BASEBALL 101: A LESSON IN LEADERSHIP

This is the first installment of spiritual insights and life lessons generated from baseball. We'll see where the whole thing ends up in a few weeks!

Paul Daugherty from the Cincinnati Enquirer prompted these thoughts with a column on being a major league manager. There are some lessons in leadership that I have been mulling over since reading his column.

PD says: "Some managers win the respect of their players. They demand a few essentials: hustle and brains, basically. Play hard and smart. Those are the managers who keep their jobs. Others do not have the respect of their players. They ask for hard and smart. Without respect, they don't always get it. What they get is fired."

St. Louis manager Tony La Russa put it this way: "Your first responsibility is getting effort from your club. Play nine hard innings. You hire a manager to provide leadership, not be a caretaker. If you don't set forth a philosophy of how your team is going to play - and back it up whenever your team doesn't play that way - you're leaving a void. Sooner or later, someone will fill it."

What the column says that you need two things in order to win respect from major league players: "The Reds need someone who can get up in their faces and flash a World Series ring at the same time. One without the other presents a credibility gap that can't be bridged."

Kent Mercker said this about Bobby Cox: "One set of rules. It's fear, in a good way. It's respect. I've seen (Cox) pull superstars out of games for not running hard to first base."

La Russa again: "You have to come in and say, 'This is how we're going to play, this is how we're going to conduct ourselves. We have a plan. Every day, we follow it.' Do that, follow through, and players believe you know what you're talking about."

Managers all want the same two things: play smart and play hard. But they don't all get it. Those who get smart and hard from their players have two things: a ring and an attitude. That's the column in a nutshell.

What does this have to do with me? If I want an effective music program at school, or an effective worship team at church, I need two things: a credibility and character (I'm replacing Daugherty's words here). I must model what I want in students by being an example in my own worship leading and musicianship, and I must consistently call for the musicians I work with to be the best that they can be. What that says to me is to set up my musicians to succeed, with the materials and advance notice that they need and the communication that they deserve. Have consistent standards, keep good records, and call students higher.

Then, I don't need to fret over the quality of musicians, because eventually I will get quality drawn to the team that produces great stuff.