Council Post: What MLB Can Teach You About Becoming A Great Leader In Your Company

Todd Stottlemyre, founder of Koibito Poke Franchise LLC. 

Leadership is a powerful asset to build the success of a business or a team, but it’s important to realize that no one really leads from the corner office. Leadership isn’t about dictating; it isn’t about a title or a position. Leadership has everything to do with influencing your workforce with your vision — and encouraging your team to want to do it with you.

The best way for me to explain how to become a successful leader is through my experience in Major League Baseball, where the role of a successful leader is a great example for corporate America. The key to success in baseball is working together, but it’s also about each player doing their part — completing their individual role to ensure the success of the team. And it starts with leadership.

Below are three areas of leadership you can focus on to become the best leader possible in your company:

Showing Team Members The Importance Of Their Roles

The first form of leadership is spelling out each person’s responsibility to the team (or the company). In our practices, the field coordinator was key to the team’s success. Every morning when we started practice, we were met with an agenda — a road map of exactly what we would cover that day. The benefit of the agenda was to help us understand what was expected of us on the field before we even got out there. We started each practice in the locker room, where the field coordinator talked and walked us through our plays. They drew our plays on a whiteboard so each player knew exactly who was supposed to be where on the field and who we were targeting to get out.

After going through the plays visually, the field coordinator always asked if we had any questions. This gave us an opportunity to sort out our positions and each of our roles, all of which are crucial to the success of the play. We had to be coordinated; we had to have the same vision.

The same rules apply in business: Leaders need to ensure that employees understand what is expected of them and the weight of their responsibility right off the bat (no pun intended).

Upholding The Company Vision

Next, we’d take the field for stretching, getting into position and walking through the play. Then we’d jog through the play at half speedm and finally, we’d run the play at full speed. In between each of these drills, the field coordinator, the team manager and all the coaches would make adjustments and fine-tune the play and the players.

This is important on the field and in corporate America. The responsibility to the company vision must be upheld by both the leaders and employees. We all need to work on our roles for the betterment of the team — or the company.

Being Out On The Front Lines

Finally, we’d practice over and over at game speed until the plays were flawless. By this point, we all knew and understood exactly how to execute our roles under the supervision and inspection of our leaders. We were all out on the field doing what needed to be done, including the managers, field coordinator, coaches and players. The players weren’t alone out there. Our leaders weren’t sitting in their “corner offices.” We did it together.

These same principles can be applied to leaders in business when training their employees to best fulfill their roles. Becoming the best leader in your company means being out on the front lines.

It’s the leader’s job to influence their employees to execute the company’s vision, and true leaders have the ability to encourage people to understand why their roles are important so they get excited to do their part. After all, a leader with no one following them really isn’t a leader at all.

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