Collaborative Leadership, the Mother of All Lawsuits & the Arrival of EOY Board Work

The results are in, and evidently, I do share a resemblance to America’s favorite English Premier League coach Ted Lasso (based on the LinkedIn comments).  I’ve been called worse, that’s for sure.

Speaking of transatlantic sports, I spent some time last weekend watching the Ryder Cup, the biennial golf tournament pitting America’s best professional golfers against the European Union’s best. Hats off to Steve Stricker, the American team captain, for putting a great team together and getting them to gel so quickly.

It did get me thinking that a Ryder Cup team is a lot like a typical board: It’s a group of accomplished individuals who are tasked to come together infrequently and perform at the highest level under the highest-of-pressure circumstances. The best boards, like the best Ryder Cup teams, make it look easy. The opposite is also true – the worst teams are accused of lack of cohesion and even self-absorbed individualism. So how do those great teams do it? 

Ryan Lavner from the Golf Channel may have the answer. His article about Stricker’s “unmistakable power of leadership and camaraderie” highlighted a strategy that should apply to every boardroom. 

Lavner wrote, “These are the best players in the world, and like all the greats, they’re competitively selfish. They’re motivated by victory but enraged by defeat. They’re natural showmen with outsized egos. They’ve known each other for years, decades even, and they’ll understand what will work better than some personality quiz or analytics report. And so here was Stricker’s leadership guide for the present-day player: Collaborate. Provide the depressurized atmosphere they need. And then step back and let their preternatural gifts take over.” We agree that should be true of the boardroom. 

“Believe,” as Ted Lasso says.