Simplify

I’ve read a lot of management books about leadership. It’s a topic that fascinates me. Personally, I’ve found confidence as a leader on the ice, looking out for other players or making sure everyone gets a fair shake. So it’s not surprising that I found myself at a Sharks game tonight thinking about leadership.

The Sharks finished the season last year with the best record in the league, but they flopped in the playoffs for the third year in a row. Over the summer, the GM said they needed to make some pretty dramatic changes. Among them, was a Captain change.

Patrick Marleau, the captain for the past several years, was stripped of the captaincy and had to endure trade rumors all summer. But come the beginning of the season, he was still with the team.

You might think that a player who was just stripped of a leadership position might struggle. But Patrick Marleau has been the best player on the ice for the Sharks in every single game this season. He’s scored 10 goals in 13 games, faster than any other player in Sharks history. He looks faster. He looks hungry. He looks like he’s enjoying the game.

It’s as if the C on his jersey weighed him down last season. He looks care-free like the kid who doesn’t want to come off the ice even though it’s way past dinner time.

It got me thinking. We can’t all be rah-rah leaders. We can’t all take charge and be the vocal leader. We’ve all been in situations where too many people try to do this. But we can all be like Patrick Marleau. We can all lead by example, face adversity with true character and push ourselves to be our very best.

San Jose has a great gift in Patrick Marleau, both on and off the ice.

I have found myself on many occasions recently trying to convince people that the sky is in fact not falling. The economy does suck, despite what Republicans want to believe. The election process makes me miserable. At work we are desperately trying to climb out of a vast valley. But despite it all, I do believe the sky is not in fact falling. Here’s why:

Not to trivialize the consequences for the many people who have lost their jobs this week, but companies do come and go. So it goes. Stock markets crash and recover. So it goes. People lose their jobs and then pick themselves up again. Many move on to bigger and better things. Some learn valuable lessons and become better people for it. Again, so it goes.

As for the election, it looks as if the same old tactics are working. Instead of having a debate about how to solve problems, we are engaged in a culture war that has little to do with politics, government or the philosophical foundation that has gotten this country to where it is. It would be easy to say that people these days don’t care enough. Or aren’t educated enough. Or aren’t smart enough. But I don’t believe any of these things are true. People are simply being people, which means we are reacting emotionally, we ignore reason, we overly generalize (look at what I am doing right now) and worst of all we stay in our comfort zones and avoid the hard problems.

But this too is all okay. Because at the end of the day, there will be a new president. There will still be 100 senators and 435 representatives and 9 justices to help correct things along with the one guy we elect in November. Hopefully, a few of those 545 people will look at the last 8 years and decided it’s not good enough and be inspired to do better and have the courage to inspire those around them to do better.

Life is full of tough times. The sky is not falling. We simply have crashed (on many fronts) and have not yet picked ourselves up again. But we will. We always do. So it goes.