Image by Larry White
In this Article:
- How team building and cooperation can improve leadership in America.
- Lessons from sports coaches applied to national unity.
- How we can unite our country with the mindset of a team player.
- What role does leadership play in fostering teamwork and success?
- How can cooperation lead to shared goals and success for America?
Bring in the Coaches: We're All on Team America!
by Lyle Greenfield.
What is cooperation? These words posted on UNICEF.org, in partnership with Fundación Caserta and América Solidaria, seem relevant:
Cooperation is a core life skill and can be defined as the act or process of working together to get something done for a common purpose or to achieve mutual benefit. Cooperation demonstrates the ability to work effectively and respectfully with diverse people or teams, make compromises, build consensus in decision-making, assume shared responsibility for collaborative work, and value the opinions and contributions of individual team members.... Cooperative relationships are ... shaped by a ‘socially oriented’ or ‘common good’ approach rather than a transactional approach focusing on personal benefit or material gain.
Another phrase similar to cooperation in its intention is “team building,” which is a goal commonly associated with the corporate world and with competitive sports (school and professional). Corporations have leaders: CEOs, presidents, department heads, managers, etc. Athletic teams have leaders: managers, coaches, team captains. Schools, too: principals, department heads, professors, teachers.
Our country has leaders of course, but here’s where it can get complicated. Maybe on the local level—city/town/ county—the goals and tasks seem pretty straightforward: school budgets, road building and repair, housing, infrastructure maintenance, and planning. But once we get to the state or national level, the mix of personal, moral, and even religious beliefs can sometimes overshadow the tangible matters of governance (e.g., taxes, spending, healthcare, foreign policy).
Nationwide Team Building
We’re living in a time when, even at the local level, elected officials feel the need—or the pressure—to weigh in on the personal/moral things. We’re definitely in a tough climate for nationwide team building.
In the corporate world, leadership is hired or appointed. Maybe a board of directors votes for a company president. In education, school board members are elected by their communities. In over 97 percent of U.S. school districts, school superintendents are selected (hired) by the school board, and of course, principals and teachers are hired based on degree qualifications, experience, and (presumably) recommendations from peers. Depending on the state and the school, coaches may be hired from outside or from within the faculty.
In each of these positions proven skills in leadership would be considered essential in the screening process, along with any other skill sets and basic requirements. So those are our team leaders, in the corporate, scholastic, and athletic fields. They want to succeed in their jobs and were hired in the hope and belief that they would be successful, for the company, the school, the team.
Sharing a Common Purpose
Let’s start with what the most successful coaches, managers, and players can tell us about team building and unity of purpose. More than a few of them have made post-sports careers consulting with corporations on improving their company’s performance and productivity. Of course, all athletic teams are made up of members who share a common purpose: they want to play and they want to win. It’s not as if half the players hope to lose and need to be “won over” by the coach.
Success for every team is in the details, and the best coaches have succeeded in bringing out the best in their players. There are common threads in their character and approaches that we might find useful to think about: a combination of humility and strength; a clear purpose and message; selflessness and equal treatment of all; insistence on team play.
Legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, for whom the Super Bowl trophy is named, had many pithy things to say about leadership and success. Here are a few:
“Individual commitment to a group effort—that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”
“Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn’t do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another.”
“People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.”
Those words can be applied to our project here because Lombardi is literally saying that the group effort, the working together, applies to success not only in football but in society and civilization. Lombardi for President! (Unfortunately, he passed in 1970 ... God bless you, Sir.)
Tommy Lasorda, LA Dodgers coach and Baseball Hall of Fame manager had a particular philosophy about “team” that also resonates:
“I wanted my players to know who they were playing for—the name on the front of their jersey, not the one on the back. I told them you all have to get on one side of the rope and pull together.”
All on the Same Team
Maybe we haven’t thought about things in this way before, but the idea of uniting our states must first come from the belief that we are, in fact, all on the same team. The country. Our brotherhood and sisterhood under The Flag. Yes, we most certainly have our differences, but the name on the front of our jersey is America.
Barrier-breaking basketball legend, Bill Russell, who brought 11 NBA championships to the Boston Celtics, had strong feelings about leadership:
“A good leader is always a follower as much as he is a ruler. The team comes first. That was why Red (coach Auerbach) listened to his players and got out of the way when he felt they were right.”
He also described another leadership quality that can’t be learned—it must be intrinsic to a person’s character:
“...it has sometimes been hard to think that joy itself is a leadership quality. But it is. When a leader is obviously passionate and joyful in what he or she does, that is inevitably communicated.”
(In 2022 the National Basketball Association announced that Bill Russell’s jersey number, 6, would be retired league-wide, a first for the NBA.)
Being A Team Player
Women’s soccer legend, and two-time Olympic Gold Medalist Mia Hamm, is the author of Go For the Goal: A Champion’s Guide to Winning in Soccer and Life. Her passion and commitment to excellence have made her a role model for millions of young people around the world:
“I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”
These several themes would be common sense to the majority of successful coaches, managers, and players, though results may vary, as we all know. To quote singer-songwriter Danny O’Keefe, “Some gotta win, some gotta lose.”
So why bring up leadership and team-building examples from the sports world? Because we are the ones who elected (hired) our “team leaders,” from mayors and town supervisors to state legislators, congresspersons, senators, and the President. We have a right to expect of them the kind of leadership their entire constituency can get behind.
Copyright 2024. All Rights Reserved.
Adapted with permission.
Article Source:
BOOK: Uniting the States of America
Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation
by Lyle Greenfield.
Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.
Far from being "alarmist," however, the author proposes common sense solutions to our problems that require simply the decency and will of our elected leaders, and the active participation of our citizens. To that end, he shares the words and beliefs of Americans from across the country, and many walks of life on what must be done to reinvigorate the American ideal and bring us closer together.
For more info and/or to order this book, click here. Also available as a Kindle edition.
About the Author
Lyle Greenfield is a man of many experiences. He’s worked in landscaping, construction, door-to-door sales, and a brewery before starting his career as a copywriter in NYC. He has served as president of the Long Island Wine Council, started a music production company in New York, is a founding member and former president of the Association of Music Producers (AMP). Lyle Greenfield is the author of several books including Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation, which was written with the goal of finding solutions for the current state of political divisiveness in our country. Learn more at lylejgreenfield.com.
Article Recap:
This article explores the importance of leadership and team building for America by drawing lessons from sports coaches and corporate leaders. By emphasizing the values of cooperation, selflessness, and unity, the article discusses how a team mindset can help unite the country's people and leadership. It highlights the importance of leadership at all levels—local, state, and national—and stresses the need for cooperation to achieve shared goals, fostering success and unity across America.
