Several years ago I saw an interview with Brett Favre, at the time a quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, talking about the hiring of his quarterback coach at the Packers to a high-profile head coaching position on another team. An all-star player at that point, Favre seemed genuinely bummed out that he was losing the quarterback position coach, despite the fact that the head coach, offensive coordinator and other coaches would remain the same. I remember thinking: Why would he care who his position coach is? Especially since he’s one of the best in the game, does it make a difference?
Now flash forward to a new book I’ve been reading, A Leaders Legacy by Kouzes and Posner. Kouzes and Posner conducted massive research to write the book and it’s predecessor, The Leadership Challenge. One of the most interesting findings of their research was that the most important leader in any organization to the staff wasn’t the CEO, it was THEIR DIRECT SUPERVISOR.
When you think about it you know it’s true. Most people don’t see the big boss every day and their environment isn’t directly affected on a minute by minute basis by some unknown vice president. But if they have a supervisor that is a good leader, or more commonly a bad leader, they feel it every day. No wonder Brett Favre was bummed about losing his coach- that was the person who most directly affected his life on a daily basis.
This should be incredibly encouraging to managers who wonder if anyone notices the time and effort they put into being a good leader. Conversely, it should be a wake up call to bad manager who make excuses for why they are not doing what they need to do.
To quote from the Leaders Legacy, “You can’t pass the leadership buck. Just because your manager doesn’t do leadership well doesn’t excuse you form doing your very best. Your direct reports don’t really care about what your manager does, but they care a lot about what you do.” ”Whatever your role in life may be, you make a difference. There’s a 100% chance that you can be a role model for leadership.”
