The Leadership Drop Podcast
This is a podcast for Pastors, leaders, and anyone who wants to grow to be all that God has called them to be.
The Leadership Drop Podcast
Overcoming the 'Disease of Me'
Ever felt like your team is playing a tug-of-war with individual egos rather than pulling in the same direction? Tune in as we unpack the lessons from Pat Riley's playbook on maintaining unity in the face of the 'Disease of Me.' On this episode of the Leadership Drop podcast, we're cutting through the noise to bring clarity to the art of team leadership, where the collective goal trumps personal glory. Discover how to foster an environment that celebrates each member's strengths and transforms potential internal rivalries into a cohesive force driving towards common success.
We take a deep dive into the complexities of navigating personal aspirations within team frameworks, drawing from my own experiences and the tried-and-true wisdom of sports teamwork dynamics. Learn how to recognize the symptoms of the 'Me, Team, and Success Disease' and, more importantly, how to cure it within your own leadership context. Whether you're leading a church group, a business team, or any collaborative venture, this discussion is brimming with professional insights and inspiring stories that will equip you with the strategies to build and sustain a winning team culture. Join us for a playbook on turning individual talents into collective triumphs and ensuring that your team remains immune to the pitfalls of the ego.
Welcome to the Leadership Drop podcast. In each episode, pastor Jackie, along with selected guests from time to time, aimed to drop some leadership insights that are designed to help you thrive, whether you're leading a church, a business, a team, a family or simply yourself. So lean in, listen, laugh and learn as we drop some leadership truth, and watch out for that leadership mic drop moment. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Welcome to this episode of the Leadership Drop podcast. I want to talk to you today about a subject called how to Avoid the Disease of Me, and it really delves into the teams that we lead. If you're a leader, you lead a team. You may lead a team at church, you may lead a team at your school, you may lead a team of employees at your business, but it's really helpful to think about our leadership in the context of the teams that we lead. Now I'm a sports fan. I love this is such an awesome time of the year. I have my favorite teams.
Speaker 2:Many of you know I grew up in Oklahoma. Oklahoma didn't have any professional teams, and so I always say I was a free agent fan. As a kid growing up, I could just pick anybody or any team I wanted to. It really didn't matter, I could pick whoever I wanted. We didn't have a team, a professional team at that time in our state, and so when it came to football, I picked the Dallas Cowboys America's team, right, and so they're going to probably win the Super Bowl this year and it's going to be great and we're going to celebrate it. But it's been a few years. But back when I was a kid growing up, we had guys like Roger Stalback and then later on we went through the purgatory of Danny White, all of that and it's a bad when your kicker is your quarterback and so that was kind of the Danny White era. And then we had Troy Aitman. He came from Oklahoma, henrietta, oklahoma, so I was a big Dallas Cowboy fan Tom Landry. And then Jerry Jones Jerry Johnson, excuse me, came and coached one, a couple of Super Bowls and the greatest coach of all time, barry Switzer, the king, who coached the University of Oklahoma, went to coach the Dallas Cowboys and won a Super Bowl with them. So Dallas Cowboys was my football team.
Speaker 2:When it come to baseball, the New York Yankees was my baseball team. I could pick any team I wanted. We didn't have a team in our state. I picked the New York Yankees and it was funny because I had friends when I was growing up who picked teams like the Atlanta Braves and the Chicago Cubs. Now you might think, well, that's a pretty good pick today, but back in the day the Cubs were seller dwellers. The Braves were terrible. I think they picked them because they could watch them. That was, they were broadcast. The Cubs were being broadcast and the Braves were being broadcast on their Turner Broadcasting Network.
Speaker 2:But I chose the Yankees and have reasons for it. First of all, we gave the New York Yankees Mickey Mantle. Mickey Mantle came from a town near where I pastored later in life so I helped actually dedicate the Mickey Mantle baseball field museum. We had Bobby Richardson come speak at our church the day after we dedicated the fields and museum in Commerce, oklahoma, if you're wondering where that's at. So we gave the Mickey Mantle. Also Bobby Mercer interesting story. My dad started in the Allstate baseball game at shortstop because Bobby Mercer got drafted by the New York Yankees and was unable to play in that game, and so there's been ties all through the years. My dad's still a big New York Yankees fans. I think the greatest shortstop, really the greatest clutch baseball player in the history of the sport Derek Jeter. I named my last dog Jeter and so we love the Yankees.
Speaker 2:And when it comes to basketball, nba, I grew up a huge, huge Boston Celtics fan. I go back to John Havlachak, nate Archibald. Those guys were so much fun to watch. And then and then it got really serious Larry Bird and that great rivalry between the, the Lakers and the Celtics, magic Johnson and Larry Bird and the finals almost every year. It's such a great time and season for the NBA.
Speaker 2:What made things really interesting and in our household when I got married and we got married young in life is my wife and her family were exactly opposite than me and my family when it came to baseball and basketball. It pained me that my wife was a Los Angeles Dodger fan, her dad had spent some time in the minor leagues with the Dodgers as a player, and that my family was a New York Yankees fan. So we played almost back in those days. Almost every year it was the Dodgers and the Yankees and the World Series. And you know they had guys like Steve Garvey and guys that didn't like it all Ron Sey and of course we had guys like, you know, derek Jeter. So we were good and so there was that rivalry all during in in baseball, in our house and then in basketball. I don't understand how anybody could be a Los Angeles Lakers fan, but my wife and her family were, and so every year during the finals and basketball season, I'd be Larry Bird, she'd be Magic Johnson, I'd be Robert Parrish, she'd be Karim Abdul-Jabbar, and and there was that conflict.
Speaker 2:So the teaching I'm about to share with you about how to avoid the disease, the disease of me. It pains me deeply to tell you that it comes from Pat Riley, the head coach during the glory days of the Lakers and now the general manager for many years for the Miami Heat. But if you think about Pat Riley, he won championships both with the Lakers and with the Heat. He's been in leadership with the Heat every year, maybe on a lesser budget. They put together very competitive teams, and the lessons I want to share with you and lift from his talk are from Pat Riley, the former head coach of the Lakers and now the general manager of the Heat. Here's what he says about teams and we think about leaders. Remember how we started Leaders lead, lead teams. Whether bad teams like the Cubs and the Braves back in the 80s and 90s are good teams like the Yankees. Leaders lead teams and here, as a leader here's what you've got to realize about there's a disease that can that can infect your team If you're not careful. It's the disease of me. Here's what Pat says.
Speaker 2:First of all, there is a chronic feeling of underappreciation If you see symptoms of the disease of me. One of the symptoms of the disease of me is a chronic feeling of underappreciation from people on your team. It's nearly impossible to achieve anything worthwhile if you're consumed with who gets the credit. So if you're on a team and leading a team, you need to make peace with it now. Not everyone will be celebrated for everything they do. There are going to be things that you do that go unnoticed by the leader, and there's going to be things that, as the leader, that you go unnoticed by the team, that you do that go unnoticed by the team, and you're going to have to live with that. Find small wins and share in other successes. If you want to defeat the disease of me at this point. One of the things that I found very healthy for me is just to celebrate the successes of other people around me. I mean great job. I may not be hitting it out of the park, but you are right now and I celebrate it.
Speaker 2:A second symptom paranoia over being cheated out of one's rightful share. Riley says a second symptom of the disease of me is paranoia over being cheated out of one's rightful share. So ask yourself this question Are you consumed with increasing your personal brand over the team's success? Listen, that's not hard to see in the NBA. You see it all the time with players in the NBA. They are all about promoting their brand, their shoe deals, this and that they're socials, but they're not as consumed with the success of the team.
Speaker 2:One other thing that is interesting about today in modern sport is how happy people can be on losing teams. Have you noticed that? How happy people if they're getting paid, if they're getting their props, if they're getting their likes and their clicks and all of that, they can be happy to be on a losing team. I've never known great players that could be truly happy on a losing team. If this is the focus of your life being given your rightful share over the success of the team, little else will matter. You'll essentially have empty achievements on a poor team and fail to get recognized. Either way. That's how it works. You can be a part and a cog in the wheel of the success of a really successful church, a really successful team, a really successful organization, or you could be the star on a horrible team. Either way, you'll never get the recognition that you deserve or that you want.
Speaker 2:Another symptom of the disease of me is a leadership vacuum resulting from the formation of clicks and rivalries within the team. Here's what happens. We create teams within the team. It frequently leads to distrust, resentment, badmouthing and animosity. Great teams, in any field, have one mission, one voice and are abundantly clear about their larger purpose. I heard a guy say in a conference recently more than one vision always leads to division. I love that. More than one vision always leads to division, and so make sure you're not competing with the other vision or the primary vision of the leader. Here's a fourth symptom of the disease of me Feelings of frustration even when the team performs successfully. Listen, success is never intended for an individual, it's for the whole. But one negative voice can really drain the excitement out of all other successes.
Speaker 2:So here's a key question I want to ask you. You need to be asking this question actually of yourself how can I better fit with the specific group and what it is looking for? Anytime I go to a new organization to lead, I get to be a part of a couple of different organizations, whether some national organizations, local organizations. I'm asking myself the question how can I bring value? What can I do in this specific setting, which may be different from the other setting? I live in a setting where I am the primary leader. I'm the head duck, as people used to say back in my home state. But I live in some other organizations where I'm far from the primary leader. I may be in the second, third, fourth or fifth chair, and so anytime I go in those organizations I want to ask myself this question how can I fit and provide value for what this specific group or what this specific organization is looking for?
Speaker 2:The fifth symptom of the disease of me Personal effort mustered solely to outshine your teammates. This is where the guy, the kid on the high school basketball team, he just wants to be the high point, no matter what. It doesn't matter if they lose. He wants to have the most points. Competition within a team is great, don't get me wrong but only when it fuels everyone to reach a higher level. If effort is only put into up showing or one upping someone else, it's essentially fake. It shouldn't be conditional what I'm trying to say. So you need to look for ways to help the team level up, not just you or your individual stats level up. So how can I bring value? Again, that's the question. How can I bring value? How can I level up this team that I'm on so that it is a better team, a better organization, a better institution, because I'm contributing to it.
Speaker 2:Here's the sixth symptom of the disease of me and will be done Resentment of the competence of another. Someone starts rooting for a teammate to fail. You've seen it. I've seen it in high school sports, I've seen it in volleyball teams, I've seen it in basketball teams. I've seen it in parents in the stands, where they're like man. It'd be too bad if Joe's boy, you know, didn't make that free throw. Or it'd be terrible if somebody twisted an ankle and my kid got to play. It is truly cancerous and it can take a team from the very top to the very bottom. And what you want is the guy on the very far end of the bench, invested in the team's success as much as the guy that gets introduced first in the starting lineup. Does that make sense? So what is true on these sports teams is also true on teams that do business together. The guy at the very end of the hall, the guy in the smallest office, is cheering on and doing everything he can to make sure the guy in the corner office and the whole team is successful. We're leveling everything up. We're not pulling anyone down If we are fixated on being resentful of the competence of another. That mentality must be confronted and not allowed to fester. Here's a simple rule cheer for your teammates' success because think about this if they're your teammates, when they have success, it is your success.
Speaker 2:I played high school baseball. We had professional scouts at our games all the time because we had a really good team and we had players on our team. We had a player on our team that played at the University of Texas with. Roger Clemens was one of the national championship there. We had a couple of other players that played also at the University of Texas.
Speaker 2:My best friend in high school was an all big eight pitcher back in the days of the big eight before the big 12 at the University of Oklahoma. He was drafted by the Cardinals, played for them and the Brewers. He was amazing and I played third base and I like to tell everybody every third or fourth day when Scott pitched I was the best fielding third baseman in the state because nobody could hit a ball down there and I just went out there and I had a sandwich and drank a Dr Pepper and waited for my time to go in and strike out. But we always won. And so what I found?
Speaker 2:It would have been very easy for me as a mediocre high school baseball player. I used to tell everybody in high school I was small but I was slow not a good combination. But it would have been very easy for me as a mediocre baseball player to become resentful and resenting the competence of my very best friend, who the Scouts were coming. They were talking to him after the game. They didn't need to talk to me. But instead of that man, I learned early on Scott's success is my success. I have state championship medals in my house till today that I would have never gotten my best friend not been the best pitcher in the state of Oklahoma our senior and junior year.
Speaker 2:So here's the deal when you are among teammates that maybe their competency level is higher than yours, that's okay. You know the parable of talents talks about. You know some are given this many talents, some this many and some that many. It's not about how many talents you're given, it's just how you use what you've been given. And so whatever talents you have, use them and if somebody has more, celebrate them. Can I say that again? Whatever talents you have, use them to make the team better, and if somebody on your team has more talents, celebrate them, because the success of others on your team is your success as well.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Leadership Drop Podcast. Be sure to like, subscribe and share. In case you missed it, here's our Mic Drop Mall.
Speaker 2:It's not about how many talents you're given, it's just how you use what you've been given. And so, whatever talents you have, use them and if somebody has more, celebrate them. Can I say that again? Whatever talents you have, use them to make the team better, and if somebody on your team has more talents, celebrate them, because the success of others on your team is your success as well.