Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

Leadership lessons I learned from my seat on the bench #2

Most every team has a team obliterator.

I heard the phrase “team obliterator” used this past week on a radio talk show. It struck a chord for me. The term obliterator is a strong term. It speaks to one who destroys; who demolishes; who eradicates; and one who kills and tries to get rid of all the traces. Today, they portray the Obliterator in video games as the personification of evil. And yet I sit here today and proclaim that every team has one. Let’s not forget that when I use the word team, I am describing any organization. Unfortunately, I have seen the obliterators in action up close and personal on both athletic teams and within the schools and school districts I led.

Through experience, the only way to deal with this obliterator is to eliminate him or her. You can transfer the obliterator from school to school and sadly, the result will be that the obliterator will ultimately destroy that new school too. I always believed that I could change that obliterator. I always hoped that a stronger school culture would change this person. I was wrong. Oh, I predict you will try to change that person, but you will fail. It will just eat you up and destroy more schools. Your quest will be an example of wasted energy. I am sure you will debate me about this. Your ego will get in the way because you believe you can work with this character and coach this person up to change him or her. I should know because I believed that, only to learn that it was impossible.

I can vividly recall when I had to eliminate a potential star from a team that I coached. My former players still remember my tirade when I removed this person from the team. Almost 40 years later when I run into a former player, that is one of the first stories that they recall. I think that they all realize that my elimination of the team obliterator galvanized our team and helped mold us into a champion. By removing this person, I sent a powerful message to the team. Namely, I would not let this one guy spoil everything that we were working for.

Likewise, when I was unsuccessful in eliminating some obliterators from the workplace, I sent the exact opposite message. However, for the sake of honesty, I must state the obvious, that eliminating a player from a team is a great deal easier than eliminating a poisonous tenured teacher from a school district.

Instead, I would choose the course of transferring this person, hoping this transfer would send the right message to the obliterator and maybe with the optimistic hope that a new environment would change him or her. Instead, the obliterator would poison his or her new school. Subsequent transfers of this same person proved my point all over again. The person never changed and only degraded other schools.

So, the moral of this story is clear. Once you identify the obliterator, that person has to go. I recall my rant from my elimination of the player in the team story that I just shared. I called this person a cancer. I told the team that unless this person was removed from the team, the cancer would spread and poison everyone. I am convinced that this is true. Stop spending your time trying to change this person. Invest your time in ridding your organization of this person. This person has to go or will inevitably be a constant distraction from what you are trying to do as a leader. Tuck your ego away for a minute and use your time more wisely. It will be painful for all, but I believe well worth the pain. Good luck.