Academia keynote deck from Dr. Simon Taggar, Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University. Leadership Lessons From Sports seminar held Apr 29, 2019. Location: the floor of the Mattamy National Cycling Centre (Velodrome), in Milton, Ontario, Canada. This event is brought to you by the Town of Milton and the Milton Education Village Innovation Centre and produced by SiliconHalton.com. www.miltoninmotion.com

1. Debunking the "great man" fallacy: Shared leadership,
person-team fit and passion

2. Debunking the "great man" fallacy: Shared leadership,
person-team fit and passion
Gender Norms

3. Debunking the "great man" fallacy: Shared leadership,
person-team fit and passion
Gender Norms
Mindfulness

4. Debunking the "great man" fallacy: Shared leadership,
person-team fit and passion
Gender Norms
Mindfulness
Creativity

5. Debunking the "great man" fallacy: Shared leadership,
person-team fit and passion
Similarity
Complementarity
Gender Norms
Mindfulness
Creativity
Person-team fit

6. Debunking the "great man" fallacy: Shared leadership,
person-team fit and passion
Similarity
Complementarity
Gender Norms
Mindfulness
Creativity
Person-team fit
Teams – collective

7. Teams
2004 Olympic games in
Athens - Team USA sputtered
to a bronze medal, suffering
humiliating losses in the
process.

8. A monumental collection of talent doesn't guarantee
ultimate success
2012-13 Los Angeles Lakers
Stars - Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, Kobe
Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Metta World Peace.
•Reached the playoffs as the seventh seed in the
West before being swept by the San Antonio
Spurs in the first round.

9. A monumental collection of talent doesn't guarantee
ultimate success
2011 Philadelphia Eagles
Stars - Nnamdi Asomugha, Jason Babin,
Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Ronnie Brown,
Michael Vick, DeSean Jackson, LeSean McCoy,
and Asante Samuel.
•Lost four of their first five games and were 4-8 on
Dec 1.

10. A monumental collection of talent doesn't guarantee
ultimate success
2004 New York Yankees
2003-04 Los Angeles Lakers
1980 U.S.S.R. Olympic ice hockey team
Is leadership the issue?

11. Hierarchical structure
Leader
Coaches
Captains
•Sports team
President
and VPs
•Business teams
Founder
and TMT
•New venture teams

12. More central positions (on the field)
A longer playing time
A higher task competence
A longer team tenure
A stronger social connectedness with teammates
Coaches
Captains
•Sports team
President
and VPs
•Business teams
Founder
and TMT
•New venture teams

13. The manner in which the leader comes to power —
whether formally designated or emerging is unimportant
in comparison to the behaviors of the leader

14. Better leaders….
Fit
Set
norms
Mission
Vision
Visibleperformance
outcomes

15. Dwane Casey
Fired two days after being named the NBA’s
Coach of the Year and following a season that
saw Toronto win the No. 1 seed in the Eastern
Conference.
Fired after resurrecting the Bulls. Fired after a 50-
32 season that ended with a six-game second-
round loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Tom Thibodeau (Chicago Bulls)
Common wisdom

16. Mike Brown (Cleveland Cavaliers)Tom Coughlin (New York Giants)
Terry Francona
(Boston Red Sox)

17. Your fired!

18. Your fired!
• Started Groupon in 2006
• Saw the company’s revenue increase to over $800
million in 2010
• buyout offer from Google of 5.3 billion dollars
“After four and a half intense and wonderful years as
CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend
more time with my family. Just kidding – I was fired
today. If you’re wondering why… you haven’t been
paying attention.”
Andrew Mason

19. Your fired!
Travis Kalanick- Uber

21. Sir Alex Ferguson
Leadership is defined as “the
ability to influence a group toward
the achievement of a vision or set
of goals.”

22. John Wooden
”Obviously we all want great
players, but finding the ones who
think team first—that’s a
challenge.”

23. Vince Lombardi
“Winning is a habit. Watch your thoughts,
they become your beliefs. Watch your
beliefs, they become your words. Watch
your words, they become your actions.
Watch your actions, they become your
habits. Watch your habits, they become
your character.”

24. The current paradigm

25. •Leaders are tall, muscular, athletic, aggressive, assertive,
etc.
•Fortune 500: 95% male CEOs
25
“Great Man” Theory
True?

26. 26
“Great Man” Theory

27. Perceptual problems in the selection
process
Breaking out of the current paradigm

28. Gender and leadership
28

29. Gender and leadership
29
Laissez-faire leadership - leaders are hands-off and
allow group members to make the decisions.
Transformational leadership - leaders work with
subordinates to identify needed change, creating a
vision to guide the change through inspiration, and
executing the change in tandem with committed
members of a group.

30. Gender and leadership
30
Laissez-faire leadership - leaders are hands-off and
allow group members to make the decisions.
* Transformational leadership - leaders work with
subordinates to identify needed change, creating a
vision to guide the change through inspiration, and
executing the change in tandem with committed
members of a group.

31. Alex Ferguson
Leadership is defined as “the
ability to influence a group toward
the achievement of a vision or set
of goals.”

32. What leaders do

33. What leaders do
People have
expectations
Norms Behaviour

34. What leaders do
People have
expectations
Norms Behaviour
• Norms - established in the early stages of team development
• Norms are formed with respect to behaviors having
significance for the team
• Norms give rise to obligations
• 56 teams

35. Leadership and norms
35
• Leaders and staff play separate roles and thus make
unique contributions to team performance
• Taggar et al. (1999) found that the resources
possessed by a team leader (e.g., personality traits)
and by staff both predicted team performance
• LePine et al. (1997) - cognitive ability and
conscientiousness on the part of both leader and
staff were important for team performance

37. 37

38. High leader
High staff
High leader
Low staff
Low leader
High staff
Low leader
Low staff
30 35

39. A word of warning…..
Conscientiousness in Teams Completing Creative Tasks: Does it Predict?

40. Leadership as a collective phenomenon
40
Mindfulness involves a focus on the present
moment (i.e., awareness) in a non-
judgmental state (i.e., acceptance of one’s
internal and external experiences) (Bishop et al., 2004;
Brown & Ryan, 2003)

41. Leadership as a collective phenomenon
41
• Required creative strategies to maximize sales
• The most mindful team members were
nominated by their peers to be leaders
• Team’s mindfulness predicts team sales
performance

42. -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
1
2
3
4
High leader
High staff
Low leader
High staff
High leader
Low staff
Low leader
Low staff
-.2 -.1 0 .1 .2 .3 .4 .5

43. Fit
Mindfulness
Perceived climate of
innovation
Peer ratings
of
performance
SE for
teamwork
Leader
Theimportanceoffit

44. John Wooden
“Obviously we all want great players, but
finding the ones who think team first —that’s
a challenge.”
Vince Lombardi
“Winning is a habit. Watch your thoughts, they
become your beliefs. Watch your beliefs, they
become your words. Watch your words, they
become your actions. Watch your actions, they
become your habits. Watch your habits, they
become your character.”

45. ↓ withdrawal
cognitions,
turnover
intentions, and
turnover
Engagement
Behaviour
AC
NC
CC
Passion and commitment

46. Climate & Culture
SSM and emotional contagion
In other words –
one bad apple can spoil
the whole bunch

47. Fit in teams
• Individual Passion
- Role identity
- Intense positive feelings when engaging in
that role
• Team passion
- Shared sense of identity
- Emotional contagion

48. New venture teams
Intent to start a
business
Idea feasibility
Passion for innovating
Passion for founding
Passion for developmentPerson-team fit
Creative capability
beliefs
Teamwork capability
beliefs
During Program End of Program

49. So…..
1. Break from the current paradigm
2. Question four key assumptions
1. Gender and transformational leadership
2. Shared leadership
- team's collective leadership behavior
- leaders and staff have separate, but important, roles
3. Build passion in individuals and teams