Draft Day Draft

“Draft Day,” stars Kevin Costner playing Sonny Weaver, the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns, whose dilemma - with regards the team’s first choice - is “does he pick the player everyone expects him to, or does he go with his gut and pick the player he thinks is truly right for the team?”

And how does he know what’s right for the team?  Especially when the owner and the head coach have firmly-held, loudly-expressed, opposing views?

How do you pick someone for your team? 

Need a leader?  Interviewing someone for an important position?  What do you look for?

Let’s say you’re observing job applicants as they are asked to return for a follow-up interview.  Would you be more favorably impressed by their leadership capability given they wrote down the appointed time on an electronic calendar or that they noted the date on an old-fashioned paper version – one hardly recognizable for the dog-eared, scribbled-jumble of ink, asterisks, scrawled footnotes, side-notes and arrows? 

How ‘bout this one?  If all resumes are similar except for hobbies, are you more convinced that you’ve got the leader you’re looking for if the candidate’s off-the-clock activity involves “high-tech” stuff as opposed to say hang-gliding? 

If you gave the edge – and the hire - to the hang-glider, you’re probably going to be sooner than later advertising for the same job opening again.  Throwing yourself off the edge of a cliff after all does not seem to translate well into a worthwhile investment for job training much less job security.

Besides, if you are anything like those in the study that used the above scenarios to determine leadership potential, you probably picked the gadget-guru anyway over the pencil-pusher and the one demonstrating technological savvy over the dude that would after-hours toss himself to the winds given the chance.

And, if so, in both cases you chose with the popular majority.

And, in both cases, you chose principally wrong.

“Business professionals who want to be perceived as leaders should be investing in the latest technology breakthroughs, according to a study published recently in The Journal of Product Innovation Management,” as reported by Chad Brooks, FOXBusiness.

"‘Those who are tech-savvy are also perceived as authoritative on other subjects and as leaders,’ the study's authors wrote.

In common?  Perception, but not principle.  Image, but not integrity.  As per the article’s headline “Want to look like a leader?  Get some gadgets.”

As opposed to ‘want to be a leader?  Get some guts.’

When decisions are based upon a person’s reasonably competent appearance over actual ability; if popularity trumps principle; should compromise become our default-decision criteria – choosing convenience instead of devoting and demonstrating due diligence to the far more difficult work of deciphering character - then instead of the toughness and boldness borne of confidence, and rightness the result of conviction as reflected in the pick made by Sonny Weaver (Kevin Costner), the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns, we will instead feel the cold draft – a nagging fear - on Draft Day.