Jose Maria Olazabal
Like many golf fans, I was shocked at how the United States Ryder Cup team let a big lead slip away, allowing the European team to retain the title. The European golf stars were well behind the U.S team on Saturday night but they received a healthy dose of inspiration from captain Jose Maria Olazabal. “Last night, when we were having our team meeting, I think the boys understood that believing was the most important thing,” he said.
On Sunday NBC commentators were left to speculate how the U.S. team—which looked better on paper—could collapse in such grand fashion (or how the European team could stage one of the greatest comebacks in Ryder Cup history). The New York Times coverage might have provided the answer—the “13th” man. “Seve Ballesteros, the former European Ryder Cup star and captain, died last year of a brain tumor but he had been a weeklong presence. The Europeans put a silhouette of Ballesteros on their golf bags and on the sleeves of their shirts, which were blue and white Sunday in honor of Ballesteros’s preferred color combination.” The European team members were not just playing for themselves. They were playing for continent, each other, for ‘Seve,’ and for their current captain: “Jose wanted to win it for Seve and we wanted to win it for Jose and Seve,” according to player Graeme McDowell.
Great leaders inspire super-human effort. In business many managers are leaders based on title alone, but rarely do they inspire their team to work toward a bigger purpose. Every once in awhile, however, leaders emerge who remind us that leadership means so much more than “managing.” True leaders inspire their teams to do what they didn’t think was possible. Both Olazabal and Ballesteros have the qualities I outlined in a previous article, The 7 Secrets of Inspiring Leaders.
According to Spaniard Sergio Garcia, who was close to Ballesteros, “I have no doubt in my mind that he was with me today all day because there’s no chance I would have won my match if he wasn’t there…It feels so good to be able to win it for him and for captain Jose.”