Leadership

Leadership is the ability to influence employees to voluntarily pursue organizational goals. Leadership is vision, enthusiasm, love, trust, passion and consistency. Management is to pursue organizational goals efficiently and effectively by integrating the work of people through planning, organizing, leading, and controlling organizations resources. Leadership and management are not the same. They are not interchangeable. Leadership is coping with change and management is coping with complexity (Williams 444).

Paul Tagliabue has efficiently and effectively adopted both qualities of being a good manager and a good leader and will continue to guide the National Football League as the most successful pro sports league.

Paul Tagliabue was appointed the NFL's commissioner in 1989 succeeding Pete Rozelle. Many believed Pete Rozelle to be the standard of measure when considering a new commissioner. Pete Rozelle was believed to have had the vision and leadership to guide the NFL to a new level. Paul took over the NFL just as it concluded a decade of two work stoppages and the embarrassing "scab football". NFL owners began leaving their traditional franchise homes in search of newer stadiums and bigger pay markets. Paul was viewed as being out of touch because of his reactive nature, management-by-crisis style, inability to form cohesion among team owners, and his faulty public relations skills (Greenfield).

Paul Tagliabue has been able to take his criticism in stride. Not only has he effectively changed people's views about his leadership abilities, he has shown why he is such a productive manager.

If anyone has been Paul Tagliabue's worst critic it has been himself. Paul at times has wondered if he was doing the right things, and if he was even the right man to be the NFL Commissioner. His worst doubts came in the early 1990's when he struggled with the NFL Players Association on fruitless contract negotiations, and his efforts to forge a new collective-bargaining agreement were disrupted by litigation. Paul always felt he was in the right place at the wrong time. If you were to talk to Paul now he would tell you he is in the right place at the right time. Paul's leadership and vision have had positive results for the league. Paul has been able to escape the shadow of Pete Rozelle and make the NFL the most stable sports league in America (Glauber).

Paul Tagliabue has been able to do this because of the qualities he poses as a manger. As it has been stated, to be a manager you have to cope with complexities. There are three ways to deal with complexity: What needs to be done - planning and budgeting, creating arrangements of people to accomplish an agenda - organizing and staffing, and ensuring people do their jobs - controlling and problem solving (Williams 444).

Paul Tagliabue also posses the qualities to be a great leader, a leader copes with change. The three ways to cope with change are: What needs to be done - setting a direction, creating arrangements of people to accomplish an agenda - aligning people, and ensuring people do their jobs - motivating and inspiring (Williams 445).

Over the years Paul has managed many complexities, the implementation of free agency and the salary cap being the recent. Paul met strong resistance from the owners

for the ideas. The owners were angered that such an idea would be brought to the table. The idea that owners in big market cities making big market money would be on the

same playing level as the smaller market teams. Owners were worried that they would lose their marquee players looking for a better deal. What about team cohesion? Instead of the same guys staying year after year you would have to worry about mixing and matching just to get a team on the field. What about the "hometown hero's"? Would the love of the city be enough to keep them? Some of these things did happen, but not to the degree the owners thought it would. What did happen was as competition got better the game also got better. Players that struggled on one team were able to move to another and succeed. Teams that were poor a year earlier, were competitive the next. Free agency allowed small markets to be competitive which made it great for the fans, cities and the NFL community as a whole. Much the same can be said about the salary cap. By implementing a salary cap owners in the small markets could be competitive when luring in new talent. Instead of players being paid because of their name, you were having players getting paid for their performance. Paying for performance made the game exciting to watch. The salary cap also made it feasible for a team that did poorly the year before to go out and afford new talent to turn the team around the following year. These two decisions were made in 1992, when Paul and others had been questioning his abilities. Paul was able to manage the complexity of the idea with few believers and turn the majority who were against him and his ideas into believing this was what was best for the NFL to stay successful. Paul Tagliabue was able to accomplish this because he

planned and organized and solved the problems before they arose. He met objection at first but was able to win over the owners in the end (Glauber).

Paul Tagliabue became a great leader during an unfortunate disaster. Due to the Sept 11 attacks should the NFL play it's regular scheduled games?