Markers of Leadership

Being from the Midwest, and Wisconsin specifically, you are taught to not only be a Packer fan but accept them as a birth rite. Before I became an owner of the Green and Gold, I fitted them neatly into my wedding vows as a priority to the construct of my marriage. Whenever Saori feels I’m not pulling my weight in our holy matrimony she’ll dig them up, and I get to read my promises all over again.

Alas, this isn’t just about vows, my wife, or marriage, but it is about the Packers. To the point, it’s about the Vince Lombardi era Packers. Even deeper still, it’s about Vince Lombardi, the leader, himself.

When Lombardi was hired to coach Green Bay, most people had to pull out a map to see exactly where the smallest city to hold a professional team was, and he was no different. From the 20s through the 40s, Green Bay was incredibly successful but had fallen into disrepair after the retirement of Curly Lambeau. The season before Lombardi picked up the job, Green Bay had only one victory all year. Lombardi was a man with options, he was the previous offensive coordinator for the New York Giants with a guy called Tom Landry as the defensive coordinator. He could have taken his talents to an established franchise, but he decided to be hired by the worst team in the league and drag his family into literally parts unknown.

History may have taken a different path had Lombardi ended up somewhere else, but I am certain that the mark of a leader’s effectiveness is not where he starts his journey, but rather where it finishes. The first season with Lombardi as head coach he turned the defunct Packers into a winning team. The second season he lost the championship game. His third season was his first championship, and he paired his fourth season with another crown. Then from 1965-1967, three seasons, he was on top of the NFL again to include the first two Super Bowls.

Although I believe that leadership is universal, I cannot say that leaders can call themselves good if they already start at the top. Coach Lombardi didn’t. He had the star dust within him to produce winning teams, but he did not have the luxury of walking into a well-oiled machine. It did not happen overnight either, it took years to win his first championship.

In your own endeavor, remember that you have to start somewhere, and the further buried you are, the sweeter the victory. Who knows, perhaps they’ll bestow the namesake of a trophy in your honor at the end of the day. Do not be disturbed how bad it is when you arrive and think of it as an opportunity to showcase your talents. When an organization is that lost, you might be surprised who they rally around, and it could be you. So be brave, know what you are about, and lead your team.

Metaphors in Leadership

(Originally written and posted November 11th, 2024)

How do you define leadership? It can be an abstract concept because it isn’t something that can be sensed in a physical way. It is like an invisible hand that guides an organization or team through a series of moments. Although we can’t taste, touch, or smell it, we can still sense it though when it’s being applied to our lives.

We all develop our own definition of leadership, or more importantly, our methods of applying it. I have an MBA, and I had to read the academic positions of leadership. I also read for my own pleasure and self-discovery. Reading opens our worlds up to other possibilities, and we become an amalgamation of what we have read. We take bits and pieces of everything we expose ourselves to, like a living recipe that is forever improving with time. You may think you have it just right, but another ingredient is added to your batch of dough, and you rise just a little higher. 

Because I work with a lot of young people in my line of work, I empathize with their plight of trying to figure a lot of things out in not a lot of time. They are busy learning how to be a Sailor, an adult, and a professional. They get to do these thousands of miles away from their former support structure in America, in a foreign nation, and often in the middle of the ocean. It’s not easy being young. One of my tasks is not to create more followers, but more leaders. This can get tricky when trying to reach them and speak in a frequency they understand, trust, and accept. There are many barriers to reaching them: a generation gap, intellect, preferred methods of communication, or just life experiences.

When I have the opportunity to talk about leadership, I gravitate to two of my personal favorites. Leaders are the conductors of the orchestra. They are in front, see the sheet music of everyone, knowing where the music is going. As conductor, they can decide how to play the band. They are not the ones playing the instruments, and this is an important consideration to remember. They cue in the trumpets, lower the woodwinds, trigger the tympani roll, etc. They can see everyone’s role, signal everyone to make it all mesh together to a harmonic masterpiece. What they also do is give instruction and guidance. Everyone in the band is responsible for being the best they can be, practice in their own time and contribute their all for the sake of the band, but it is the conductor who brings all of these individual talents together as a team to move in one singular direction.

My second favorite metaphor is more biblical. Leaders are shepherds of a flock. They have with them just a staff. They guide their flock to the better pasture, keep them safe from wolves, and be among them. Their staff in an important tool as well. They can individually signal a lamb for extra attention, and sometimes their lessons are more painful than others, but a shepherd cannot do their job without their flock, and the flock would fall apart without their leader.

It’s the symbiotic relationship between leaders and followers that is most intriguing to me, and I think about that often.

Leadership and Mentorship

(Originally written and posted December 9th, 2024)

We all have pet peeves. Those irrational itches which drive us bonkers to no one except ourselves. My cousin told me when I was six years old that he had a friend that cracked his knuckles so much a knuckle popped out of its skin and they had to surgically repair his mistake. From that day to the present, I feel genuinely concerned for anyone who decides it’s to their benefit to feel the temporary sweet relief of pressure in their joints by making that audible “pop,” and I remain ready to see what my cousin once endured.

Fast forward the clock a couple of decades and it has come to irrationally bother me when people state with a straight face that they did “it” by themselves. They were self-made and had no one to rely on on their journey to their goals. I find this to be ignorant, selfish, and delusional. Maybe they don’t have Newton’s humility to admit they can see further because they stood on the shoulders giants, but with my chest would tell them that they weren’t alone.

Mentorship comes with many faces. We’re most familiar with the personal touch, the face-to-face encounters of the old bull speaking with the young buck on explaining how the world turns. These can be long meetings, or fly-bys, but the interactions are still there. Sometimes someone decided to stay quiet on telling their side of the story and saved your reputation. Sometimes you need that advocate in rooms that you’re not invited into to speak on your behalf. Mentorship does not always have to be something we parade around, but you are a fool if you don’t search for it.

In my work there is an opinion that I am gunning for my subordinates. They are absolutely correct I am, and it’s because I don’t want them to feel the same mistakes I had to endure. I offer instruction in the short-run in order to save myself a lot of paperwork in the long run. It is in my best interest to make my subordinates as ready to assume my position and sometimes that means I’m going to be aggressive, stern, or factual. By being a critic of their work, I also open myself up to being their biggest fan, and it’s unfortunate that they do not always see that. Which is why when I’m in the rooms they are not in I get to speak on their behalf and advocate for their best interests.

Mentorship to me is the single most important extrinsic component to personal success. You will not get to your destination alone. You will meet many people along your way. Some may appear to be your friend, but really are hiding in the tall grass waiting for you to fail. Some will be so annoying you will want to ditch them and you may try. If they stay, take advantage to what they have to say because you may just cash in that nugget of annoying conversation down the line and apply it to where it was always meant to be.

Chopstick Leadership

(Originally written and posted November 11th, 2024)

It’s easy for me to understand the confusion between management and leadership. They are for sure intertwined, but they are different. Perhaps the easiest way to explain the former is management keeps the slug moving along, and leadership the art of leveling up. With that said, the topic that gets the most love and attention over the course of the past two decades or so is the concept of leadership.

I have three boys now, and one of my tasks as their father is to grow them into men. Although it will happen far faster than their dear mother would ever like, the job must be done. One of the tools I’ve been putting into their kit is what leadership is. It starts out easy, Josiah, is my oldest, and the default leader of his brothers, a title he is currently rebuking because what nine-year old likes to carry the load of responsibility of the sins of their brothers? Then this past weekend I went camping with some family friends. There was one boy who I have a shine to, Hiroto, who I assigned as the “Fire Marshal,” meaning he was in charge of keeping the fire pit fed with fresh wood so others can enjoy their evening. My second son, Atticus, wanted the attention of the high honor of being the Fire Marshal and whined to me about it. There were many ways of skinning this cat, but I settled for one that left a lesson.

What could have been done was have the boys take turns in a democratic sense. This is not the route I chose. Echoing Ric Flair’s mantra of “to be the man, you have to beat the man,” I had the boys engage in a civilized form of trial by combat. I had each on of them hold chopsticks out like they were hanging from the cross of Responsibility, and the first one who would drop their arms would be declared the loser. It’s only chopsticks they were holding, but given enough time, they began to feel the weight of their life choices.

Atticus lost, and we continued onto the night. Curled up in his his mother’s arms, Atticus was upset and confused why I had chosen that metric of leadership, holding chopsticks. What I told my son was there was not always a clear way of selecting a leader. Sometimes a leader is chosen on physical strength, sometimes it is their brain, but in his case I was looking at who had the most heart. Whoever was going to hold of all things chopsticks needed heart and determination. Strength would have taken him so far, but who wanted it the most was going to posses something no one can touch, but angels can hold.

One of the best parts of being a father is watching my sons be brothers. The next favorite part is watching a life lesson take root and seeing it sink into their marrow. Atticus now knows that there are many tasks needed to becoming a leader, but one of the most important among these is having the bravery to go through the pain and tapping into his heart. This was all done with a pair of chopsticks.