SPAGHETTI NOODLE LEADERSHIP

A few weeks ago, I sent the manuscript of my field guide to a mentor of mine. He is a retired athletic administrator who spent his career at boarding schools in Chicago and the Northeast before retiring to the Florida coast, where I met him. We meet every few months for coffee or lunch, and he knows two things about me. I love stories, and I am always trying to learn.

Not long after he read the manuscript, he sent me a text. It was a story about General George Patton.

The way it was told to me, Patton put a string on the table in front of his officers. He pressed his finger against the tail end and pushed. The string did not go anywhere. It curled up under his finger. Then he stretched it back out, took hold of the front end, and pulled it across the table in one smooth motion. You pull your people to where you want them to go. You do not push them.

I did some digging, because I like to know where a story actually comes from. The record says it was not a string. It was wet spaghetti. In 1941, Patton was quoted saying that if you have a string of wet spaghetti you want to move forward, you cannot do it by pushing from the tail end. You have to pull it from the front. A year later, a newspaper profile said his whole approach to leadership was built on what he called his spaghetti theory. He pointed out that plenty of commanders lead from behind their troops so they can see the whole formation spread out in front of them, and he said that is exactly like trying to push spaghetti. It does not work. That is why he insisted on being in the first line of battle himself. String or spaghetti, the truth at the center of the story is the same. People can only be led from the front.

Two Coaches

I have seen both ends of the noodle up close.

I once worked alongside a young coach who was beloved by his players. He was a little older than them, and as an assistant he was like a brother to the guys. They respected him, but they respected him the way you respect a brother. Then he became the head coach, and that respect changed. He had a hard time adjusting to the leadership role, and when the team was not doing what he wanted, he reached for discipline. Punishment became his answer. He could never make the switch from the brother-like figure into the leadership position. The team found success over time, and things came together at the right moments, but I watched what all that pushing cost him. The harder he pressed on the tail end, the more things curled up under his finger.

I do not tell that story to judge him, because I was him once. My second year in college, I went back to my alma mater as a volunteer basketball coach. I was big brother. I was barely older than the players, and I loved being in the middle of it with them. I cannot imagine being handed the head coaching role the following year. I was intimidated by the thought of having to lead. I wanted to coach alongside them, not in front of them. Standing in the middle of the pack feels safe. Stepping out front is the part that costs you something, and it is the part most of us are not ready for the first time it is asked of us.

The man who sent me the Patton story sat on the other end. For a long time, I was intimidated by him. He had built the program I inherited, and I was a brand new coach who felt like a keyholder more than a leader. I convinced myself that I could never command the respect of the team if they were looking over my shoulder at him, so I kept my distance. It took me two years to realize the intimidation was entirely mine. When I finally sat down with him, he did not lecture me. He did not take over. He did not make me feel small. He was a teacher. He taught me about the game and, more importantly, how to see it. He agreed to help my program, and he was a godsend. I followed him willingly, because he made me want to.

It took me a while to notice what was actually happening in those meetings. The man who handed me the quote about pulling was, at that very moment, pulling me. He did not just give me the lesson. He was the lesson. He still is. A mentor who reads your work and immediately sends you a story is not filling silence. He is out in front, still pulling, years after our run together ended.

What Pulling Looks Like

I have thought a lot about what pulling looks like in my coaching today, and I keep landing on the same answer. Pulling is living what I coach.

If I coach Next Play, I live Next Play. When something goes wrong in my own day, my players get to watch me move on to the next play instead of hearing me talk about it. I treat players the way I want to be treated. I try to be myself, which means a dry dad joke is going to surface every now and then, whether they want one or not. I am big on touch, so high fives and low fives have to exist. I want us to set a new record for touches every single day.

And I take the walks. I have a practice called Two Laps, where I walk side by side with a player and mostly listen. No desk. No office. Just two people moving in the same direction. It has been the most beneficial relationship tool I have ever used, and I believe every player I coach deserves one. That is pulling in its simplest form. You cannot walk beside someone from behind them.

Patton wanted to be in the first line of battle because he knew his men would follow someone who went first. The coach who pushes gets compliance, at best, and resistance the rest of the time. The coach who pulls gets people who move because they want to go where you are going.

So here is the question I will leave you with. Think about how you lead your team, your staff, your classroom, or your family. Are you pressing your finger against the tail end, or are you out front, pulling? Which coach are you?

— Kevin