Center for Creative Leadership

Recently fired Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis is an example of a derailed leader. Since the 1980s, CCL has studied managers who had all the makings of achieving the highest levels in their organizations - only to be fired, demoted, or to plateau below expected levels of achievement. By comparing successful managers to those who derail, CCL h as identified five specific factors that increase a leader's odds for derailment: (1) problems with interpersonal relationships; (2) difficulty building and leading a team; (3) difficulty changing and adapting; (4) failure to meet business objectives; and (5) too narrow of a functional orientation. Though he may have exhibited several of these factors, I believe the fifth, too narrow of a functional orientation, ultimately led to Weis’s downfall and firing at Notre Dame.

Weis worked his way up the football ladder under the tutelage of two well-respected professional football geniuses, Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick. He eventually became an offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots under Belichick, and helped coach the offense to many victories, including several Super Bowl victories. Many touted Weis as an offensive guru and five years ago he landed his dream job as head football coach of the University of Notre Dame (Weis in fact graduated from Notre Dame years before). Expectations however were ultimately too much for Weis and his record of 35-27 fell far below people’s expectations. On November 30, 2009, Weis was fired.  

One of the derailment factors, “Too Narrow Functional Orientation,” considers a manager’s ill-preparedness for promotion and a manager’s inability to supervise outside of his/her current function. Weis had all the ability to coach offense; however, football is more than just offense. His teams at Notre Dame lacked the defense and special teams play necessary to succeed all-around. Your team can score 30 points a game (which is a lot for offense in football), but if your team relinquishes roughly that many points per game as well, it’s tough to win.

As a leader, it is obvious that there are several skills, talents, and abilities that helped you get to where you are. However, if you do not broaden your skill sets, or have people around you that can help complement your strengths or are there to help out with your weaknesses (or better yet, give you the development you need to turn your weaknesses around), your too narrow of a functional orientation can derail your career just like it did Weis.

On December 10, Notre Dame hired Cincinnati head football coach, Brian Kelly. Ironically, Kelly is known for his defensive mind - completely opposite from Weiss. If he learns any lessons from Weiss, or from CCL, Kelly should consider broadening his skill set, or at the very least, hiring a really good offensive coordinator and special teams coach to supplement his weakness.

Photo Credit: Patterbt

I was shocked with the Tiger Woods news of "transgressions" off the golf course this week.

I was also shocked several months ago when Rick Pitino, head college basketball coach of the Louisville Cardinals, admitted to his own “transgressions” which included an extramarital affair and a certain pay-off.

Many people (me included) identified so much with these people. We saw these people as role models and as leaders. Now, many of those same people, including me, can’t look at them the same, can’t see them as role models or leaders anymore, and in fact, may feel betrayed and hurt. Why have I, and many others, lost respect for these people? Why are we appalled and, maybe in the extreme, maybe feeling a physical repulsion against these people?

In psychology, there is a theory called social identity. To help sustain or even boost our self-esteem, and to make us feel like part of a group, we tend to identify with people who are like us and we have a favorable bias for those who tend to be like us. For me, I identified with Tiger Woods – we are both children of mixed-race marriages, we both have Asian mothers, we both play golf, we are both born in December, we are both in our early 30s, our mothers both told us of strong colors to wear (his mother told him red, my mother told me blue). His golf victories felt like mine. For me, I identified with Rick Pitino – we both are Catholic, we both try to teach others (he on the basketball court and in his public speakings, me with my work, writing and my own teaching at NC A&T State University and other speaking engagements). I was always a big fan of his teams.

When an individual we look up to or identify as a leader, suddenly does something that is in complete contrast to what is our own value system, or that of the group to which we thought we belonged, that’s when we feel a dissonance. We have to try to keep our self-esteem in check, so oftentimes, we try to completely remove ourselves from these people. That’s what I’m feeling right now with these two people, and probably what others feel as well. It’s only natural.

When things like “transgressions” happen to our role models or leaders, it still shocks me, but should it really? We are all human. But, we naturally tend to put leaders under the microscope. We just expect more of our leaders. It’s only natural.

If you are in the position of a role model or leader, you just have to accept that role models and leaders will be scrutinized, and you are no different. You will be put on a pedestal and will continually have a spotlight on you at work, away from work, in meetings, in your community, in the airport, in elevators, with your family, with your friends, with children, behind closed doors, or in other places where people, or you deep down inside, may think you should not be.

As closing thoughts, think about these things:

If you are a parent of a star basketball player wanting to go to college, would you want a coach with “transgressions” coming into your house, and convincing you that he/she should coach, teach, and mold, your kid for the next four years on and off the basketball court about how to live life? What type of leader should come into your household? Are you that type of leader?
 
Another way I myself identified with Tiger, we are both extremely close to our fathers. In talking this week with my major professor from graduate school at UGA, Karl Kuhnert brought this point up: If Tiger’s father, who passed away a couple of years ago, were still around, what do you think he would say to his son about his “transgressions?” If you were Tiger’s mother or father, what would you say?

Finally, what do you think Tiger has to say to his own kids one day about all of this when they are old enough to start understanding, grasping, and comprehending what “transgressions” really are? How can he now be a role model and leader to his kids, or the millions of kids who look up to him, or the millions of kids who are helped by money from his own charity work and foundation?

If you really want to be, or are forced to be, a leader and role model, you just have to accept the fact that more is expected of you.

What do these companies have in common that’s related to the current economic situation? Burger King, MTV, CNN, FedEx, Intel and Microsoft? 

That’s right; they all began during slow economic times and each has been a significant force in modern culture. There have been 8 U.S. recessions since the Great Depression (1953, 1957-8, 1973-5, 1980 & 81-82, 1990-91, and 2001-2) and interesting things took place in each of them. 

 -Burger King started in 1954 when the Florida franchisees of the Insta-burger King chain, James McLamore and David Edgerton, began their takeover. 
-Fred Smith started FedEx express in 1971 in Arkansas, but lack of support from the airport led him to move to Memphis during the 1973 recession. 
-That was also the year that an employee of Honeywell (Paul Allen) and a Harvard student (William Gates, III) were inspired by the appearance of the MITS Altair 8800 computer on the cover of Popular Electronics to create a version of BASIC that would run on it. 
-During the double-dip recession that began in 1980 both MTV and CNN got their starts. Ted Turner (CNN) started a music video channel (Cable Music Channel in 1984, but after one money-losing month sold it to MTV who developed it into VH1). 

Game-changing innovation doesn’t depend on an abundance of time or resources. It thrives whenever people are energized by possibility. Perhaps it does even better in tough times because a certain discomfort can get us to get up and do something about our discontent. Well, at least, discomfort has been my friend on that front most of my life. 

My wish for you this December is sufficient lack of comfort to get you moving on the great ideas incubating in your noggin or that came up in the last late-night bull session. I’m eager to see the next world-changing idea come out of the garage. And this is the right time for it. 

Your uncomfortable friend,

Doug

Thanks to Bruce Goodman of the Michigan law firm Varnum in their November Energy newsletter “Watts News," referenced in the ACC news feed:  ACC Link