Limited Leadership

For the last couple of months I’ve been pondering why it seems that most of today’s leaders in sport, especially those on the court, pitch, floor or field, have such limited leadership ability. I have heard numerous coaches decry the dearth of leadership among their players of both genders and at almost every level of sport. As I have observed the players of my acquaintance and heard from other coaches and team chaplains, I think I have arrived at a conclusion. Most of this generation’s leaders would prefer to be popular with their teammates than to lead them effectively. That preference limits their leadership in some very important ways.

 

In John Maxwell’s book, “Developing the Leader Within You,” he calls this “Leading by Permission” and assigns it position #2 on a 1-5 scale of ascending levels of leadership. The low number for this level of leadership is indicative of its weakness. Level 2 leaders can lead those who like them or are willing to go along with a likeable personality. Their popularity allows them to carry their teammates along until conflict, discord or substandard performance arrive and their leadership weakness is suddenly exposed. If one’s leadership is built upon popularity, he will stop short of challenging his teammate to give greater effort. She will balk when leadership calls for her to correct destructive or divisive attitudes or speech. He will defer the “calling out” of another player for his selfish play or foolish off-court behavior to the coaching staff rather than assertively calling everyone to a higher standard.

 

Coaches, Chaplains, Character Coaches and Sport Mentors can assist in this process. In order to do this well, we need to be Level 4 or Level 5 leaders. Maxwell’s Level 4 is: Leading by Developing People and Level 5 is : Leading by Personhood. Leading at Level 4 takes guts and Level 5 takes time. If we’ll invest in, challenge and develop team leaders, we can help them press through the tyranny of popularity and on into leadership which cares enough about the team and each teammate to seek the best from each one and the team’s best, even if it costs him popularity. It is better to be respected than universally liked. Popularity will wane over time, but respect is much more durable. If we stay engaged with emerging and developing leaders long enough, we become Level 5 leaders and powerfully impact all those around us just by showing up. That is particularly true if we will purposely seek out and help develop leaders within the team.

 

As we communicate and model Christ-honoring, dynamic leadership with our teams, we will help the younger ones move past Level 2 and its weakness. We can help them lead through their productivity (Level 3) and on to Levels 4 and 5. One need only read the Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles, the Proverbs or Old Testament historical books with his leadership cap on to see that godly leadership often includes strong challenges, face to face reproof, public rebuke and even physical confrontation. Each of those are hardly in keeping with maintaining one’s popularity. Such is the cost of leadership. It should not be entered into naively. Let’s call this generation’s leaders to shake off their shackles of popularity and move onto dynamic leadership which takes the risk to raise everyone’s performance and the team’s sense of unity.