🐓Chickens, 🐺 Wolves, and the leadership lesson you NEED right now
Yesterday at noon I was in a bar in Vancouver with what felt like every England fan in the city. Beers flowing, Brits hugging, all of us singing Wonderwall at full volume. We booed the ref. We booed Infantino (obviously). And when England scored their first goal, the whole bar jumped up and down like we'd won the whole damn thing.
And then, in the final minutes, Argentina came roaring back and left England out of the World Cup finals. Again.
Despite yesterday's heartbreak, I have LOVED this World Cup. Living in a host city (Vancouver) meant regular spots became game day hubs and my social calendar boomed like never before. It's been pure joy and my productivity has only ever been lower than when I had Covid in 2022.
👈🏼. here’s my husband and I watching ANOTHER match.
It's also highlighted some unique and important leadership lessons that need to be called out directly.
Okay. If you're not a soccer/football fan I PROMISE this newsletter is still for you. This newsletter is about soccer for exactly two paragraphs, and only as background to make a super important point.
Stick with me.
On Tuesday, something happened that also reflects an important shift happening in leadership. One that every leader, or leadership hopeful, needs to hear:
Spain beat France.
France showed up to that semifinal with one of the most star-studded rosters on the planet. (And LOVELY football kits. The blue, gorgeous! And the white collar? Love. The first time I ever saw their kit in a shop, I had no idea who they were. But I LOVED the chicken. It's a rooster. I know. Let me live. They are referred to as "the chicken team" in my house)
Anyway, Mbappé. Dembélé. Household names (at least to soccer fans and the French). The kind of players whose faces are on billboards and whose moves make headlines for weeks. All the pregame coverage was about their "firepower" and "star power." And since the start of the tournament, France has been the favorite to win.
Despite all that hype, Spain beat the "chicken team" 2-0. And important to the point being made in this newsletter, Spain's own teenage superstar, Lamine Yamal, got criticized for "not showing up."¹ Their star supposedly underperformed.
AND THEY STILL WON. After the match, when Spain talked about how they did it, they didn't point to a hero. One team member credited the entire 26-person squad.¹ Every player had a job. Every player did their job. The whole system won the game.
If you've read Painted Wolves, you already know exactly where I'm going with this.
(And if you haven't why not? Get your copy here: https://a.co/d/0bx3LdCK)
Lions v. Painted Wolves
Lions hunt alone or in pairs. Whoever makes the kill keeps the kill, even snapping at their own pride if someone comes for a bite. I've seen it IRL. And for all that power and majesty, their hunts succeed only about 30 percent of the time.
In contrast, painted wolves hunt as a coordinated pack of 5 to 15. Every single member has a role, down to the injured one who stays back to babysit the pups. They communicate the whole way through. They share the meal, no matter who made the catch. (They will literally overeat and regurgitate food for the pups back home. Disgusting and simultaneously iconic. A masterclass, albeit a gross one, in sharing the win.) Their hunts succeed about 80 percent of the time.
👈🏼. here’s a painted wolf I snapped while on safari South Africa
France played like lions. Eleven individual predators, each waiting for their moment to make the kill.
Spain played like painted wolves. And won.
When people talk about leaders and success, we are still living in a world that tells us, over and over, that lions are better.
Lions are "more successful." That "the star" is the point. That the loudest, biggest, most billboard-ready individual in the room is "what you have to be to make it." To "lead."
But do we?
Do the lions win sometimes? Sure. Look at Messi (just typing his name is making me want to vom), who led Argentina past England yesterday and broke our Wonderwall-screaming hearts. Messi, who, if you aren't familiar, is the Elon Musk of soccer. And if you've read my book or know me at all, you KNOW how I feel about Elon. (spoiler: it's not a good thing)
But don't forget about Spain!!!! They're winning too. Together.
The lion taking a victory lap doesn't erase the pack out there hunting, and winning, at more than double the rate. The lions are just louder. They get more "press." But as evidenced by France v. Spain and lions v. painted wolves, you don't have to lead like a lion to be effective.
And it's more than a safari story. Researchers who study shared leadership, where leading is spread across a team instead of sitting with one person at the top, keep landing on the same finding: teams that share the lead tend to outperform teams built around a single central leader.³ ⁴ And that's from meta-analyses, aka study after study taken together and analyzed as a whole. The wolves win in the bush, on the pitch, and in the data.
And look, "hunting" and "winning" work great on a soccer pitch. For most of us, the scoreboard looks different. It looks like the project that landed and made the work a little more easeful and joyful for your team. It looks like you redefining what's possible for yourself and your career. It looks like impact that outlasts any single moment of glory. The pack doesn't just win more. The pack makes the win mean something, for everyone in it.
And if you're reading this thinking, cool Kels, but I don't HAVE a pack? That's the work. That's literally the work I'm doing. What we're building over here.
Find your pack. Pass the ball. And as we were all told as children, f*cking "share."
xoxo
Kels
P.S. The final is Sunday. Spain vs. Messi. Wolves vs. lion. Tell me who you've got. (If you say Messi we can't be friends anymore...JK....but am I? 😬)
This Week's Thing
We've got 2 this week. I couldn't help myself.
Reflect on where you're still holding on to those lion leadership beliefs. Where are you still acting like a lion because you've been told or programmed to think that's what effective leadership looks like? For some of us, it's old programming that we can shed and move one from. For others, we still exist in environments that truly believe in the lion leadership model. The move you make next and the changes that need to be made depend on this reasoning. Start with the reflection.
Start a collection of leaders in your life or your favorite tv program or book who are leading like painted wolves. Take note of how they are leading - what do they do? what do they say? what are they thinking about? Start with one then keep collecting these examples to help reprogram your brain.
A Girl's Gotta Cite Her Sources
Guardian: In this star-powered World Cup, Spain show the value of the collective and control
Medeiros, K. (2023). Painted Wolves: A New Model of Leadership from Powerful Women.
Wang, D., Waldman, D. A., & Zhang, Z. (2014). A meta-analysis of shared leadership and team effectiveness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(2), 181-198.
D'Innocenzo, L., Mathieu, J. E., & Kukenberger, M. R. (2016). A meta-analysis of different forms of shared leadership-team performance relations. Journal of Management, 42(7), 1964-1991.