In my role in Athletic Administration, I work with a wide array of smart, talented, ambitious people who have vastly different backgrounds, lived experiences, and professional growth paths. What I have determined in this role (and my prior role in the same position at the University of Saskatchewan) is each person DESERVES their own “playbook” to achieve their full potential in pursuit of being everything they want (and can) be. In order to do so, NOTHING can happen until you actually get to KNOW these people on a deeper level than “just work” and truly get to the core of WHO they are and WHAT makes them tick. Truthfully, that is the best part of my job…because I love getting to know people from all walks of life and — truthfully — who wants to spend long hours dealing with difficult schedules, challenging issues, and tough decisions if you haven’t taken the time to get to know, like, and respect your team members? In every difficult situation I have encountered, I have never “gone it alone” because I absolutely do not have all the answers and have always believed many minds are far better than one.

My commitment to members of our team is to actually “walk the talk” — seeking to get to know my team members and offering them personalized, authentic, strong leadership with humility, compassion, and vulnerability at its core. I am very much of the philosophy that I am not (and will not be) a different person at work than I am in other aspects of my life. The bottom line is you must be “REAL” with people. Plain and simple.

Having turned 50 in 2020, and in the year of covid-19, I took a lot of time to reflect on what I learned about leadership. Some context here will be helpful for anyone reading this post:

1. we were sent home from campus on March 15th, 2020 to stem the spread of covid 19. Many — myself included — thought we’d be working remotely for 2–3 months and back in time to crank things up for the Fall term. 15 months later, we are still working remotely and this Fall will look like none other before (and hopefully ever again).
2. In mid-May I was advised that one of our best employees — a true “glue person” wasn't feeling well. Initially it was thought to be gall bladder issues. A few days later, we were advised it was pancreatic cancer and the subsequent decline of our staff member was shocking. In less than 1 month we lost a valued friend & colleague. We were shocked, devastated, empty…we will never be the same after what occurred…how can we be?
3. Shortly after the tragic events in Minneapolis involving the late George Floyd, past student-athletes spoke out about incidences of racism 8–10 years earlier. The public disclosure and subsequent attention it garnered suggested we had problems that needed immediate attention, action, and results.
4. A departmental review was conducted and the conclusions reinforced the claims of the former student-athletes — there was evidence of systemic racism within the department. A terrible revelation and — although I had only been in my position for just under 1 year — it was my role and total commitment to ensure this never happens again to a student-athlete in our care.
5. the financial impacts of covid-19 for our department were massive. Literally in the millions of dollars with each passing term as we could not offer and/or deliver the level of value students deserved/expected from our facilities, programs, and people. It was no one’s fault — we were trying to do as much as we possibly could in extraordinary circumstances — but fair is fair…and I completely get it/support that line of thinking. Above all else, it is about the customer and we needed to make some very difficult decisions about staff workload and pay. After weeks of planning and financial projections, our commitment was to make changes, but not at the expense of permanently losing staff members. On that basis, we reduced staff salaries by 50% from late July to December to stem the financial impact. Anyone who thinks doing this is easy is sadly mistaken. This still haunts me to this day because amazing people / employees had done nothing wrong. We were facing an existential crisis and if we didn’t take immediate steps, permanent changes to people & programs would be inevitable.

I grew up during the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s thinking leaders were defined strictly by titles, i.e. in order to be the President of company/organization X, that person was instantly deemed the “leader”. I saw them getting there based on what I would describe as exceptional hard skills, i.e. being really good at their job, exceeding the performance of their peers (perhaps by any means necessary), and “soft skills” (sometimes referred to as the fluffy stuff) were relegated to being not only a sign of weakness but not the kind of stuff leaders were made of. (Remember this was the era of Gordon Gecko and his infamous line in the movie “Wall Street” where he proclaimed that “greed is good”).

Similarly, other leaders in the organization were equally entitled to that designation…because of their titles. How else could they be entrusted with that many people and responsibility if they weren’t in fact “leaders”. Sadly, I was using an archaic concept of leadership; a “construct” that seemingly focused on power, control, money, profile, and ego…this offered notions of what it would take to get to the top — tough, stoic, dominant, ruthless equals the only way to get there…knowing what I know now, that couldn't be FURTHER from the truth.

In fairness, while many of these individuals may have been excellent leaders, after almost 30 years working in a wide array of industries, I learned that titles absolutely do NOT define leaders. What does define a leader has everything to do with their character, their attributes, and their commitment to embrace and model L.I.V.E. leadership.

Over the past several years, I have immersed myself in countless professional development courses, publications, and books that discuss the evolving world of leadership. I have read many amazing books — many of which I still refer to — attended some excellent webinars/training sessions from leadership experts that have shaped, reinforced and developed many new perspectives on leadership. This in addition to my professional experience in leadership roles in the business of sport have focused my leadership style & philosophy around 4 core elements (complemented by other key leadership traits):

L — Love (this can — and should — mean different things to different people)

I — Intention

V — Vulnerability

E — Empathy

On my next post, I will dive into each of these pillars of leadership. Thanks for reading!