The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership

by Sam Walker

The “strange” thing about Hackman’s four rules, as he put it, was what they didn’t include. There was nothing in there about a person’s personality, or values, or charisma. There was no mention whatsoever of their talent. Leading a team effectively wasn’t a matter of skill and magnetism, it was all tied up in the quotidian business of leadership. To Hackman, the chief trait of superior leaders wasn’t what they were like but what they did on a daily basis. The trouble with this idea is that it makes the job of identifying a worthy leader considerably more difficult. You could interview someone for hours and never know whether they have this kind of ability until they start doing the job.

According to Gruenfeld, the research suggests that the opposite is true. In real life, she says, people often attain and hold power within an organization by downplaying their qualifications. “We gain status more readily, and more reliably, by acting just a little less deserving than we actually are.” The captains in Tier One were not poseurs. They didn’t make speeches, didn’t seek attention or acclaim, and were not comfortable wearing the cloak of power. Most of them took subservient roles and carried water for their teammates. In other words, they behaved precisely the way Gruenfeld describes. They won status by doing everything in their power to suggest they didn’t deserve it.

The truth is that leadership is a ceaseless burden. It’s not something people should do for the self-reflected glory, or even because they have oodles of charisma or surpassing talent. It’s something they should do because they have the humility and fortitude to set aside the credit, and their own gratification and well-being, for the team—not just in pressure-packed moments but in every minute of every day.

Scientists have shown that a team’s perceptions of its work and of the efficacy of its leader often have no bearing on how well it performs. A great leader is dedicated to doing whatever it takes to make success more likely, even if it’s unpopular, or controversial, or outrageous, or completely invisible to others. A leader has to be committed, above all else, to getting it right.

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, not so good when people obey and acclaim him, worst when they despise him,” he wrote. “Fail to honor others and they will fail to honor you. But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aims fulfilled, they will all say, ‘we did this ourselves.’ ”

Scholars who study leadership have done a fine job of identifying positive traits that all leaders aspire to, but they have set a prohibitively high bar. The captains profiled in this book did not always clear it. They were not abundantly talented or charismatic. Most of the things they did to help their teams become dynasties were functions of behavior and experience—of the skills they developed and the choices they made on the job. Great leaders do not need to be glamorous. They only need a knowledge of what a successful effort looks like and a plan to get there. They do not need to remind people how great they are. If anything, they should give the impression that they don’t believe they’re worthy of leading at all.

Empiricists don’t believe in the concept of “momentum” in sports. They find it ridiculous to think that a single display of emotion by a respected member of a team could produce a contagion powerful enough to upend the laws of probability. They will tell you that in a linear form of competition like baseball, a winning season is little more than a random event, a fortunate sampling of individual performances in which many players finish the season at the high end of their expected statistical range. As much as I love statistics, I knew that in this case they were wrong. When the 2004 season began, Boston’s de facto leader was the superstar shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, the team’s most popular player. By July 24, however, Garciaparra was on his way out. Injured, aloof, and unhappy, he’d become a lump in the clubhouse. One week later, the Red Sox traded him. At thirty-two years old, Jason Varitek was entering the downslope of his career. During the off-season, the Red Sox, pessimistic about his age, his numbers, and his prospects, had lowballed him on a contract extension. He wasn’t expected to be playing there much longer. Though he had earned the respect of his teammates, Varitek had none of Garciaparra’s star power. Quiet and unassuming, he kept an outdoorsman’s goatee and a wardrobe full of unsightly extra-large sweaters. He handled the pitchers well, showed toughness on the field, and never said anything interesting to the media.

Late in the 2017 season, an ESPN report detailed a growing rift inside the Patriots. The article suggested relations between Brady and Belichick had frayed to the point where either man might soon leave the team. A lot of people found the story surprising. I did not. The most remarkable thing about these men isn’t that they clash—it’s how long they’ve managed to keep their egos chained down. When new players came to the Patriots, they often spoke about how unusual the environment was—and in particular, the surprising interactions between Brady and Belichick. At team meetings, the coach liked to point out his star quarterback’s mistakes in front of everyone, then spend several minutes ripping him a new one. Just as strange was Brady’s reaction to this. He endured it. He acknowledged his screw-ups. He never acted as if he was beyond reproach.

Brady was the rare superstar, and captain, who seemed to welcome negative feedback from his coach. But that didn’t mean he was a compliant underling. Given his football IQ, his coaches gave him wide latitude to change plays, and like other Tier One captains, Brady never hesitated to push back. On at least one occasion, after New England’s coaches presented him with the Super Bowl game plan, Brady ordered them to rip it up and start over.

On an elite team, the captain will accept the occasional rebuke, but it comes at a price. The coach has to extend the same courtesy. Belichick knew Brady wasn’t afraid to rip up the playbook. His greatest innovation was learning not to feel threatened by it. Great partners like this remind me of old married couples. They know their fates are tied. They don’t resist the idea that every achievement, like every disaster, requires two signatures. Brady and Belichick understood that you can’t smother your partner with love—and you shouldn’t hold your tongue when it matters. You can’t learn to collaborate unless you learn how to fight.