The best sports teams will often change their leader or have different leaders for different situations. For example, one player will be in charge of the social aspects of the team, in cricket the batsmen on the field will have to be their own leaders, or the captain may be substituted for tactical reasons. In the Olympic champion British rowing four, Redgrave, Pinsent, Cracknell and Foster, each athlete had a leadership role at a different time. When motivation was needed they deferred to James Cracknell, for technique Tim Foster, pace to Mathew Pinsent and for team tactics Steve Redgrave. For cohesion, organisation, feedback, etc. they went to their coach.
In business it is all too easy to appoint the chairperson, the manager of the team, and load that person with all the leadership responsibilities, no matter what the task of the team. The reality is most of us can handle some kinds of leadership, few of us can handle all kinds of leadership. Starting up a project is a very different matter from turning it around or enlarging it 100-fold. Few of us have all of the leadership skills necessary to achieve all three tasks. We should learn to swap and substitute the way that sports teams do.
Sometimes these things are also ego driven. Think about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who spent a lot of his time sitting on the bench at Manchester United. He would enter the game as a substitute when the team needed a goal and would normally manage to produce the goods. Paul Rendall, a not so well known rugby player sat on the bench for England so often he gained the nickname “judge”, but he was greatly valued by the team and when he did get the chance to play performed extremely well indeed. Substitutes have become a vital tactical element of the team performance and are often referred to as “impact players”, such is their heightened value, rather than the apparently derogatory “sub”. In business wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had people whose role was primarily to lift flagging team spirits or to carry out a specific tactical role against the opposition where a weakness has been spotted?
So make comparisons between business and sport but, unless you want to demoralise your players, choose examples from which the business environment can learn. The next time the whistle blows for the start of play in your office ask yourself if you have the persistence to get the information and make the changes necessary to create world-beating performance.
At the start of the game nobody knows who will win, but those who have worked harder in preparation will have a much better chance.
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