Menu
Opinion

Forum: Leadership traits from Gen. Martin Dempsey

“I do whatever Nina King tells me to do,” Gen. Martin Dempsey said with a laugh. It was early one morning this month and Dempsey was chatting with me and my colleague Michael Smith via video conference from his home office in North Carolina. As we both thanked him for his time, he playfully tossed out that King, Duke University’s senior deputy director of athletics, had suggested he speak to leaders in intercollegiate athletics as part of Sports Business Journal’s annual conference produced with Learfield IMG College. Dempsey, whose 41 years of military service included a term as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2011-15, teaches leadership and public policy at Duke, while also serving as chairman of USA Basketball. During a tour de force 30 minutes, the 68-year-old product of Jersey City shared his principles on successful leadership, attributes of poor leadership and the power of humility.

TRAITS OF SUCCESSFUL LEADERS: “Leaders have to be deeply committed to continuing to learn. Because one of a leader’s most important responsibilities is to help being a sense-maker. Think about all the things going on around us today and how we really have to count on our leaders. Misinformation is ubiquitous, and it’s hard to figure out what to know, what to understand, what to believe. So leaders have to help with that. I call it being a sense-maker. The second thing is humility. People say, ‘Wow, I didn’t think you’d pick that one.’ But if you’re humble, you’re approachable. If you’re approachable, people will actually engage with you and you’ll be able to influence them in a way that you couldn’t if you were not somewhat approachable and humble. The third thing is character. I tell people all the time, there’s so many things in the world that you would like to control, but there’s only one thing in life you really completely control and that’s your own character. The things you do when no one’s watching. The way you make decisions based not just on information, but on value. It’s those three things I would highlight.”

ATTRIBUTES OF POOR LEADERSHIP: “What I find in leaders who I wouldn’t follow is they’re not humble. They are, in some cases, a bit arrogant and therefore not approachable. They’re not good listeners. They’re not really interested in finding out what they need to find out. And oftentimes they cut corners and demonstrate a lack of character.”

FUNDAMENTALS OF HIS MILITARY TRAINING THAT HE CALLS ON TO NAVIGATE A CRISIS: “The first thing is you have to acknowledge the crisis with the team you’ve built. The second thing is that candor becomes even more important than it is when you’re not in a crisis. Because time just accelerates. It moves. Time is not a consistent factor in our lives. There are times when time moves faster than at other times, and it moves extraordinarily fast in a crisis. So, candor and consistency matter a whole lot. And then you always want, in a crisis, part of your organization looking beyond the crisis. In other words, what can we do with this crisis? How can we find opportunity in this crisis so when we come out the other side of it, we’re actually better than we would have been if we hadn’t had the crisis?” 

THE POWER OF CREATIVE FRICTION: “You’ve got to make any friction creative. So, allow for competing ideas. Don’t be unsettled or unnerved when somebody doesn’t agree with you. That’s an opportunity for you to actually influence their way of thinking, because now they’ve actually told you what they think. Figuring out creative friction was a game changer for me. In any organization or any team, if you can recognize and embrace the fact that there’s going to be friction, but convince the team that friction is only acceptable if it’s creative, if it’s making us better, then I think you’re off to the race. The key is not to let it become disruptive friction.”

WHAT LEADERS MUST KNOW NOW: “As leaders, we have to have our antenna more finely tuned and be mindful of what’s going on in other people’s lives. We have to work extra hard as leaders to connect with those entrusted to our care. Because although they may not manifest concerns and their fears, they have them. And the ability of leaders to help ease the anxiety of those around them, through candor, consistency, sense-making and humility, is more important than ever. In a crisis, it’s crucial that we keep working to make people feel like they belong to something and that their contributions matter.”

  

Abraham Madkour can be reached at amadkour@sportsbusinessjournal.com.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 18, 2024

Sports Business Awards nominees unveiled; NWSL's historic opening weekend and takeaways from CFP deal

ESPN’s Jay Bilas, BTN’s Meghan McKeown, and a deep dive into AppleTV+’s The Dynasty

On this week’s Sports Media Podcast from the New York Post and Sports Business Journal, ESPN’s Jay Bilas talks all things NCAA. Big Ten Network’s Meghan McKeown shares her insight into the Caitlin Clark craze. The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn chats all things Bean Town. And SBJ’s Xavier Hunter drops in to share his findings on how the NWSL is making a social media push.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2020/11/30/Opinion/FORUM.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2020/11/30/Opinion/FORUM.aspx

CLOSE