only manager in baseball who wears cleats to all of the games. He does this because he doesn't believe in being on a different level than his team. When the press hounds him for sound bites, he consistently deflects credit to the team. He recognizes those who are doing a good job, but always keeps the team as paramount, not individuals.

So here's to the Tigers. Great American story of 2006, and great case study of true leadership. Best of luck in the rest of the playoffs.