Lesson #16 - The Leadership Promise

Mum parks her Mazda 1300 at the small suburban shopping hub in Essex Road, Mt Waverley, having just picked me up from Under 10 football training on a dark and cold Melbourne winter late afternoon.

The club I play for is Essex Heights, and we have a good team. We are undefeated, coached by a good man, Mr Stratton, the local furniture removalist, whose son Russell is a major reason we have not lost a game. He has an intimidating Leigh Matthews-like presence on the muddy grounds of the South East Suburban League, shrugging opponents with strength but also wonderfully skilful. He could win a game off his own boot if it came to it.

Russell was also one of my mates, living around the corner. His family trained greyhounds with some success from their family home in Maureen Street. The hallways and rooms of their house were filled with fridges and washing machines Mr Stratton was refurbishing, whilst the walls were adorned with photos of their racing dogs winning races all over the state. The Strattons were local legends, which has continued, with Russell’s daughter Brooke an Olympic long jumper, winning a silver medal in the recent Commonwealth Games.

Essex Heights was also the feeder club for the Richmond Football Club, and we wore Tiger jumpers. I was number 3.

I was only an average player, a battler, mostly playing on a half-back flank, and with such a dominant team, it was a good position to play with the game in front of me most of the time.

For reasons I have never fully understood, I was vice-captain and assumed it had to do with something other than my playing ability, as there were many better players in the team. It was the only ‘official’ football leadership role I would hold until I was appointed CEO of Richmond fourteen years later.

Football was fun, almost carefree. I loved the game, with the team of my obsession, Richmond, the reigning Premiers and dominating that season, and the Essex Heights U10s were unbeaten.

Mum gave me some folded paper and a two-dollar note and pointed me in the direction of the local pharmacy, with directions to give the money and the paper to the bloke in the white coat behind the counter. In the meantime, she’d run in and grab some groceries.

I walked into the chemist, still in my footy training gear, including an obligatory Richmond jumper. I was sans boots, walking in my footy socks. I handed the folded paper to the man in the white coat, the chemist, a tall, pinched man with a long pointy nose. He opened it up, leery, read it slowly, looked at me standing in my footy gear, said nothing and began to turn away before asking, “You any relation to the football umpire?”

Already in my young life, I had become very familiar with the question, “Are you any relation to…?”

I nodded, “Yes, he is my Uncle Frank. Frank Schwab”, I explained.

Frank officiated in the days when there was only one field umpire and six games on a weekend, all played on Saturday afternoons. Because of this, the umps were often better known than all but the star players, with Frank’s prominence growing when he umpired the 1961 Grand Final.

Before I could finish my explanation, the chemist interrupted, “You must also be related to that bloke at Richmond?” looking down at my jumper.

“Yes”, I said, somewhat defensively.

Again the chemist said nothing, the silence demanding a further explanation as if I was hiding something from him.

“He’s my father, Alan, and he is the Secretary of the Richmond Football Club”, resorting to the safety of a rote answer.

The chemist looked back down at the papers in his hands, as if looking for the next question, found nothing, took a long wet sniff, and disappeared through a door that had “Pharmacist Only” written on it.

He returned a few minutes later with a small package in a brown paper bag. He leant over the counter to pass it to me, but as I went to take it, his grip held firm. I tugged slightly, assuming the timing of the hand-over was awry, but still, he did not yield, pulling me closer to the counter. He loomed over me. I looked up at him and into deep, cavernous, wet, hairy nostrils as he spat out, “Richmond are a team of bloody thugs. Your father should be ashamed of himself.”

He released the package and held out his hand palm-up, which I stared at. “Money”, he said. I placed the two-dollar note into his hand and heard the cash register transacting and the slap of coins on the counter as the pharmacist, saying nothing, turned away.

I stood there for a moment, alone, feeling the tears well, before summoning the courage to reach up and collect the change.

Mum was waiting in the car. I gave her the package and the change.

“Are you OK?” she asked, looking at my ruddy face.

“Yes”, I said. “I am just a bit tired from training”.

She backed the car out into Essex Road, and we drove home.

This moment changed my relationship with the game. It would never be the same.

The question “Are you any relation to…?” and my response had unambiguously been one of pride and joy. I had seen another side of the game, its anger, nastiness and ugliness.

It was like learning my father was a member of a crime family, and I hadn’t known for sure but suspected something. In reality, it was hidden in plain sight, the language used and acts celebrated, not just the marks taken and goals kicked by the team’s many star players. In the minds of the Richmond Football Club and the leaders at the club, including my father, notions of ‘fair play’ were thought antiquated, a game played by also-rans in this take-no-prisoners competition.

Pure intimidation was at the heart of the Richmond playbook, and this psyche was not restricted to the field of play; it permeated every aspect of the club. They sought opportunities to hold power over people, opposition clubs, and the competition itself. There were lashings of ego in all of this, and often the worst part of it.

As a boy, my experiences with the game broadened me in ways that perhaps it should not have, the way people responded to it, both sides of the coin, the best and worst of human behaviour, the way it indulged some, and in the same conversation left others bereft. But these same experiences also narrowed me so that I somehow sensed my childhood experience would be the basis by which I judged the potential of any other effort or ambition in my life and still do almost fifty years later.

It is impossible to have a conversation about leadership without talking about power.

As leaders, we have a choice. It seems easy as I write these words, but it is nuanced and only tested in moments, those times when things go awry, particularly when it comes to establishing standards and expectations, and when behaviours, yours and others, do not align.

It has been defined as the “Leadership Promise”, understanding that every action and word from leaders, casual or deliberate, can and will be scrutinised and interpreted, even when it largely goes unnoticed by you. Seemingly inconsequential to you but embedded in the minds of those who experienced you at that moment. The further you climb the leadership ladder, the more it is amplified.

As a leader, people do not experience your intentions; they experience your behaviours. How you make them feel, to elevate and inspire, by not only by supporting and encouraging them through the demands of their work but also when trying to stretch and grow them, when you glimpse potential and possibilities they are yet to see in themselves.

This is the leadership promise, only tested when forced to choose your leadership style or your response to a situation.

The choice is holding power over someone, leveraging fear or apprehension to intimidate and force an outcome and increase your position of power, versus power in some other form, from a place of empathy, decency and generosity, to build connection and expand possibility.

Growing up and then taking on leadership at a young age, I often missed this nuance. I assumed leadership to be a matter of holding power over people, and this was the expectation I created for myself, but it felt like I was wearing a suit tailored for some other person.

I was playing someone else’s game.

No doubt there were leaders of this era whose only game was one of power, a combination of authority and personality. For them, leadership was easy and obvious, and they were often lauded for it, the euphemistically described ‘hard arse’, when really they were one-trick-ponies, playing a game that suited their narrow offering. They still exist, but increasingly they are found out and called out as contemporary leadership, and its many expectations exposes their limited playbook.

You will recognise the type. They have status and perhaps some charisma, and when entering a room or meeting them, your first reaction is to feel good about them. But soon, you realise they make no effort to make you feel good about you, in fact, it is the opposite, using whatever means they have to hold power over you.

I was recently reminded of something I said a little while back by my friend Nancy Bugeja when speaking about the idea and importance of everyday heroes. She wrote it down. I am glad she did because I’d forgotten, and it describes this expectation.

“There are people you meet, and you feel good about them. Then there are people you meet, and you feel good about you. The feel good about you people, their goal is to keep you feeling good about you, and in return, you feel good about them. The pattern is set, and it will often last a lifetime. It is a relationship of care, not convenience.”

In building my own leadership game, I had also missed the subtlety of those leaders who could hold power over you but did not recognise that they were also giving it back, often in spades.

As a young man finding my feet in the game and as a leader at the Melbourne Football Club, I had the daily experience of working with and around Ron Barassi.

The Barassi temperament never deceived his disposition. It was there for all to see, and it was rarely moderate.

Being around Barassi was unrelenting, exhausting, at times, perplexing, but as I now reflect, also energising. Yes, he was uncompromising. The demands he made of those he needed to match his expectations, to find something, the willpower required to do the common things uncommonly well.

But for every withdrawal he made from your energy bank, he also made deposits of love, care and a deep interest in who you are and what you could be. He had seen something in me that I had yet to see in myself, and doubt I ever would have, and he was now providing a pathway. It was not an easy road he was asking me to take, and with Barass, they never were, but he would be with me all the way, particularly when I doubted myself or made compromises.

A relationship with Ron was one of constant deposits and withdrawals, hour by hour, day by day, year by year, and this was not for everyone, but it was for me.

“Time to buckle up, young fella”, I remember telling myself.

For all the power of his status and personality, Barass was a ‘power to’ leader who kept the leadership promise.

It takes courage to face the truth about ourselves.

The leadership promise talks to authenticity, the most overused word in the modern leadership lexicon.

Yes, leadership demands authenticity, but authenticity is an outcome.

Authenticity requires vulnerability, and there is no vulnerability without bravery.

In times like these, we don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are.

You cannot lead through control. As counterintuitive as it might seem, to gain influence, you must surrender control.

Vulnerability precedes trust; it doesn’t follow it.

The bridge we must cross.

So how do you develop the leadership promise?

Start by asking yourself:

Can I fulfil the Leadership Promise?

• By doing my part as a leader right, so we can have the best chance to experience that fulfilling moment (define and describe what the fulfilling moment is for your team and/or organisation):

  • Modelling the calm, courage and compassion, consciousness and character that I expect from those around me.

  • Doing the right thing, even when it’s hard.

  • Tapping the collective wisdom, creativity, imagination, capability and potential of this group/team/organisation.

  • Scaling leadership by developing better leaders.

• By having a deeply meaningful, fun and impactful journey together in this special team/organisation.

  1. Creating an “Us Story” to believe and belong, purpose and performance, vision-driven and values-based.

  2. Embedding a sense of belonging, individuals of character, capability and connection.

  3. Stirring the souls of those so personally invested in it, who have aligned their careers to my leadership.

• By being a good ancestor, leaving a legacy.

  1. Being a steward of the future, the shoulders on which future generations will stand.

  2. Planting trees that I will likely never see grow nor enjoy their fruit.

  3. Leaving the jersey in a better place

If not for my mistakes, failures, and setbacks, I have no message worth sharing with you.

The times when you truly learn about who you are and who you are capable of becoming.

I share these stories, and people share them back. Trust forms, and when people talk about the experiences that define them, they inevitably refer to a time of struggle.

The time they went inwardly deep, to outwardly grow.

The world constantly reminds us that we might not entirely be who we thought we were, and as painful as it is, we are somehow grateful.

We find wisdom.

Such is now.

This is the leadership promise.

PS. By the way, the Under 10s went through the season undefeated, but the Glen Waverley Rovers beat us in the Grand Final. Still hurts, but the Tigers won the Premiership!

Play on!

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