In honor of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Stanley Cup win, this
month I will focus my blog entry on Pens Captain Sidney Crosby…
As I read the Harvard Business Review’s “Crucibles of
Leadership” article, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Have I had a crucible
experience? Can I be a great leader
without recalling one certain life-changing event?” I rummaged through my memory and recalled several
instances of having to face and overcome adversity, but none were “intense” or “traumatic”. I haven’t experienced severe racial, sexist,
or religious discrimination; I’m a middle-class Caucasian female born and
raised in the United States.
However, I do feel that, in several situations, I’ve dealt
with prejudice and skepticism due to my age.
I remember having to convince a room of 300 people to vote for me (a
high school freshman)—instead of my high school junior opponent—to represent
them on an organization’s statewide board.
Then, once elected, I was challenged to prove my worth and earn respect
from the older members (and when it’s high school, one or two years really do
matter…). I repeated that process again
the next year in a room of 3,000 people to be the youngest member on the
organization’s international board. And I
repeated it again when I interviewed as a college freshman to be an officer for
the newly-formed Wharton Accounting Club.
I have constantly found myself being the youngest in a room or on a team
all throughout high school, college, and even sometimes now in the workplace. I learned over time to be adaptive to these situations
and have developed a certain “hardiness” of my own.
Last night I watched the Pittsburgh Penguins win their fourth
Stanley Cup. In the midst of the post-win celebration on
ice, several players were interviewed by reporters. Multiple players praised team captain and playoff
MVP Sidney Crosby, and the words “leader” and “leadership” were mentioned
frequently to describe him. I had a
flashback to his early years with the team, when he was regularly referred to
as “Sid the Kid” and named team captain at the young age of 19 (the youngest
NHL captain in history). That announcement
drew plenty of criticism and skepticism from sports writers, fans, and even his
fellow players at the time. He had to persevere
over time to prove himself to the world, earn respect from both spectators and
team members, and become one of the greatest leaders in the NHL. Today, he is not just called a “team captain,”
but also a “team leader.”
Crosby has mad skills on the ice, and he also possesses many—if
not all—the leadership qualities that we study and discuss in the Emerging
Leaders program. However, I believe that
the challenges he encountered being placed in a leadership role at such an
early age—and the way he learned from those challenges—is what made him a great
leader. It’s why last night one of his
teammates said, “His numbers don’t indicate the impact he had in helping this
team win, or the impact he had on a game-to-game basis.”
I may never have an intense, life-changing crucible
experience like the ones discussed in the Harvard Business Review article (or a
Stanley Cup…or a $104 million contract…), but I will continue to embrace and
learn from trying circumstances, like I did when others judged me by my
age. After all, it worked for Sid the
Kid…
Sidney Crosby leadership articles:
1 comment:
Nice analogy to Sid the Kid. I'm sure you'll earn your version of the Stanley Cup.
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