Leadership Lessons from Team Sports

Last night’s Super Bowl, featuring the Kansas City Chiefs vs. the Philadelphia Eagles, both with a regular season record of 14-3, was an epic matchup between the top two teams in the NFL, with the top quarterbacks in the game. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes was selected the league’s Most Valuable Player, and his squad fielded the top offense in the league. The Eagles, led by Jalen Hurts, had the second best offense, and the very top defense.

As with the World Cup soccer final in 2022, last night’s game was a battle to the very finish. The first half was dominated by the Eagles. At half-time, the score was 24 – 14 in favor of Philadelphia. But Mahomes and his team roared back in the second half, carrying the momentum and the lead through most of the fourth quarter, until Jalen Hurts, who broke the Super Bowl record for the most yards rushed by a quarterback (70), scored three touchdowns, and passed for 300 yards, tied the game with a two-point conversion with 5:15 to go in the fourth quarter.

But Mahomes and the Chiefs held on to the ball for most of the remainder of the game, positioning themselves for a field goal with just seconds left, which gave them a three-point victory, 38-35.

The Redeem Team

For me, as great as American football is, the team sport that is most like jazz music is basketball. And since jazz inspires the business that powers this blog, the Jazz Leadership Project, a recent documentary on arguably the greatest U.S. basketball team in the Olympics inspires the remainder of the post.

Am I referring to the vaunted Dream Team of the 1992 Olympic Games, with a roster for the ages: Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen, Karl Malone, Clyde Drexler, Patrick Ewing, and others from the Magic-Bird-Jordan era of NBA basketball?

No.

The 2008 U.S. team was called the “Redeem Team” because in the 2004 Olympics the U.S. lost in the semifinals, ending United States dominance in basketball. Unlike the Dream Team, which enabled U.S. basketball to become a global phenomenon, the 2008 team truly prepared and played for national pride.

Sports, like life, isn’t only about the thrill of victory. There are lessons in the agony of defeat too.

What are the lessons of the 2004 U.S. Olympic team?

Pepe Sanchez, a star player on the Argentina team that bested the U.S. 89-81, explained: “In terms of individual players, [the U.S.] is the best. But it’s a team sport. You play five-on-five, not one on one.”

Following the Dream Team’s decimation of opponents in 1992, the U.S. team’s dominance continued in 1996 and 2000. Yet by the late 1990s, players from around the world began to be selected to perform in the NBA, the world’s biggest stage for basketball. The 2004 U.S. team was also defeated by lack of team cohesion.

Close to a dozen of the top players in the NBA opted not to play in the 2004 Olympics. Security concerns after the attack on the World Trade Center and U.S. military reprisals overseas was one reason some decided against playing. Another factor for others was that they had been-there-done-that already.

The NBA filled the 2004 roster with veterans like Tim Duncan, Stephon Marbury, and Allen Iverson, but rounded the team out with some of the rising young stars of the time: Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, and LeBron James. The younger players came to the Olympic camp three weeks before the start of the games.

Carmelo Anthony recalled that it was as if they threw the players out there and said “Bring us back the gold. But there was no team culture.”

Individual excellence is a foundational principle for high-performance in sports, music, and other group activities. But a culture is based on shared values, shared goals, and the chemistry developed through practicing and performing together in the heat of battle and the pressure of the moment, over time.

Team 2004 lacked the continuity, chemistry, sense of shared leadership and ensemble mindset to beat the hungrier international teams such as Puerto Rico and Argentina, who had been influenced by NBA basketball and had been playing together as a national team, preparing for just that moment.

U.S. Team 2008 was a different story. Why?

1. The embarrassment and derision that the 2004 U.S. team experienced after bringing home the Bronze medal stung. It was time to revamp and rebuild.

2. Team USA brought in Jerry Colangelo to run the entire operation. He had built several successful NBA franchises since the mid-60s. After selling the Phoenix Suns he was asked to build the Redeem Team. “No more committees. I’ll pick the coaches, I’ll pick the players,” he said.

3. Colangelo spoke with legendary basketball coach Dean Smith, who told him that there was one man for the job of head coach, a man “who has the respect of all the players, he stands alone, he’s the only one”: Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski) of Duke University, the first repeat national champion in college basketball.

4. Coach K and Colangelo put a team together and had the players make a commitment to prepare for the 2008 Olympics by committing each summer to preparation. LeBron James: “They made it clear: if you want to be a part of this, you have to commit three summers.”

Lessons: executive leadership sets the tone and the expectations. The vision and goals were clear: win the 2008 U.S. Olympics. But operationalizing the vision required Colangelo and Coach K to design a plan and select the best players they could to enact the plan.

5. In 2006, at training camp in Las Vegas, Coach K told the players—LeBron, Dwayne Wade, Jason Kidd, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Carmelo, Chris Paul, et al., that basketball was no longer just a U.S. game, it’s the world’s game. Therefore, the other teams must be respected and not taken for granted. So the concept was one of building a “national team” through consistent practice to get on the same page.  

6. Coach K told them that he wanted their egos and pride of accomplishing what they had in NBA basketball. “You have to give me the egos that you have, in your current basketball teams—bring them to this team. And put them under one ego umbrella.” The players jibed together in practice and developed a great team spirit by spending a month together, playing cards, laughing and joking for the serious play at hand.

7. Coach K, a West Point grad, brought U.S. military leaders and men who had lost limbs and eyes serving their country, to speak with the players. This was the “serious” dimension. The concept of “selfless service,” working toward a goal larger than just individual glory, helped to bolster the players sense of national mission by opening their hearts.

8. Bounce back from adversity. In the 2006 FIFA World Championship of national basketball, the U.S. was defeated by Greece, who used a high pick-and-roll strategy, which was the predominant style of play in the NBA. They took yet another bronze. LeBron said it just wasn’t the right time.

9. Incorporate other team members into fold. The style of international basketball was different, with different rules than in the NBA. Coach K thought that bringing a player with international experience in the Olympics would be helpful. Who?

Kobe Bryant. Kobe was at a low point of his career, in terms of reputation around the league, having run off Shaq from the Lakers. He’s also a loner, and hadn’t ingratiated himself with the other players. But Kobe’s dedication, work ethic, and willingness to sacrifice for his team set the example for the whole squad. In the very first practice, he dived for loose balls and played intense defense. When other guys were out socializing, and came back at 5:30 am, they ran into Kobe when they returned; Kobe was going to lift weights and work out at the gym. Within days, the rest of the team were doing the same.

10. Swing and flow amid antagonistic cooperation. In the final game of the 2008 Olympics, the U.S. faced Spain, an excellent international team, who fought and fought until the very end. But Kobe and LeBron had both put their egos into the “umbrella ego,” and the other players, for instance, Dwayne Wade, were ready to contribute their best. After LeBron and Kobe got into foul trouble early, D-Wade came off to the bench and rose to the occasion. The USA 2008 team brought home the gold!