Rowitz On Leadership

Americans love sports and games. We spend a great amount of time watching sports. We will often reject some social events if it will mean that we would miss watching a specific sports event on television. We often thank our creator for TIVO or other device that will let s watch our favorite sports later in time. Being a spectator is a passive event. However, these events do teach us about sportsmanship. They also show us many examples of non-sportsman ship like activities like the violence which seems to be part of most hockey games. We have also incorporated these spectator events which allows us to have a party with friends while we watch a sports event. Superbowl day has almost become a holiday with all sorts of food and socializing. By now, you should be asking the question of what this all has to do with leadership. To answer this question, we need to distinguish between being a spectator and a participant.

Leaders are more than spectators. They are participants. They learn many things from playing games and participating in sports. They learn about working in teams. They learn about rules of the game and how to take the lead in games. They learn about collaboration and working together to accomplish certain ends. They learn to deal with conflict and its resolution. They see that each member of the team can affect outcome only with the cooperation of all the team members. Teams exist in many parts of the leader’s life from our family, our religion, our community, and our society as a whole. Our lives are governed by our beliefs and values. Leaders know that we must understand our culture and how to help our communities accept change. In previous columns, I have discussed how leaders develop their personal leadership skills. This blog posting begins to explore how we learn our team-building leadership skills.