One of my greatest life lessons was when I was the stroke of the Women’s Heavy Weight Varsity Eight at Eastern Sprints. We weren’t winning, we weren’t losing. We were somewhere in the middle. It was our second heat of the day. Two boats had just walked through us (basically we had been passed by two boats, very quickly). We were at the 1000m mark (halfway point) when it happened. The voice of the boat stopped believing.
I remember looking at Addie (the stroke faces the coxswain, at the catch, the closest point to the coxswain we’re about three feet away). She said looking at the crew that had just passed us, “You let them pass us. You let them get ahead. We’re never going to get them, we’ll never catch up. All that training, all those early mornings, and you lost it. If I could pull the oar for you, I would. You’re a disappointment.” She then started to cry hysterically into the microphone.
The next year, I didn’t row. I loved crew and wanted to see if I could get the boat to move in another way – as a coxswain, but at 5’8″ and 135 lb, I was perfect for a lightweight 8. The women’s coach wouldn’t let me cox. They thought I was too technically strong to cox. So, undeterred, I joined the Men’s Varsity Heavyweight Eight and we went undefeated. We won the championships each year following. As a coxswain, I won the most races of any other coxswain in the school’s history.
It started at the 1000m mark of Sprints when Addie, our leader, fell apart.
In the last three minutes of that race, I learned more about leadership, sportsmanship, and teamwork than during any other point in my life. I vowed that I would NEVER lead (and that’s not even the right word here) or follow her example. In those remaining minutes, I learned how much influence our leaders have over the moral of the team. I learned how fragile a team can be when one person changes from us to me mentality – when that happens, there is no team. I learned the difference between bad and great leadership.
I saw the boats behind us. I saw how we were moving away from them and building our own momentum. I could feel the cadence of the boat and could tell that we still had a chance- there’s always a chance until the race is over. But our voice in the boat had given up and at that moment we were defeated. A leader must be hungry.
I still think of that day with resentment and disappointment. I believe that we could have done better, that we still had a shot. By the end of that race, my oar was covered in blood. But that was the only sign of the struggle. With the exception of Addie’s cries over the microphone, no one was breathing particularly heavily. There was no puke splashing in the river. We were quiet and defeated. All those hours and early mornings were gone in Addie’s tears.
When I approached her after to tell her that she had contributed to the loss of the race, she told me that it had been lost when we were late off the start. She didn’t take ownership for her role, she turned it around on us. A leader must take ownership.
For the rest of the day, she told us how we had lost the race for her. That if only we had been quicker off the start, if only we had done a stronger power ten, if only we had worked harder during practice, or done extra pieces we would have won. She spun it all around on us- she was perfect, we made the errors. A leader should be humble.
When I was leading my boat. I went to the extra sessions. I showed up in the weight room. I never missed a practice- no matter what. And although we had different roles in the boat, we knew what each person’s role was and what he was doing to train for it and be the best. I got to know each member of the team, not just those in my boat because you never knew what injury could take someone out, or when technique would trump power and boats would be changed. A team must know what their individual objectives are, how they’re being measured, and how those objectives contribute to the overall success of the organisation.
To learn more about what makes a great team, check out Peter Lencioni’s book, The Ideal Team Player.