Hockey is important to me, as much more than merely a sport, because it has taught me real-world lessons.
Hockey has made me a better person. It has taught me the importance of loyalty. It has taught me about the worthiness of working with others, and it has taught me about unselfishness. And perhaps most of all, hockey has taught me about true leadership.
Do not confuse a boss with a leader, whether in Washington D.C. or on a hockey bench. A boss is often placed in charge, and might not be qualified. A true leader simply is in charge, and that can only happen if he or she is actually qualified.
The Tucson Roadrunners’ leadership starts with team president Bob Hoffman, who is exceedingly qualified.
“You can’t be a great leader without being respected, and I don’t think you can gain people’s respect from treating them badly,” he said. “You have to have that voice of reason.
“A staff watches how (a leader) conducts themselves, their professionalism, and how they act with people, how they talk with people.”
Head coach Mark Lamb agrees. “You don’t want to do that (be a bully) for sure” he said. “You want to be honest, treat people with respect, try to show them the right way.”
I was not surprised by these Roadrunner observations. I’ve heard the same winning attitudes from my hockey mentors for decades. There’s a true meeting of minds in the Roadrunners organization about this kind of leadership, too, echoed from players, to the head coach, to management.
Team general manager Doug Soetaert noted the importance of mentorship in creating a leadership style. Soetaert’s guide was NHL great Serge Savard, who became the GM of the Montreal Canadiens, with Soetaert as one of the team’s goaltenders in the mid- 1980s.
“He was very thoughtful, sincere, very professional, and he conducted himself in a classy way,” Soetaert said. “That’s the style I try to pattern myself off of.”
“I think it’s important for people to know you are honest and fair in your evaluations,” he continued. “Treat people with respect and be honest with them and you can get everyone on the same page.”
Soetaert also learned another essential leadership quality from Savard. “Use your eyes more than your mouth,” Soetaert said. Ah, yes, if we gathered more information before speaking, then perhaps we’d all consider thoughtfulness more important than insults.
But speaking up at the right time does have a vital place in hockey leadership, too.
Some hockey leaders prefer to show the way by example, from their play, but Roadrunner forward Christian Fischer prefers another approach.
“Vocal leadership works best for me,” Fischer said. “It’s always great when you have the veteran players play the right way, but with such a young group it’s good to have the guys step up and tell us exactly what it is we need to do, and what the team needs to do.”
That input has helped Fischer rack up points at a rate that earned him a recent AHL Player of the Week Award.
You’ll also find hard work, personal sacrifice, and humility in true leaders. That means you do what is best for your entire team – even the guys you might not like – not just for yourself. You must think of others to succeed in hockey. Selfishness and braggadocio ultimately gets you nowhere.
“The guys who are the most effective leaders are the guys who do the right things, they guys who pay the price for the team to win,” coach Lamb adds.
Leadership also comes from actual knowledge that can come only from relevant experience and dedication. “We’ve been brought up in a team atmosphere,” Lamb notes. “We’ve all played the game, we’ve played it our whole life, and we know the game of hockey.”
You see, you cannot fake actual information, knowledge, and facts in the hockey world. It would never help a real hockey leader, for instance, if they believed phony statistics from a fake news source.
Your personality also counts when it comes to true leadership.
“Your emotions need to be channeled in the right directions. Being too emotional, too off the wall, too critical can get you in trouble,” said Lamb.
It is no coincidence that these essential leadership qualities — unselfishness, respect for others, respect for intelligence and facts, true humility, and emotional balance — are preeminent in my mind today.
We all would benefit if more of us valued – and demanded – these hockey qualities out in the real world.
Their absence endangers us all.
