Round #14 - Great teams need great role players
My current favourite role player in the AFL is Hawthorn defender Jarman Impey.
While he is a very talented player, he has become so much more in a team of far more profiled and limelighted individuals. Soon to turn thirty, he has improved every year despite some significant injury setbacks, including a reconstructed knee, in his long and mostly unsung career, and on Friday, he was among the best players on the ground.
My guess is he would be a favourite teammate of those players and loved by his coaches.
Great teams need great role players.
Those grounded individuals who, in developing their game, focus their personal efforts on becoming a better teammate.
They understand their shortcomings but possess the personal insight and humility to build a game almost in response to, and despite of, their weaknesses.
These are rare characteristics and are worth their weight in gold.
"From our constraints come our opportunities" is the Stoic take, and so it is with the role player.
For the role player, it’s not about being the best at something in the game…it’s about being the best at something for the team.
They fully accept the Leigh Matthews team mantra without giving it a second thought:
Know your role
Accept your role
Play your role
Great role players appreciate the strengths of others, but they do not resent their talent; they seek to amplify it, understanding their own efforts will often go unseen as a result. Rarely will they receive the public recognition reserved for their higher-profile teammates, and they are fine with that.
They know only one player can kick the goal, but it is the team that scores it.
Great role players are lifelong learners, understanding that they must remain ahead of the game and never take their role in the team for granted. Not only do they have an appetite for learning, but they also have an equally intense hunger for application. As a result, their most powerful influence is as a role model, as the combination of attitude, ethos, and humility is contagious.
While the star players can inspire and lift the team in the moment with acts of brilliance, it is the role player who is more likely to shift the team culture through the consistency of their behaviours, setting a standard, exemplifying the attitude of team above self.
My current favourite role player in the AFL is Hawthorn defender Jarman Impey.
He exemplifies all of the values I have articulated. While he is a very talented player, he has become so much more in a team of far more profiled and limelighted individuals. Soon to turn thirty, he has improved every year despite some significant injury setbacks, including a reconstructed knee, in his long and mostly unsung career, and on Friday, he was among the best players on the ground.
My guess is he would be a favourite teammate of those players and loved by his coaches.
All of this was on display on Friday night with the Hawks' come-from-behind win against a serious opponent, the Adelaide Crows. Tight, low-scoring and meaningful. It was a win that mattered, and the circle singing the song after the game was expanded to include more than the players, with support staff joining the celebration. I couldn’t say whether this was by design or a natural expression of the moment, but it certainly wasn't an accident.
As leaders, it is our responsibility to identify and develop the role players, a highly underestimated aspect of leadership.
It starts with recruiting, not sacrificing culture for talent, and being steadfast in hiring individuals with a track record of self-responsibility for personal development.
Your great role players will need to bring what I describe as an ‘intangible’ to the team, a skill that is important. But what will set them apart are the three attributes I spoke of in the 'Moment of the Match - Round #05 - Build what you can. Buy what you can't', those being:
Coachability - Taking responsibility for their career within the team context, often accepting roles different from preference because that is what the team asks of them.
Competitiveness - Not just in the obvious diving-for-loose-balls way, but in modelling expectations and setting standards. But true competitiveness manifests in managing inevitable disappointments and taking the lessons forward with renewed determination.
Connectedness - Teams exist in a rich hormone soup of personalities and behaviours. Great connectors understand that a team isn't assumed - it's an outcome achieved through connection, and it's here that they play their most important role.
From everything I have observed and the stories I have heard, the one time we met and chatted, which coincided with his time out of the game, dealing with the inevitable self-doubts that come with a reconstructed knee, Jarman Impey is all of these things.
Beyond recruiting, valuing and encouraging the importance of the role player must be part of your systems, symbols, roles, and routines.
Your attitude towards the notion of ‘role player’ will also reveal a great deal about you as a leader, what you truly value, the behaviours you reward, and how you build trust, as well as your personal commitment to establishing a sustainable team ethos.
You simply cannot be a great organisation without great role players.
Play on!
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