If you're looking for someone to follow, why not follow the one who is sure the outcome of the journey will be positive?

In Joe Torre's book "The Yankee Years," there's a section about Derek Jeter that really jumped out at me:

What was it about Jeter that enabled him to succeed in clutch situations? He was comfortable with himself. There were never doubts about who he was or what the mission was all about.

"I'm an optimist by nature," Jeter said. "That's why when it comes to any negative stuff, I don't like to hear about it. I don't like to read about it. I don't like to know about it. I try to be positive."

Such a strong belief in a positive outcome sustains Jeter, lifts him above any self-doubt or any awareness of the consequences of failure. It is a characteristic he brought to the Yankees as a 21-year-old rookie, not a vestige of the big leauge experience he gained.

Teammates tapped into that quality immediately. If you're looking for someone to follow, why not follow the one who is sure the outcome of the journey will be positive? Why not follow someone, even a kid in his first full year in the big leagues, who stays cool at all times, who is unfamiliar with worry and anxiety?

The need for a "killer instinct"

The Lakers are 53-13 but coach Phil Jackson has noticed that something has been missing from his club in the second half of the season:

"I thought we had perhaps a better killer instinct earlier in the year, if you can use that term," Jackson said. "I'm not fond of it, but when we had a team [down] 15, we'd try to extend it to 25 and tried to take the heart out of teams earlier in the year. Right now, I think that we've kind of played around with teams at times and allowed them to stay around in games and this is one of them."

You think you're tough, but are you really tough?

Good note here about how USC's turnaround began "two weeks ago during a film session before a game against Oregon, when assistant coach Phil Johnson (pictured here) had a harsh assessment of the team."

"He got up and told us we were not a tough team and it was time to show people how tough USC was," guard Daniel Hackett said. "We did by winning five consecutive games."

"Coach Johnson is like Papa Angry," forward Taj Gibson said. "He doesn't say much often, but when he lashes out, it wakes you up. He turned off the Oregon film and just said, 'You think you're tough, but are you really tough?' Guys snapped out of it."

USC swept Oregon and Oregon State to finish the regular season.

"We took that as a challenge," guard Dwight Lewis said. "Someone saying you're not tough, when you know you are? We wanted to prove we were a tough team and we had heart."

When asked about his team's toughness," USC coach Tim Floyd said:

"They can kill you, but they can't eat you. Obviously, when you had to take the path we had to take to get there, you're just thrilled to be in this field," Floyd said. But, he added, "At this point, that's yesterday's news. Put the DVD your mama made under the bed and start getting ready for the next one, Boston College."

It's exceptional when you find a role player who's just happy to be there

Lots of interesting audio and transcriptions of interviews with athletes and coaches on the Sports Radio Interviews website.

Here's a good one from yesterday with the legendary Dr. J -- Julius Erving -- and his thoughts on how the game has changed since he played in the '70s and '80s:

“I think one of the major differences is every player to a man is regarded as, at least maybe in his own mind, a basketball star. During our era, there was a clear delineation between a guy who was a star, a guy who was a role player, and a guy who was just happy to be there. I don’t think you have too many guys today that are just happy to be there. The economics just set it up that way where there’s a star mentality 1 through 12. It’s exceptional when you find somebody who is humble and happy to be there and capable of deferring to the guys that are the actually stars.”

[Great video of some vintage Dr. J here.]

The better you get, the more you raise your standards

After NJ Devils coach Brent Sutter "voic[ed] his displeasure after a lopsided (7-3) loss Saturday afternoon to an inferior Islanders squad," a reporter questioned whether it made sense for the coach of "a team that has won 18 of its past 23 games and sits atop the Atlantic Division" to be scolding his team.

He asked, "Doesn't a squad that has lost just five times since Jan. 12 deserve some slack for an occasional stinker?"

Not the Devils. They don't expect it, and maybe that's why they have had a winning record for 17 straight seasons. The mentality is different here.

"The better you get, the more you raise your standards," said Devils center Bobby Holik, a 15-year NHL veteran. "Because if you say, 'Well, it happens,' that's the end of it. You become satisfied. 'So what, we lost?' That's a terrible way to think. That's one of the reasons this team is competitive year after year. We're not satisfied that we've only lost five times in 23 games. We know we're not going to win them all. Nobody will. But we're not happy because we didn't compete in this (last) game."

Looking for guys who have "gotten over themselves"

Good story in SI about the Spurs and how they're constructed. According to SA coach Gregg Popovich, it's about finding guys who know and accept their roles.

"We get guys who want to do their job and go home and aren't impressed with the hoopla. One of the keys is to bring in guys who have gotten over themselves. They either want to prove that they can play in this league—or they want to prove nothing. They fill their role and know the pecking order. We have three guys who are the best players, and everyone else fits around them."

Don't believe it?

Just listen to what Fabricio Oberto says. Oberto started 64 games for the Spurs last season, averaging more than 20 minutes per game. This season, his minutes have been trimmed (13.1 mpg), though you wouldn't know it from this quote:

"If I'm not playing and the team wins, that's perfect. Look, everyone wants to play, [but] everyone wants to win more."

The people who restrict themselves on time will never advance beyond a certain point

My heart sank when I heard the news about Chuck Daly, one of my favorite people and caring mentor to me and a lot of other coaches over the years.

In a 2001 article in Investor's Business Daily, Coach Daly provided some insight into his rare communication and persuasive abilities.

According to the article, Coach Daly would sell "his players on the game's less glamorous aspects, such as defense, by seeking their input."

"One of the things I learned along the way is that if you ask a player, for example, about (defending) a pick and roll, you would say to him, 'How do you want to play this?' Once he commits to a way of doing it, he's going to try very hard to make it successful. Harder than when you say, 'We will do it this way.'"

The article describes how Coach Daly "made sure he was up on every aspect of basketball, from statistics to playing styles. That's because he loves the game.

"You've got to have a passion and a belief in what you're trying to sell or teach. I spent my whole life without working, because I had this passion for the game. I was passionate about what I was doing."

"Chuck gained the respect of the players because they had a great deal of respect for his basketball knowledge," said Billy Cunningham, one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history and a former coach of the 76ers for whom Coach Daly worked as an assistant for five years in the late 1970s and early '80s.

Throughout his career, Coach Daly studied the game intensely, dedicating hours to watching games and learning as much as he could from great coaches.

"I started following John Wooden to his clinics. Whenever he went, I went," Daly said. "They used to have a lot of clinics around the country, and I got to be known as a guy that went to every clinic. People thought I was crazy. But what I was trying to do was learn as much as I could about the business.

There is no time limit on your job. The people who restrict themselves on time will never advance beyond a certain stage. None of my success came until after I was 52 years old. I don't think there was anything wrong with that process."

Said Magic SVP Pat Williams, "Chuck would say you cannot be a teacher unless you're a lifelong learner."

As a coach, he has a wonderful way of connecting with players and others that's based on a genuine interest in them.

"If you're going to coach, you've got to be one of the great salesmen. Particularly today, because your players are already millionaires or multimillionaires. So you've really got to sell them on why they have to do something and the reasons for it. You must get into social situations and into in-depth conversations to find out who this person is, what this person is all about, and their likes and dislikes. So you, as the person who is supposed to get this person to perform, can have a better understanding of them. And everybody has different things that push their buttons."

"Chuck had a wonderful ability to relate to players. They also looked at him as a father and as a friend, someone they could talk to if they had a problem," said Coach Cunningham.

Coach Daly's philosophy was grounded in defense and a deep respect for work ethic. In his book, "Daly Life," he wrote how, after studying the game for years, he decided that "defense was the answer to winning."

"My conclusion seemed logical because defense was the one thing that could be consistent every night."

And while talent wins games, Coach Daly said he'd "take a little less talent if a guy has a great work ethic, a great attitude and is a good person."

Perhaps Coach Daly's greatest gift is his outlook on life and the ability to keep things in perspective. Horace Grant, who played for Coach Daly, once said:

"What makes Chuck Daly successful is his attitude toward life. He doesn't make basketball into a life-or-death situation. He's a great coach and most of all a great, great person."

Being negative is a habit

The AP's Doug Ferguson wrote a good story about Geoff Ogilvy, who won the Accenture Match Play Championship last week (he also won it in 2006) and has won three times in his last seven outings.

After not "getting the results he expected his first four years on the PGA Tour," Ogilvy changed the way he manages his emotions on the golf course so they're not "dragging him down."

As Ferguson writes, for Ogilvy, "the trick was learning to like himself on the course."

Ogilvy says he gradually went from being "not very nice to myself on the golf course to being quite nice to myself on the golf course."

"Being negative on a golf course is a habit. You hit a shot and complain about it, and that's just the way you play golf. It takes a while to change that."

God didn't bless me with athleticism; he blessed me with intelligence and fundamentals

Maryland center Dave Neal is listed as 6-7 on the roster, though he admits he's closer to 6-6.

The only senior on the Terps roster, Neal is "a vital element and an embodiment of an underdog Terp team."

"I would love to have athleticism - just a tiny bit. And if I did, I think it would make me a whole different player," he said. "But God didn't bless me with athleticism; he blessed me with the intelligence and the fundamentals of the game."

Growing up, Neal was a standout goalkeeper in soccer, an outstanding swimmer, and, as a 6-foot-3 12-year-old, a homerun-hitting baseball player. ("He was so big that if he just made contact he would hit home runs," his mother, Kathy Neal, said.)

Despite friendly advice to push their son to play football, Neal's parents had other ideas.

"All of my friends all said, 'Why are you wasting your time? Get him into football. The kid can never make it [in basketball]. He doesn't jump very high,'" the elder Dave Neal said. "I said, 'I think it could work.'"

After a s0-so high school season as a junior, Neal had a break-out year as a senior, averaging 20 points and 13 rebounds to lead his team to a 31-3 record. Neal's father remembers when Maryland coach Gary Williams called to offer his son a scholarship.

"It was kind of a tear-jerking experience," his father said. "Dave has internal expectations, but he probably doesn't share them because sometimes they're a little high-standard."

During his first three seasons at Maryland, "Neal was relatively ineffective (due mostly to a lingering shoulder injury), averaging 1.6 points in 62 games. When he entered the game, he was often greeted by the fans to mock cheers. He was the slow and heavy white guy whom people poked fun at. Yet he was the Terps' lone player in his class."

One of Neal's teammates notes how much Neal has developed in four years.

"It's unbelievable - I came here [his sophomore year], he didn't play at all. [Last year] he played a little bit. Now he's just our center. It's funny, but he works hard. A lot of people don't give him credit, but he's a smart player."

On a typical night in the ACC, Neal faces centers who are two-, three-, and four-inches taller than he is. "Without the size or leaping ability to collect droves of boards, Neal focuses on boxing out his assignment and lets his teammates control most rebounds."

Before the Terps played North Carolina for a second time, Neal said he'd use his intelligence and positioning to stop leading scorer Tyler Hansbrough. He did just that, limiting Hansbrough to 11 points and drawing a key charge from the reigning player of the year in the second half. [Down by nine at halftime, Maryland won in OT.]

According to this article, "Neal has held ground by acknowledging his shortcomings. He fronts his opponent when he can to deny entry passes. When stuck behind, he nudges and prods his man ever so subtly, until the basket is further than an explosive power move away."

"When you're not as big or whatever, then position becomes important," Coach Williams said. "If you're much bigger or much quicker or you've got much greater leaping ability, then you can kind of use your athletic ability to play against a player. But Dave's not that type of player, so Dave has to work hard on maintaining his position with his man and the ball."

Offensively, Neal utilizes what Williams has described as "YMCA moves," because they're typically in the arsenal of rec league players twice Neal's age. His shots are based on timing and leverage, rather than brute force. And by now, opponents have learned that leaving Neal open along the perimeter is unwise. He is shooting 32.3 percent from three-point range, third best on the team.

Neal's impact has been felt beyond the box score. His teammates say he's the genuine leader of a scrappy Maryland team.

"Dave puts this team together," sophomore forward Dino Gregory said. "He puts the team on his back when he can. He's an extremely hard worker, and that shows on the court."

Says junior forward Landon Milbourne: "He's always one of those guys to speak up and tell what's on his mind and say we need to calm down or we need to get focused or we need to do this and that. And it really helps, especially coming from a guy that's been here so long and has been through a lot with this program."

Don't get upset at things you can't change

Toronto, after winning two straight, lost on Friday at PHX to fall to 23-37 on the season.

Chris Bosh, a four-time NBA All-Star and a member of the gold medal-winning Team USA this past summer in Beijing, was asked recently if the losses bother him.

"I don't get upset at things you can't change," he said. "Once the game is over ... it's over, there's nothing you can do about it, there's no reason to be upset.

To some, not beating oneself up for every loss may look to be uncaring. To Bosh, it's a matter of mental survival.

"It can only get worse and we have so many games, we have to erase everything and keep moving. That's the thing about it: I want to win the next game, so if I'm dwelling on us losing three games in a row or four games in a row and thinking about nothing but that, what do you think is going to happen the next game?

Most of the people ... they're probably unhappy. I'm happy, I'm a very happy person no matter what happens. I'm always seeing the positive out of everything."

That's what point guards do in this league

If you've noticed a change recently in Mike Conley's game, it's likely the result of a conversation he had with new MEM coach Lionel Hollins.

"He told me, 'I'm giving you your chance. You're going to be the guy finishing games, the guy starting games. You're going to be our point guard, and you have to be the leader of this team. Assert yourself and be aggressive,'" Conley said. "He wants me being a leader vocally, getting guys up for games. When he first told me all that, it was a shock. I started trying to be that person he wants me to be, and it's really helped my game a ton."

Previously, Conley had split time at PG with 22-year-old Kyle Lowry, who was traded to HOU late last week.

Coach Hollins says he's seen an immediate change in Conley's game.

"He's being more assertive. Would I like him to be even more assertive? Yes. I told him (Wednesday) morning I want him to attack more, to take charge more. That's what point guards do in this league. They take control of the game and manage the team from the floor."

Ensuring your passion is helping your team

Anthony Randolph's intensity manifests itself on the court.

"It made him slap a hard foul on Boston's Kevin Garnett and stare down one of his all-time favorite players — in Boston. It provoked him to scream at Houston center Yao Ming after he dunked on him — in Houston. It propels him to give his body for a block, a rebound, a loose ball, tempts him to take his man every time."

What he's learning is the difference between positive and negative energy.

"I've got to watch myself sometimes, that's the thing I'm trying to work on now," he said. "You've got to play mad. I'm more aggressive when I'm mad. It's not that I'm mad at a person. I'm just trying to go out there and go hard. Sometimes, I can get a little bit too excited, too amped up. I've got to learn how to control it."

Coaches love players who play with energy, enthusiasm, and passion. They appreciate the attitude and sense of urgency they bring to the court. Teammates feed off his energy.

The key, as Warriors veteran Stephen Jackson puts it, is channeling the energy in a constructive way.

"I love his passion. I love his fire for the game," said Jackson, who has dealt with a similar quandary. "That's something you can't teach. That's rare. ... He's going to have to learn, just like I had to learn, that it's a fine line between having too much passion and hurting your team, and having passion and helping your team."

You should never lose by default

From coach John Chaney's book "Winning is an Attitude" comes this excerpt:

"You should never lose by default. Too many people in this world lose by default. You know what that means? It means they don't show up. Not physically, but mentally. I'm saying you have to put yourself in the game of life. There are thousands who are losing the game of life. There's no score sheet that tells you if you're winning or losing. The only person who knows is you."

You're not going to be able to out-energize him

New Pirates pitching coach Joe Kerrigan has nearly two decades of professional coaching experience.

But it's the other things he brings to the job that his players care about most. According to this article, "it's his enthusiasm, too, that make him the right man for the job."

"His experience is certainly a strength, though he has more going for him than just that," starter Ross Ohlendorf said. "The energy that he brings and the passion with really wanting to help us out is what I think is going to make him really good for our team."

The article points out how Coach Kerrigan's "enthusiasm has already been infectious. Kerrigan arrives at Pirate City early every morning to put in extra work with pitchers. He's brought with him in-depth plans and scouting reports, as well as dummies to be used as imitation hitters during side sessions."

"You're not going to be able to outwork him," [Pirates manager John] Russell said. "You're not going to be able to out-energize him. That's the great thing he has."

Players say "it's the little things -- like Kerrigan's willingness to crouch down to catch pitchers' side sessions -- that have been noted."

"It is something small," Ohlendorf said. "But it shows how much he cares."

The article describes how "before meeting his new pupils, Kerrigan spent a week in the video room of PNC Park this winter. He watched every pitcher he'd be working with. He made notations, and with those, he built plans. The key, Kerrigan said, is spending the necessary time observing."

"Before you go up and talk to a guy, you really have to know what you're talking about, and you better be sure," Kerrigan said. "The only way that you're sure is by watching him throw."

But while the players appreciate his energy and enthusiasm, his experience is just as critcal. "For years, Kerrigan has also played significant roles in developing team scouting reports on hitters. The attention to detail, the thoroughness and the emphasis on finding unusual patterns in hitters' statistics are especially important when developing those reports. That would seem to bode well for improved preparation from his staff moving forward."

"He's a great mechanics guy, but it's the total package," Russell said. "He knows what else goes into pitching. You have to know how to get people out. You have to know how to prepare. You have to know what you're looking for. That's what he brings -- the vast experience of being able to do that on a daily basis."

Teams that are really good are very tough mentally

Had a conversation with my son the other day about playing the same regardless of the opponent. Clearly, some teams aren't as good as others. The danger is when players/teams base their output or level of intensity/focus on the quality of the opponent.

Against weaker opponents, they coast a little. Against the better, more talented teams, they come ready to play.

It's a dangerous habit, but it happens at every level.

Before being traded to MIA, Jermaine O'Neal, for example, said he was concerned that his Toronto teammates would take their "foot off the peddle against weakened opponents. The penchant to take teams lightly, especially teams without star players... [irked] O'Neal."

"The natural thought process is that the team isn't going to be as good," he said. "That's what I talked about the other day. This league is really 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical. Teams that are really good in this league are very, very tough mentally, they know what they're going to do on a nightly basis, they know what their job is and it doesn't matter who's on the court, they go out and do their jobs and pile up the wins. The team that (don't) are the teams that struggle. You have to will yourself to wins in this league.

You can keep fooling yourself, saying, 'we can get it tomorrow, we can it tomorrow.' Then it's going to be tomorrow and tomorrow and the next thing you know, it's 82 games later and all of a sudden it's the summer time and you're out of the playoffs."

Basketball as medicine

Jeff Jones is back in the starting line-up for Dave Leitao's Virginia Cavs. He started 25 games at the 2-guard spot as a freshman last season.

But this season, "he didn't make his first start until the team's 19th game. He dealt with his reduced role by practicing harder."

"Just work hard at practice, every single day," he said. "I try to give it my all and give it extra hours in the gym, so when your opportunity comes, you can take advantage of it. You got to stay positive, because in everybody's life there's going to be adversity. There are definitely going to be some down days, but when you're down, you get into the gym and keep working out. It's like medicine. It's like basketball is medicine."

There's only one pilot at a time

Tons of stuff to read on a long flight to Brazil...

Captain Sullenberger ("Sully"), the pilot who "saved the lives of 155 passengers on the stricken US Airways Flight 1549" last month, gave us all a "case study of leadership in a crisis."

[Coincidentally, Sully lives just a few blocks from me.]

This article outlines the "top five lessons from the crash of flight 1549."

~~~~~~~~~~

1. Don’t panic: Sullenberger told CBS’ Katie Couric that he immediately knew he was in a life-or-death situation: “It was the worst sickening pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the-floor feeling I’ve ever felt in my life,” he said.

But he didn’t let that fear keep him from acting calmly and effectively. On the cockpit recording, Sullenberger’s tone of voice is even and controlled as disaster loomed.

Lesson: You can’t lead from the fetal position.

2. There’s only one pilot at a time: The instant his engines cut out over New York City, Sullenberger turned to his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, and said “my aircraft,” taking control of the airplane. Stiles responded quickly and simply: “your aircraft.”

Notice what the two men did not do: They did not argue over who was in charge, or whose theory of crash landing was better. They had only one chance to get it right, and Sully was in the captain’s seat, so he made the call.

Lesson: Leaders have to be allowed to lead.

3. Improvise, Improvise, Improvise: Sully cranked through a list of options with his co-pilot and with air traffic control. Return to La Guardia Airport? Couldn’t make it. Bear right toward Teterboro? Still too far. Sully weighed the advice he was getting, and made a unilateral decision, telling air traffic control simply: “We’ll be in the Hudson.”

Lesson: Weigh the options, and then move on. Sometimes, the worst choice on the table is the only one available.

4. Experts matter: Sullenberger was perhaps the ideal pilot to handle the Hudson landing: He’d flown for more than 19,000 hours, ran his own transportation safety consultancy, and had participated in several National Transportation Safety Board accident investigations.

Lesson: Some people are better qualified than others – sometimes you’re the pilot, and sometimes you’re the flight attendant.

5. Don’t worry about public opinion – success makes for great numbers: Couric asked Sullenberger whether he thought about the passengers while he was struggling to land the plane. Sully said, in essence, no. Instead, Sully was focused on the task immediately in front of him. “I knew I had to solve this problem,” he said.

Lesson: Hesitation can mean disaster. Imagine Sully conducting an opinion poll – if asked, surely some of the passengers would have wanted him to try for Teterboro, some for La Guardia, and some for the water landing. By the time he’d decided what to do, it would be too late to do it. What’s more, it’s sometimes better to make a bad decision than none at all. After all, maybe Sully could have landed at Teterboro and saved a $60 million aircraft as well as the lives of the passengers and crew. We’ll never know. But debating the option any longer would surely have cost the lives and the plane.

What’s scary about the Sully model is that you only know if it works after the fact. Until the moment of impact, everyone – co-pilot, crew, passengers – is operating on faith. If Sully had been the wrong guy for the job, or if a sudden gust of wind had tipped a wing into the river too early, we’d be learning the opposite lessons now: Sully should have consulted more, delegated more, or listened to the air traffic controller. It is exactly the same with the stimulus.

An example of why you play the game, not the score

If you've not read it yet, there's a story in today's USA Today about Belmont's remarkable come-from-behind win over Campbell last Friday night in which Belmont scored "30 points in the last 3:27, a pace that would have had them post 348 points in a 40-minute game."

With 3:27 remaining, Belmont trailed, 75-57, only to win the game, 87-84.

Rick Byrd (pictured here0 admits there's no magic potion to apply when a team is down, apparently hopelessly, and time is running out on a chance for a comeback.

"Sometimes," the Belmont coach says, "it's just fate. The mentality of the two teams in a situation like that is entirely different. When you've got the lead, you don't want to shoot quickly, and you don't want to foul. You almost have to play conservatively with a big lead. It's a sense of protectionism and conservatism against a sense of urgency. We had nothing to lose."

According to Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, whose Hokies came back from 18 points down to beat NC State in overtime recently, convincing your players it's possible to comeback -- and having a plan to do so -- is the key.

"You try to paint a picture (for the players) of how you're going to get back in the game," Greenberg says. "You try to show them a scenario where you can get it from 16 to 10, then from 10 to five with four or five minutes to go. Getting stops is the big thing. If you trade baskets, you're not going to come back." [The Hokies held the Wolfpack to one field goal in the final 9:51 of regulation.]

In the Belmont-Campbell game, Campbell certainly had a hand in letting the Bruins back in the game. According to the USA Today story, "Campbell missed 11 of 20 free throws after taking the 18-point lead."

[Here's a detailed description of how Belmont rallied to beat Campbell.]

The three myths of leadership

From Dayle Smith's book "The Eleven Keys of Leadership," in which the author outlines the "three myths of leadership."

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The process of understanding leadership in all its human diversity begins by discarding three tired myths about leaders. These myths are hazardous because they attempt to exclude ourselves for the candidate list for leaders. Worse, these leadership myths distort the nature of true leadership.

The Birthright Myth: "Leaders are born, not made."

This myth has deep and tangled cultural roots. The widespread belief that leaders either "have it" or don't from their earliest years springs in part from more than two thousand years of literature emphasizing the role of the hero.

In the great majority of these works of imagination or retold history, the hero is distinguished from fellow men or women by innate superior strength, courage, wisdom, physical attractiveness, and virtue. The present themselves as unique individuals, and essentially mysterious beings -- "above the common herd," in Byron's phrase.

This myth is dangerous when applied to leaders in businesses and other organizations. Many of the most prominent leaders reveal that far from being "naturals" for leadership positions, they had to learn to lead, often by painful lessons of trial and error.

Contrary to the "Birthright Myth," leaders turn out to be remarkably like the rest of us, but with the difference that they know the skills and techniques of leadership.

The For-All-Seasons Myth: "Once a leader, always a leader."

Allied to the Birthright Myth is the inaccurate but widely held belief that certain people are everywhere, at all times, capable of assuming the challenges of leadership, no matter what the circumstances. The Birthright Myth attributes such talent to heritage; the For-All-Seasons Myth attributes it to character and track record.

When leaders are drawn away from their areas of strength and become overcommitted with unfamiliar responsibilities, they neither serve their followers nor themselves well. Leaders can emerge from the unique circumstances of the moment. No myth about a person's past or present status as a leader should keep us from considering others, or ourselves, as potential leaders.

The Intensity Myth: "Leaders are more emotionally intense than the rest of us."

This myth is based on the notion that great leaders feel things more broadly or deeply -- and are more emotionally intense -- than the rest of us mere mortals.

Just as the range of human emotions is extensive, so too this myth takes many forms. Probably the best known or most common is the Anger Myth -- the idea that the boss is mad and we'd better watch our step. But is anger or intense emotion the generally shared characteristic of all or most leaders?

No. The Anger Myth stems from the old belief that most workers hate what they do and must be driven by the stick of anger to put in an honest day's work. In this view, workers are supposedly motivated to do what they hate (their jobs) by the ever-present threat of explosive anger and related punishments.

The adjectives used to describe these bosses are revealing: No-nonsense, hard-driving, impatient, quick-tempered, mercurial, curt, brusque, and moody.

Although jolts of fear can electrify performance in any organization over the short term, it turns out that in most cases the angry leader self-destructs (often to the relief of bruised workers) -- and often leaves considerable wreckage -- if not total destruction -- at his or her passing.

In addition, the brightest and the best want to be treated well. They don't work for long for a boss whose emotional repertoire is limited to anger, sullenness, and sarcasm.

The Intensity Myth extends to emotional intensity in many forms. One notion of leadership holds that the true leader exudes more confidence than ordinary mortals; another suggests that the leader is consistently more optimistic than others or is more passionate about opinions and beliefs.

All such "extraordinary-emotional-state" explanations have been contradicted by more than five decades of research. As a result, the many attempts to define what leaders "are" have been superseded by more objective and successful studies of what leaders "do."

Leaders should not attempt to display one emotional facade (whether anger, confidence, or optimism), as if that front alone would a leader make.

Even at 1-23, you find a way to compete

Sixteen games in, Loyola Marymount picked up its first win of the season. Without a doubt, the 1-23 Lions have experienced one of the toughest seasons in many years in college hoops.

First-year head coach Bill Bayno, who was hired last April, took medical leave in November, and ultimately resigned last month.

Assistant Max Good, who'd gone 132-86 at D2 Bryant University in Rhode Island, took over the team, which "lost three starters and a 6-foot-9-inch reserve to season-ending injuries" and "suits up eight players, only five of whom are on scholarship, including two former walk-ons who were put on aid for their senior seasons. The Lions start three freshmen who average at least 30 minutes each."

As this columnist puts it, "This isn't a project. It's a nightmare."

"It's hellish in some respects and rewarding in others," Good said. "These kids come to practice every day like we're undefeated. Their attitude is so positive. I have to be a little more patient than usual. I can't be as demonstrative, but that doesn't mean we're not demanding. But you motivate kids the best way you know how. I don't mind other teams trying to kill us. It's what I would do. It's my job to prepare our team. Someone said it's David vs. Goliath. It feels more like King Kong against Fred. What do you do? You find a way to compete. You deal with it. That's life."