From an honest
standpoint, I am very unfamiliar with professional sports and any news
regarding to them. For this week’s blog, we examine and compare the leadership
styles of the Olympic US Women’s Soccer team and the US Dream Team basketball
team between the years 2000 and 2004. Despite the lack of interest and
understanding of professional sports and athletes, I was a former volleyball
and tennis athlete, and can understand the importance of teamwork and the
leadership needed to help the team succeed.
The first team to
analyze was the US Dream Team basketball. For several consecutive years, the US
basketball team always brought home the Olympic gold medal. In 2004 however, it
took a different turn and the team took home the bronze medal. The result of
the loss was due to poor organization and team leadership. In an interview,
Olympian Emeka Okafor stated that, “the team came together at the very last minute”.
Others on the 2004 team also mentioned that Larry Brown, the coach at the time
focused mostly towards veteran players rather than the team all together
(Leopold & Teitelbaum, 2016).
US
Dream Team’s loss of 2004 reminded me a bit of my past experience as a volleyball
player for the high school tennis team. Inspired by an old Japanese anime, I
decided to join the team with very little experience. While my coaches initially
did an excellent job and helped me become a skilled player, my experience with
the team slowly turned into a negative one. Halfway into the season, my coaches
began to focus mostly on the top three players of the team: one being an expert
player towards the net, middle, and back of the court. Due to the lack of
training, everyone else was slowly becoming disorganized: resulting many losses.
Rather than providing further training to strengthen our weaknesses, the
coaches instead openly admitted that they were disappointed and eventually forced
the team (excluding the three players) to run several miles and wrapping it up
with a few sit-ups and push-ups as punishment.
Connecting
this to our readings, the result of the losses were likely due to poor
relationships. From my personal experience and US Dream Team, it is clear that
everyone was not receiving the same treatment. As Dr. Boyatzis (n.d.) stated,
leadership is successful when they establish relationships and recognize people
as an individual rather than an object. This reminded me of a past TED talk
I’ve watched titled What Makes Us Feel
Good About Our Work. In summary, Dan Ariely had a series of experiments
that focused on the sense of recognition and purpose of work. The results of
these experiments showed that motivation: which boost work outcomes, increased
when work was being recognized. In addition, it was found that being recognized
not only motivated employees to work, but it also promoted happiness (Ariely,
2012).
By
providing recognition, establishing, and maintaining relationships, ones could
yield results similar to the Olympic US Women’s Soccer team. Just like the US Dream
Team, the Olympic Women’s soccer team consisted of players of different ages,
talent, and personality. Despite the differences however, head coach April
Heinrich treated everyone as one team and established the mentality of winning
(U.S. Soccer Federation, 2004). With a common ground, recognition, and some
encouragement, it can establish a successful and powerful team. After a disappointing
experience with the high school volleyball team, I joined the tennis team. Just
like the women’s soccer and Dream Team, my team consisted of an array of
players of all ages and talents. What motivated me to continue for the remainder
of my high school days was that my coaches recognized each and everyone’s
strengths and weaknesses, and provided personalized training to enhance our
skills. Starting as the lowest rank on my first year, my coaches’ efforts
greatly motivated me to become better: eventually leading me to become a
mid-ranked varsity player by my senior year.
References:
Boyatzis,
R. (n.d.). What is Great Leadership? Case Western Reserve University. Retrieved
from
https://820961.kaf.kaltura.com/browseandembed/index/media-redirect/entryid/1_irqylr7d/showDescription/false/showTitle/false/showTags/false/showDuration/false/showOwner/false/showUploadDate/false/playerSize/400x285/playerSkin/30818691#
Leopold,
B. & Teitelbaum, B. (2016). Red,
White and Bronze: The death and rebirth of USA Basketball. NBC Olympics. Retrieved from http://www.nbcolympics.com/news/red-white-and-bronze-2004-death-and-rebirth-usa-basketball
U.S.
Soccer Federation. (2004). Heinrichs Names 2004 U.S. Olympic Women's Soccer
Team. Retrieved from https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2014/03/17/13/06/heinrichs-names-2004-u-s-olympic-womens-soccer-team
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