The 1 Big Leadership Lesson I Learned from Coaching Baseball

It’s the last game of the season for my team, the Wranglers. Tied for 1^st place with the Mustangs, we’re playing against them in this final game. We are ahead by 2 runs going into the last inning. The crowd is going wild!

We just need 3 more outs. They have 2 of their best right-handed hitters coming up to bat, so being the shrewd coach, I set my strategy.

Joey, the shortstop, is our best player at catching fly balls – nothing gets by him. So I move him out to left field, to improve our odds in getting these Mustang batters out.

Oh, did I mention these are 8-year-old kids?

Unfortunately, although he is a very good shortstop and third-baseman, Joey has never played left field. Although it is only about 35 feet further back, turns out he is completely unable to judge where a fly ball is going to come down given that added distance from home plate. And of course, every player who comes up for the Mustangs hits a fly ball to left!

We lose the game 8-5, knocking us out of first place. So the Mustangs get the giant plastic champions’ trophy while the Wranglers settle for the little plastic second-place trophy.

Do you know what I did wrong there? The parents of the Wranglers players knew, and shared it with me – with the volume turned up to 11 – to make sure the leadership lesson sank in!

The cleaned-up language version of it is that by not fully understanding the abilities and limitations of the 12 players on the team, I had committed a fundamental error and cost these hard-working kids the win that day and the first-place finish for the season.

Fortunately, I think the kids’ scars wore off by the weekend.

I’ve lived with it ever since, though, albeit with a positive spin for what it taught me about coaching, managing, and leading, more than for the on-field drama of that day.

OK, Dann – what’s my Take-away?

Personal development of the team members is one of the top priorities for any manager, in business, sports, community organizations, wherever. Knowing people’s strengths and weaknesses, and how those might be affected by different environments, is an important interpersonal skill for a leader.

Someone may be an excellent verbal communicator in team meetings, with the 8 or 10 people he works with most closely every day. But put the same person in an impromptu meeting with your most demanding customer, and he has difficulty responding to questions under the (real or perceived) pressure.

Another team member may show a solid aptitude for planning and carrying out tasks in her primary area of expertise, but when you, the Program Manager, assign her to work on a broader scope, she becomes overwhelmed by the details of unfamiliar disciplines. Don’t give up on her, and don’t just let her sink or swim, though. Use brief coaching sessions and incremental task assignments to help her acquire the skills and confidence to develop and grow in her role.

Success in one area of business does not guarantee success in every area. We all need proper preparation, taken in small steps. Successful development requires gaining experience in low-risk situations to make mistakes and learn from them. Back to the baseball analogy: Eight-year-old Joey was great at playing shortstop, but ineffective in left field the first time he played there. With practice, I have no doubt he would have been great there, too.

The failure on that day was mine; I put him in a high-risk situation (fielding a new position with the game on the line) without having the chance to become familiar with it in practices or other games earlier in the season. I was, however, able to turn that mistake into a valuable personal leadership lesson to make me a better team player and manager in business. You can learn from mistakes, too.

Coaching your team members is never a once and done proposition. The Top 10% of business and project leaders make sure to schedule one-to-one sessions with each team member once or twice per month, not so you can grill them about project status but rather to understand deeply their capabilities, and to identify training and experiences that will benefit their professional growth.

Embrace the coaching and development aspect of your leadership role and watch how many new leaders you are able to build in your organization over time!

In other words, demonstrate Next Level Leadership.