[August 26, 2015] Game 7 of the Baseball World Series was the first ball game I ever watched on television. My family did not own a television set at the time so I watched the October 1962 game from the home of a good friend. It was something new for me but what I remember most about the game is the Yankees manager Ralph Houk animated behavior from the dugout. Kids are good at picking up on small things, as my friend and I, and the lesson for us was that leadership is contagious.
Today, military leaders are taught early that leadership is contagious; good, bad, or indifferent leadership. Bad leadership spawns bad leaders down the line in an organization. Good leadership means great teamwork, increased productivity and performance, improved morale, and greater worker satisfaction – nearly all indicators of organizational success that’s measurable. The effect of senior leadership on junior leaders is profound. A recent Harvard Business Review article references a study where it was concluded that a “bad boss” can make you a bad boss too.1
Whether a leader is a national leader of millions of citizens or leads a small team of little league baseball players, the fundamentals of leadership remains largely unchanged. The lesson that what leaders do is infectious resonates throughout an organization is well documented. When leaders are unethical and irresponsible, the team is often unethical and irresponsible … and when leaders are good and daring, the team is good and daring. That is why we say that leaders have the moral responsibility to do the right things because what they do and how they do it will spread throughout those that follow them.
The New York Yankees (I was a fan since I can remember) won the game against the San Francisco Giants at Candle Stick Park. Houk was known as a “player’s manager” because he was a great handler of men. He was described by the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame as “rough, blunt, and decisive” and his tantrums in arguments with umpires earned him 45 ejections as a manager in the majors.2 New to the Yankee team, the men quickly responded to Houk’s leadership; his leadership style was contagious that winning year of 1962.
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- https://hbr.org/2013/11/will-your-bad-boss-make-you-a-bad-boss-too/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Houk