Football Leadership Analogy

During a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with a former boss where I interned at while in college he came up with a very interesting leadership analogy using football.

Most of the time we think a leader should be like the quarterback, but he said that a leader should be more like the offensive line. The quarterback calls the plays and gets the attention, while the offensive linemen are the ones who create the holes for the running back or a pocket for the quarterback’s protetion, and they get the least amount of attention. The offensive linemen are the ones who show the other players the way to success as a leaders job is to show his followers the way to success and protect them from getting hit.

How many times do leaders feel that by telling where to go is enough for success and then if there is success take all the credit? Leaders need to be in the trenches and pave the way for success for the players behind them and ultimately for the whole team.

What is an organic leader

Here are some of my first thoughts about what an organic leader is:

– Authentic
– Honest
– Servant Minded

They promote:

– Conversation
– Productive Conflict
– Curiosity
– Growth

More thoughts to come soon

Why Organic Leadership

Over the past year I read many marketing blogs that talk about the idea of organic marketing, transparency, and conversations. Believing that a major part of leadership is being able to create an authentic conversation and a loyal following I saw the parallels of the importance of being authentic and transparent like organic marketing. My goal with this blog is to create a conversation with people and discover what leadership really is in this busy world we live in.