Great Teams

Don Yaeger

• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780718080570
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Leadership

What makes a team great? Not just good and not just functional—but great?

Over six years, long-time Sports Illustrated editor Don Yaeger was invited by some of the greatest companies in the world to speak about the habits of high-performing individuals. From Microsoft and Starbucks to the New England Patriots and San Antonio Spurs, what do some organizations do seemingly better than most of their opponents?

Don took the challenge. He began building into his travel schedule opportunities to interview our generation's greatest team builders from the sports and business worlds. During this process, he conducted more than 100 interviews with some of the most successful teams and organizations in the country. From those interviews, Don identified 16 habits that drive these high-performing teams.

Building on the stories, examples, and first-hand accounts, each chapter in Great Teams comes with applicable examples on how to apply these characteristics in any organization. Great Teams includes:

• Life lessons from some of the most notable names in sports and business applied to team-making in any situation
• Interviews from well-known players from Peyton and Eli Manning to Kevin Durant
• Skills to allow culture to shape who you recruit, manage dysfunction, friction, and strong personalities
• Advice on how to win in critical situations, embrace change, build a mentoring culture, and see value others miss

Great Teams is the ultimate intersection of the sports and business worlds and a powerful companion for thought leaders, teams, managers, and organizations that seek to perform similarly. The insight shared in this book is sure to enhance any team in its pursuit of excellence.

Pillar Two

EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER 2

GREAT TEAMS HAVE AND DEVELOP GREAT LEADERS

They sustain success by placing a high value on leadership.

There is no question that the key to any organization is leadership. From the CEO to frontline staff, strong leaders are critical to performance. It is no coincidence that every issue of the Harvard Business Review features an article or case study on this quality. In professional sports, the saying is that a team is only as good as its owner. And while every team and business has a leader, many organizations lack a culture of leadership development within the ranks. Great Teams that sustain success place a high value on developing leadership. Promoting such a culture leads to consistent behaviors and better habits and ultimately increases that team’s chances of winning.

Brad Black and his organization, HUMANeX Ventures, provide laser-accurate leadership surveys for some of the most successful teams in sports and business. CEO Black considers professional assessments a “foundation of development” and essential for any leader desiring to be great.

“Context matters,” Black said. “If you were told that you were the Olympian of your chosen profession, then you’d have a context [on which] to base your strengths. And all leaders should have a strong sense of who they are before they attempt any developmental venture.”

Black is right. All leaders should know where they—and their teams—stand on skills, strengths, weaknesses, and latent talents. Black said that understanding who you are as a leader is a “gift to yourself” and can create the road map for your own growth.

From this chapter, you’ll learn the five most common leadership styles, along with the principles for developing an effective system of leadership that fits your team.

COMMAND AND CONTROL

Bobby Knight. George Patton. Martha Stewart. Al Dunlap. These are all well-known leaders who have employed what I call Command and Control governance. This approach is autocratic in nature and does not involve their subordinates or followers in the decision-making process. They prefer to tell versus lead, and they are highly concerned with the details of what their teams do. Typically, these individuals micromanage aspects of their teams’ strategies.

Command and Control leadership usually conjures up a negative stereotype, but it can be enormously successful. Just look at the track records of those mentioned above. Such individuals ensure that an organization’s long-term vision remains intact. This can bring order to a disorganized company or clarity during a crisis.

Additionally, competent Command and Control leaders excel at reinforcing strong team cultures. Consider the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have won six Super Bowls—currently more than any other team—largely because of the Rooney family. The Rooneys have owned the team from its inception in 1933, and either father Dan or son Art can be found in the Steelers front office on a daily basis. The Rooneys have built and maintained a team with remarkably consistent leadership through all levels of its organization.

Amazingly enough, the team has had only three head coaches—Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, and Mike Tomlin—over the past forty-five years. Though leadership turnover is low, a revolving roster of players creates a unique challenge for Steelers management in reinforcing important aspects of team culture such as humility, hard work, and accountability of self and community—what Coach Tomlin has described as “the careful management of everything you do, every day.” The Rooneys’ insistence that those in leadership roles embrace the daily challenge of implementing this culture is one reason the Steelers have proved to be so consistently successful.

“Continuity is something that you can benefit from, but it is not something you can take for granted,” said Coach Tomlin. “I want everybody in the building to know what it is we are doing and what our focus is. What is acceptable, what is unacceptable—and cultivating an environment that fuels that for me.”

RELATIONAL

For Relational leaders, people come first. These managers strive to keep their teams happy and in harmony. They are approachable and employ a “come with me” style of leadership.

A Relational leader can be very good at building trust, respect, and employee buy-in as a result of letting people have a say in the decisions of the company. In the business world, CEOs Sarah Blakely of Spanx and Tony Hsieh of Zappos head wildly successful companies, but both are known for their even-keeled leadership and for engaging others in decision making.

Joe Torre, who now serves Major League Baseball as executive vice president for baseball operations, spent much of his career managing MLB teams such as the New York Yankees. As a manager, he was quick at recognizing the contributions of individual players and did not miss an opportunity to express his gratitude to them. He elicited trust from his players, which in turn encouraged his team to play harder for him. Torre created a Relational environment that allowed him to get the most out of some very talented athletes who were not as successful when playing for other organizations.

Sometimes the individual members of a team have to be led differently, according to their personalities or learning styles. Anson Dorrance, head coach of the University of North Carolina women’s soccer team, knows this very well. In 1979, Dorrance, who had begun his career as the head coach for UNC men’s soccer, expanded his role to developing the women’s team for the university. He quickly discovered that there are big differences between coaching men and women.

“Part of being a leader is getting to know your players,” said Dorrance. “I learned that with men it was often a matter of just telling them what needed to be done and then showing them how it was to happen. Coaching women, from my experience, required a different touch. What you’re after when you are coaching young women is seeing where they are extraordinarily special and unique. Once you know that, it becomes your conduit to leading them. I know those are very general statements, but it reminded me how I needed to look at everyone I was asked to lead and see them differently.”

Through Relational leadership, Dorrance established one of the most successful records in athletics. Under his leadership, the Lady Tar Heels won twenty-one NCAA women’s soccer championships. This legacy is due in part to Dorrance’s understanding the value of properly relating to his players.

EXPERT

Great Teams are often led by visionary leaders who are sponges for information and knowledge and who depend on their high levels of knowledge or specialized sets of skills to guide their teams. These are the Expert leaders. Experienced in nearly every aspect of their professional spaces, they have immense clout; those in their presence are motivated to listen because their expertise is so vast.

In the corporate world, Bill Gates was an absolute Expert as the chairman, CEO, and chief software architect of Microsoft Corporation. From 1976, when the company was founded, through 2014, when he left as the company’s chairman, Gates charted Microsoft’s product strategy by aggressively broadening its product range. Microsoft Windows, his most famous multipurpose operating system, was a worldwide sensation and made the company a household name. And though Gates’s leadership style was known to have ruffled a few feathers, it is ultimately responsible for making Microsoft the dominant tech giant it is today.

Likewise, no one questioned the authority of Phil Jackson when he was head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers. His knowledge of the game—from recruiting to the Xs and Os of play calling—was second to none. Jackson was able to coach some of the greatest basketball players who ever lived—Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille O’Neal. He not only brought out their absolute best but also stimulated buy-in for his vision from these highly competitive athletes. This showed on the court time and time again. Jackson’s Expert philosophy and approach to basketball produced eleven NBA championship titles.

CHARISMATIC

Imagine a leader with a personality so engaging and inspiring that you hang on his or her every word. These are people who don’t tell you what to do but create a vision of what you can do and light the fire to make you want to rush out and accomplish it all. Charismatic leaders tend to be incredibly skilled at reading an environment, scanning and processing the moods and concerns of both individuals and larger audiences, and honing their actions and words to suit any situation. This connective strength enhances the trust employees have for their leaders, creating even greater success. And while the skills are often innate to the personalities of the leaders, they can also be practiced and honed to improve any organization.

President John F. Kennedy possessed this kind of charisma. An exceptional communicator, he gave the world some of the most memorable speeches of all time. Every time he spoke with the press or to the public, he had a mission to convey not only a feeling but an undeniable truth. Kennedy’s charisma and authentic passion could be felt in every single word, which was why he was so good at connecting with the hearts of his audiences.

Pete Carroll, head coach for the Seattle Seahawks and former head coach for the University of Southern California Trojans, is known across the sports world for his cool-headed temperament and engaging personality. Throughout his career he has managed to handle intense scrutiny and pressure, overcome setbacks, and maintain an optimistic perspective on life and football—all while being highly successful. Carroll’s charisma has allowed him to perform at a championship level in the entertainment mecca of Los Angeles as well as in Seattle, a city of discerning taste.

Charismatic leadership, like Command and Control leadership, can have its downside, especially if practiced by a selfish or short-sighted individual. At its worst, it can be manipulative or divisive or lead to eventual disillusionment. But when practiced responsibly, charismatic leadership can bring an organization to life—boosting recruitment, inspiring loyalty, and building trust—all vital components in building and maintaining Great Teams.

Trust, especially, can be a crucial element. For nearly three decades, the Great Place to Work Institute has studied the greatest workplaces around the world, with annual data representing more than ten million employees in fifty countries. Business leaders, academics, and media analysts have all relied on the metrics from Great Place to Work to e...