‘The Character to Compete’

“You will behave yourself in, or you will behave yourself out. The choice is yours.”

The role of leaders is to create the conditions that get the best from a group with all of its idiosyncrasies. No team is the same and will always require something different from its leaders.

Does your team understand (and believe in) what they are collectively trying to do, and are they profoundly motivated by this potential and making measurable progress towards its achievement? Do they understand their role, and those of their teammates, in this?

Our next guest on ‘In the Arena’ is Todd Viney, who has seen it all. An outstanding 233 game playing career at the Melbourne Football Club, he was Captain, won Best and Fairests, an All Australian blazer, played in a Grand Final, and was selected in their Team of the Century. In my view, he was the fiercest competitor of his generation. But then again, I am a tad biased, having recruited Todd to the Demons from the Sturt Football Club in South Australia all those years ago after he converted to football at age 18 from playing tennis on the world circuit.

It is quite a story.

As CEO of Melbourne FC twenty-five years later, I recruited Todd Viney back to the club. We needed what Todd brought: the ‘character to compete’. Whilst never the plan, he would be required to step up as interim Senior Coach, but the real reason we recruited him was to build the playing list. This he would do, focusing on character and competitiveness as much as talent, and he and his astute recruiters, led by Jason Taylor, would accumulate enough talent to take the Demons to their first Premiership in 57 years in 2021.

My firm belief is that ‘effort’ can be coached, but not in the shouting, red-faced, vein-popping, finger-pointing ‘try harder’ cliche of coaching, so often the expectation. As with all things leadership, the process is complex and nuanced, and will ultimately be the difference maker.

The prevailing belief, so it seems, is that great leaders can ‘extract’ performance from a group, and there is some truth in this. We all need a hurry-up from time to time. But this practice must be used sparingly to retain its impact and value, for it will have diminishing returns.

In my experience, great leaders have the capacity to ‘unlock’ performance from both the individual and the team, often by recognising capability and opportunity they are yet to see in themselves, and then by providing a pathway to achieve it.

Todd Viney is an unlocker.

Play On!

Cam