Ball games provide excellent leadership examples and the end-of-the-season games highlight the benefits of strong leadership.
As baseball's World Series begins this week in Metro Detroit, the turnaround accomplishments of the Detroit Tigers president & CEO, David Dombrowski, and first-year manager, Jim Leyland, demonstrate effective leadership from the opening day forward.
Personally, the World Series takes me back to the days of my youth when my grandfather took my brother and I to New York City to be entertained by the many baseball stories of Casey Stengel, manager of the classic New York Yankees from 1949 to 1960.
Today, with the college football season at its peak, here in Ann Arbor we are enjoying watching the University of Michigan team play up to their potential. That wasn't the case last season or a few years before that, when long-time coach, Lloyd Carr, and his staff were ineffective in putting together a conference winning game plan. However, rather than walk away from the game, Carr decided after last season to shake up his coaching staff and make it to the top of the Big Ten Conference in 2006.
And, except for those college coaches not invited to March Madness, we all love to watch the
NCAA college basketball season-ending tournament.
The leadership lessons of each season's winning and losing efforts helps players, coaches and fans better understand what it takes to be a winner in sports and in life. We all begin to recognize that seeing ourselves clearly does many things:
• It allows us to control impulses and select the most appropriate behaviors.
• It shows us how to avoid reacting in negative and potentially self-limiting ways.
• Knowing our strengths and limitations makes us more understanding of others.
• Gaining an understanding of issues reduces conflict in ourselves and in others.