American scholar, organizational consultant, and author Warren Bennis, who is widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies, identified four competencies of leadership in a classic 1984 essay. They are:

• Management of attention
• Management of meaning
• Management of trust
• Management of self

To my knowledge, the late Dr Bennis never argued a sequence to developing these competencies. By my reading of his books over the years, he believed that the four competencies develop simultaneously. My observation is a bit different. I believe the competencies develop in inverse order to how they are listed above. They are not exclusive of each other, but each is proportionally more prevalent as one steps through the continuum.

Stay with me. This is going to be a basketball article.

I also want to share the notion that few people acquire and excel at all four competencies, but many people learn to manage self and build trust. The former are leaders. The latter are great teammates.

Bennis describes Management of Self as “knowing one’s skills and deploying them effectively… (Leaders) know their strengths and nurture them… He knows his flaws as well as his assets and deals with them directly.”

Management of self leads to trust through reliability… or, as Bennis prefers, “Constancy.”

Trust in Oneself

“Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work,” Bennis famously asserted; and while that is true in the general sense, it’s obvious to all observers when it comes to a basketball team. Teammates must trust each other to know their assignments and execute them faithfully. If one man doesn’t maintain proper spacing, fails to cut at the right time, doesn’t box out for a rebound, or is slow to rotate and help on defense, the team fails. When we see teams bickering on the court, a series of breakdowns almost always is the reason. More simply stated, the players on the floor do not trust each other.

Trust doesn’t start and end with how teammates feel about each other. It starts with how a ball player feels about himself. Until he trusts himself, his teammates cannot be expected to trust him. Trust among the group happens when each player trusts himself and is confident in his ability. He knows his skills and deploys them effectively. He knows his flaws, too; and he deals with them directly. He develops the constancy that Bennis cited.

Constancy

Effort is not the same as constancy. It’s a way to develop it, but constancy is all about consistent performance. So 16 games into the 2015-16 Notre Dame basketball season, I am not asking you to evaluate effort to date. Instead, consider who has become reliable game after game.

It’s a small group for this time of the season – Demetrius Jackson, Steve Vasturia, VJ Beachem, and lately Matt Ryan. Those four have room for growth; but they know what they are supposed to do, and they are self-confident enough to execute without hesitation.

Bonzie Colson and Zach Auguste have their moments, sometimes entire games of outright excellence. Neither is a reliable defender; and while both have outstanding scoring games to their credit, we don’t know what to expect in the box score game after game.

What leads to such inconsistency? Athletes seldom admit to lacking self-confidence, but both players tend to be hard on themselves. It’s important to know one’s flaws and deal with them directly, but that dealing needs to happen with optimism. Bennis says leaders learn when something doesn’t go well. It isn’t a failure. Recognized and corrected, it’s a step toward success. That outlook makes great leaders, but it also makes great teammates.

Four Isn’t Enough

Until constancy runs through the entire playing rotation, the Fighting Irish will be no better than the sum of their parts. That isn’t bad, but we saw how a team can be better than its parts a season ago. It took that team the entire regular season to develop constancy among the six who played most of the time in March. The story of the 2015-16 season will depend on the same kind of development.

Mike Brey saw reason for hope in how the team closed its close victory over Georgia Tech on Wednesday.

“I think it’s a big step for us,” he said. “We were saying over on the bench, ‘We need to win one of these.’ We haven’t been able to do it, but I thought we were great.

“We got big defensive rebounds,” Brey continued, ” and I’m thrilled with how we shot pressure free throws tonight. We have not done that; and hopefully, that’s an area where we’re more confident now.

“We had to look like we were going to put this one away, and it’s the first time this group has done that. It’s something to build on.”

Confidence leads to trust. Sometimes it happens with baby steps.

Fun Facts

• It would be hard to complain about Colson’s performance on the offensive end of the floor. Despite making only 2 of 7 shots vs Georgia Tech, he has made 60% of his field goal attempts in conference games and 57% through the entire schedule to date.
• Only Jackson has made 40% of his three point attempts in conference games, 43.8% to be precise. If any two of Beachem, Vasturia, and Ryan can get the three point shot going, the Irish will have a formidable offense.
• Two point shooting is another matter. In addition to the expected high two point percentages from inside scorers Colson and Auguste, Ryan has made 80% of his two point attempts in conference games, Beachem has made 78%, and Vasturia has made 60%.