Leadership – Removing Roadblocks to Unity
As I skimmed the headlines this morning, I stumbled upon this article about the Dallas Cowboys releasing Terrell Owens. As a fan of football and leadership, I could not miss this opportunity to share my thoughts. I have watched TO for several years and many would argue that he is one of the top 5 wide receivers in the NFL. However, he has a pattern of creating conflict with his teammates. This begs the question of how important is unity to team success? What is the role of a leader to create harmony? Is a leader’s job just to assemble the best talent? Can you win with talent alone?
I happen to believe you cannot win with just talent. I think unity is a prerequisite to sustained success, but is so difficult to obtain. Unity has to be sought and taught and it is the responsibility of the leader to do all they can to build with those who contribute to unity while being willing to sacrifice short term success to eliminate the causes of disunity. Successful leaders need to get rid of talented performers who cause disunity. This is not easy to do. What if that top performer is your lead salesperson and is driving revenue? During these challenging economic times, does this make the decision more difficult? I would love to hear what you think of TO being released by the Cowboys and also what you think of leaders having the courage to make the tough decision.
As I was reading your thoughts, I was also listening to Mike & Mike (ESPN 2) discussing the TO situation.
When Dallas picked up TO a couple of years ago, I said some rather unpleasent things about the team owner's intelligence level. Releasing TO is the best thing they could do.
TO is poison.
Mike & Mike featured a sound clip from Coach Mike Ditka. Ditka's comments echoed your opinions as well as mine. One man can't make a team a winner. To paraphrase Ditka: "One man can't get you over the hump. It take a whole team playing together to win."
Posted by: Brenda Richter, CPA | March 06, 2009 at 09:50 AM