By Al Tompkins, Poynter Institute
In so many ways, newsrooms are like professional sports teams. We are in the public’s glare. Bosses expect quick and measurable results and if they don’t come, the top management is quickly replaced.
Like professional sports, top TV/radio/digital managers tend to move from team to team. A few stay one place for a career but many are nomads.
The sports pages, maybe even the front pages will note his sports legacy, and even his generosity, but George Steinbrenner was a bully of a boss like so many bosses we have all worked for in the news business.
Steinbrenner fired manager Billy Martin only to hire him back in 1979 and fired him again at the end of the season. Martin was hired and fired four times. Martin also fired Yankees manager Dick Howser and fired him even after the team won 103 games but didn’t make it through the playoffs.
Steinbrenner once said, “I'm always hardest on the biggest guy on the team. I feel that's the way to motivate the other players.”
That is not usually how newsrooms operate. Sure, anchors must generate numbers. If they don’t the anchors and the news directors who hired them are toast. But in my experience, the biggest guys, anchors, often are the least touched while producers feel the daily heat to "make the numbers."
Answers.com reminds us of some of Steinbrenner’s leadership skills:
“In 1981, the Yankees returned to the World Series. However, after beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first two games, the Yankees dropped the next three. Following Game Five, Steinbrenner called a late-night press conference to hold up a flimsily bandaged hand and announce that he had defended the Yankee honor by beating up two Dodger fans in an elevator. The Yankees failed to take a "get tough" cue from their owner and lost the sixth and deciding game. Before the game was even completed, Steinbrenner ordered the Yankee publicity department to issue an apology to the people of New York City for the club's lackluster performance.”
The rest of the 1980s proved to be a bleak period for the Yankees and their fans. Steinbrenner signed many high-priced players, but with seemingly little regard for their adaptability to the pressures of playing in New York. Managers were put under intense pressure to succeed, subject to dismissal at any time according to the owner's whims. Three men were hired and fired during the 1982 season alone. Steinbrenner engaged in protracted contract squabbles with one star player, Don Mattingly, and publicly belittled another, Dave Winfield, by comparing him unfavorably to the departed Reggie Jackson. By 1990, the Yankees were one of the worst teams in baseball-thanks in large part to the instability wrought on the club by its owner.”
It got worse. Steinbrenner was actually suspended from baseball in 1990 after baseball commissioner Fay Vincent found Steinbrenner had paid $40,000 to a known gambler to try to destroy star outfield Dave Winfield’s reputation. Although he was “banned for life” Steinbrenner was allowed to come back to baseball in 1993.
In the book “The Last Lion of Baseball” Bill Madden writes nobody was safe from Steinbrenner’s wrath:
“His style was even less effective with his off-field employees. Horror stories abound: firing a $50,000-a-year public-relations man three days before Christmas; reaming an aide who called "heads" in a coin toss that would determine the home stadium for a playoff game because, he screamed, "Don't you know tails comes up 70 percent of the time?" (It came up tails.)”
“After winning the World Series in 2000, Steinbrenner deprived coaches of bonuses and scouts of rings. He decided to eliminate dental benefits, forced executives to scrape gum off stadium ramps, and even criticized the inspiring one-handed pitcher, Jim Abbott, for his charity work.”
Questions Newsroom Leaders Should Consider:
Have you ever worked for a Steinbrenner-esque boss? How did that experience shape your own leadership style?
Which is more important, winning or being nice? How hard is it to do both?
Of the leaders you admire most, how many are like Steinbrenner (great record but tough on people) and how many of them are more gentle on people but with a more modest record of success?
Who can you think of a manager who both leads people in a humane way but/and also gets superior results? How do they lead differently from Steinbrenner?
When I think of leaders I admire most, I think of former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy. He coached a Super Bowl winning team, he is an author, a public speaker, a commentator and at least seven of his assistant coaches have grown into other coaching positions in the NFL. THAT is real mentoring. Dungy told his coaches they were "teachers," and he stressed the calm, no yelling approach. In his one-million selling book "quiet Strength," Dungy poses these questions that every leader might consider:
What's my game plan?
What's my strength?
What's success?
Where's my security?
What's my significance?
And, what's my legacy?
Print Story
Question of the Week - May 18, 2012