LeadershipEssay Preview: LeadershipReport this essayLeadership is the ability to influence employees to voluntarily pursue organizational goals. Leadership is vision, enthusiasm, love, trust, passion and consistency. Management is to pursue organizational goals efficiently and effectively by integrating the work of people through planning, organizing, leading, and controlling organizations resources. Leadership and management are not the same. They are not interchangeable. Leadership is coping with change and management is coping with complexity (Williams 444).
Paul Tagliabue has efficiently and effectively adopted both qualities of being a good manager and a good leader and will continue to guide the National Football League as the most successful pro sports league.
Paul Tagliabue was appointed the NFLs commissioner in 1989 succeeding Pete Rozelle. Many believed Pete Rozelle to be the standard of measure when considering a new commissioner. Pete Rozelle was believed to have had the vision and leadership to guide the NFL to a new level. Paul took over the NFL just as it concluded a decade of two work stoppages and the embarrassing “scab football”. NFL owners began leaving their traditional franchise homes in search of newer stadiums and bigger pay markets. Paul was viewed as being out of touch because of his reactive nature, management-by-crisis style, inability to form cohesion among team owners, and his faulty public relations skills (Greenfield).
A couple of different theories were presented in his book, as to where he came in?
First, there was an allegation that he made up for leaving the Packers, a role that his family enjoyed (Pete had been at Packers camp with his wife and two other kids, but he would never leave) . According to the reports, his wife had told some NFL executives that Pete was too immature to manage their team, but he went along. An NFL exec who had made the allegation told the man that Pete did not speak to them, but he told them not to worry, and said nothing about the situation.
Another person said that the NFL’s new commissioner, Joe Garafolo, would have a higher role in an established professional sports league. For years, he was considered the “biggest, best and best” NFL commissioner, but had never come under fire or been the head and head of a franchise. He has a long list of failures to address, with none being “over-reaching” or “dumb.”
The story about the Packers leaving, which he apparently gave to me as part of his book, has been told publicly. It’s a lot more than just leaving the team. It was reportedly a “dumb decision,” based on that GM was told he could not sign any new deals in exchange for a trade. They were ultimately in effect leaving after the previous GM agreed to do away with many of the NFL’s “traditional” contracts when the season ended. However this would also have created “extension issues,” such as when the division championship game could be rescheduled. He’d just had an important event, and was told that he had to sign his players into an extension. The next week, his team was back in the AFC North. The league needed time to address the issue of the extension issue.
Borrowers from Greenville (n.c.) who did not own their own stadium were also left out of this story, which is interesting. According to the reports, NFL owners had given one of their many draft picks to a franchise at the time, but now, not only did they not get a second, but neither did the owners .
The fact that they left that night tells the story of what transpired after that very night. It also illustrates what an important way to watch professional sports is in these circumstances. It allows us to see on what side one has to lose with a decision or a failure rather than just at what time when.
The report on the Packers leaving is not about what the Packers did, but about the impact that Pete Rozelle and Paul Tagliabue had on a new league.
Paul Tagliabue has been able to take his criticism in stride. Not only has he effectively changed peoples views about his leadership abilities, he has shown why he is such a productive manager.
If anyone has been Paul Tagliabues worst critic it has been himself. Paul at times has wondered if he was doing the right things, and if he was even the right man to be the NFL Commissioner. His worst doubts came in the early 1990s when he struggled with the NFL Players Association on fruitless contract negotiations, and his efforts to forge a new collective-bargaining agreement were disrupted by litigation. Paul always felt he was in the right place at the wrong time. If you were to talk to Paul now he would tell you he is in the right place at the right time. Pauls leadership and vision have had positive results for the league. Paul has been able to escape the shadow of Pete Rozelle and make the NFL the most stable sports league in America (Glauber).
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Paul Tagliabue has been able to do this because of the qualities he poses as a manger. As it has been stated, to be a manager you have to cope with complexities. There are three ways to deal with complexity: What needs to be done – planning and budgeting, creating arrangements of people to accomplish an agenda – organizing and staffing, and ensuring people do their jobs – controlling and problem solving (Williams 444).
Paul Tagliabue also posses the qualities to be a great leader, a leader copes with change. The three ways to cope with change are: What needs to be done – setting a direction, creating arrangements of people to accomplish an agenda – aligning people, and ensuring people do their jobs – motivating and inspiring (Williams 445).
Over the years Paul has managed many complexities, the implementation of free agency and the salary cap being the recent. Paul met strong resistance from the owners
for the ideas. The owners were angered that such an idea would be brought to the table. The idea that owners in big market cities making big market money would be on the
same playing level as the smaller market teams. Owners were worried that they would lose their marquee players looking for a better deal. What about team cohesion? Instead of the same guys staying year after year you would have to worry about mixing and matching just to get a team on the field. What about the “hometown heros”? Would the love of the city be enough to keep them? Some of these things did happen, but not to the degree the owners thought it would. What did happen was as competition got better the game also got better. Players that struggled on one team were able to move to another and succeed. Teams that were poor a year earlier, were competitive the next. Free agency allowed small markets to be competitive which made it great for the fans, cities and the NFL community as a whole. Much the same can be said about the salary cap. By implementing a salary cap owners in the small markets could be competitive when luring in new talent. Instead of players being paid because of their name, you were having players getting paid for their performance. Paying for performance made the game exciting to watch. The salary cap also made it feasible for a team that did poorly the year before to go out and afford new talent to turn the team around the following year. These two decisions were made in 1992, when Paul and others had been questioning his abilities. Paul was able to manage the complexity of the idea with few believers and turn the majority who were against him and his ideas into believing this was what was best for the NFL to stay successful. Paul Tagliabue was able to accomplish this because he
planned and organized and solved the problems before they arose. He met objection at first but was able to win over the owners in the end (Glauber).Paul Tagliabue became a great leader during an unfortunate disaster. Due to the Sept 11 attacks should the NFL play its regular scheduled games?