You Can’t Force the Issue
At the team’s media day last Thursday, University of Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma wondered aloud from where his team was going to get its on-court leadership this season. While junior Maya Moore has been the best player on the team since she signed on with the Huskies, veteran players have filled the role of team leader. Most recently, point guard Renee Montgomery was that leader. She’s just completed her first season with the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx. There are three players vying to take Montgomery’s position on the court, but that doesn’t mean that any of those three can fill her leadership role. In fact, one thing you can’t force upon an individual, either on the court or in the boardroom is the responsibility of being the leader of the group.
It could very well be that one of the three players competing for the bulk of Montgomery’s minutes on the court will have the aptitude and the attitude to be a leader. However, just because the point guard, many times, is the on-court leader of the team, it can’t be assumed that this will be the case.
This happens in any endeavor, and that’s why I always tell people (when they question my passion for sports) that athletics is a microcosm of life. My research indicates that young women, in particular, do not like to have the title “leader” thrust upon them. Young women want to be liked by everyone in the group, whether it’s an athletic team, a corporate department or a classroom full of students. Young ladies prefer to be liked as opposed to being the queen bee. This desire to be friends with everyone gives young women the perception that they can’t be a leader, too. Which tells me that they’re viewing leadership as a negative thing. Maybe that’s because everyone they’ve encountered in their young lives who’s been in a leadership role has led in negative ways. Maybe it’s because they believe that in order to be a leader, you have to tell your friends things they might not want to hear, and the fact that someone is termed the leader means that everyone else is following, which, in itself can have negative connotations.
Sometimes there is an expectation that the most talented person on the team, in the boardroom or in the classroom should be the leader. But talent and leadership don’t always go together. Sometimes, but not always. In athletics, all-star caliber players sometimes try to be coaches when they retire from the field or court. Historically, the best players, in almost every sport, have been the worst head coaches. I know there’s some people who’ve studied and reported on this phenomenon, but that’s not the point of this post.
The bottom line is, leaders are partly made and are partly born. You can’t make somebody be the leader because you want them to be so. Coach Auriemma, at the media day last week, shows why he’s guided the Huskies to six national titles. He concluded his leadership thought by surmising that the team’s leader will emerge at some point in the season, and he doesn’t now profess to know who she is or when she’ll step forward.
Tags: women and leadership