This newsletter is not about Mike Vrabel and Dianna Russini. That situation is the candle, and this newsletter is about the shadow play on the walls, and what that story says about us.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, very briefly: Mike Vrabel is the head coach of the New England Patriots, and was formerly the head coach of the Tennessee Titans. Dianna Russini is an NFL reporter, who used to cover the Titans. Vrabel and Russini were recently photographed in a more-than-just-friendly interaction (both are married, to other people), and photos have surfaced of them engaging similarly over the past few years. The nature of their relationship is unclear from the outside, and I’m not here to speculate.
But many people do speculate, and Vrabel’s very high profile position, as well as Russini’s, and their professional interactions, have led to a salacious rush to judgement from all corners. Often, those demanding reactions are leadership lessons in and of themselves, and that’ll be the theme today. Because I’m Boston-based, most of the reactions I’ve seen have been pointed at Vrabel, but I first want to address one I’ve seen pointed at Russini.
Reaction 0: She only got ahead through her relationship with Vrabel.
I see this reaction mostly from men, and I don’t know that I’ve seen it from many (if any) NFL reporters. Here’s the thing about reporters, especially sports reporters: hard work will only take you so far. Your relationships with players, coaches, and staff are a key part of the job, since you’re trying to have great coverage before your peers. Of course people get advantages in that career field through their relationships.
Lesson: Don’t borrow evil where it wasn’t intended. (1% Leadership, Chapter 24)
Unless you’re an NFL reporter, I don’t think your opinion strongly matters here. What does matter is whether you’re approaching the situation with grace, or whether you’re making an assumption. Yes, there is a long history in a lot of industries of people (in both directions) abusing intimate relationships, but, equally, there’s also a long history of people having intimate relations in the workplace that are non-abusive (full disclosure: I dated, proposed to, and married a co-worker (the same one) who is still my wife after nearly a quarter century). What you assume is happening says more about you: if you assume Russini isn’t competent enough to succeed, then perhaps you’re the one who is overly judgemental in problematic ways.
Reaction 1: Fire him!
There are a lot of people who’ve called for, either directly or via insinuation, Vrabel to be fired from the Patriots. Some demand the NFL investigate and get involved. Anecdata suggests a high correlation between this group of people and those who dislike the Patriots (or are fans of rival teams), who may be less than pleased that the Patriots were back in the Super Bowl a mere three months ago.
Lesson: Your job is not to like your team; it is to not dislike them. (1% Leadership, Chapter 27)
Unless your name ends in “Kraft”, Mike Vrabel definitely doesn’t work for you, and Robert and Jonathan Kraft are the people who get to make an employment decision. But this lesson holds in general. When we lead people, we often have to judge their actions. Once we start disliking someone, it becomes very hard to judge them reasonably, and lead them gracefully. The best leadership is rooted in love, not in like: we love someone, even if they act in ways that displease us. It’s a lot like parenting that way; your children will give you great cause to dislike them instead of liking them, and it’s really hard to parent from that position.
Reaction 2: His advocacy for women was all a farce!
There’s been a quiet conversation about his advocacy and support for women, especially among NFL reporters. He’s known for giving the first question in his press conferences to a woman (originally Teresa Walker when with the Titans, and now Karen Guregian). Vrabel doesn’t make a huge deal out of this, but it gets a lot of noise, likely because even such a small moment of inclusion is so massive compared to the challenges that face women reporters in the NFL.
Lesson: The best available outcomes often involve finding hard compromises between groups you advocate for. (1% Leadership, Chapter 25)
The two people whose opinion I’d strongly care about hearing (but I’m not asking, and you shouldn’t either) are Teresa Walker and Karen Guregian. The rest of us sit in the role of being an advocate. Here’s the challenge of advocating for other people: it’s really hard to accept less than perfection. If we say that a compromise is okay, but the people we advocate for disagree with us, we feel like we’ve betrayed them (and they may be angry with us). If we, on the other hand, take a hard line, we may actually impede progress, and make life more difficult for those we’re advocating for.
Lesson: Personal improvement is a prerequisite to leading professionally. (1% Leadership, Chapter 1)
There’s a separate lesson, here, that is so important (to me) that I opened 1% Leadership with it. “Our heroes do not always practice what they preach.” It is quite possible for imperfect humans to lead us in the very area of that imperfection, and … that’s okay. Sometimes we rush to judge those who’ve made us uncomfortable with their leadership example, not because the judgement is deserved, but because we can remove the discomfort of comparing our actions to theirs.
Reaction 3: Ride or die, he’s our coach!
Unsurprisingly, this reaction tends to overlap very clearly with diehard Patriots fans. Two and a half decades of feeling like the rest of the sports universe is aligned against New England, from the perception of made-up scandals to overly harsh punishments have created an “Us against them” mentality up here in Boston that’s so pervasive you can buy the t-shirt.
Lesson: Create safety to let people warn you of danger. (1% Leadership, Chapter 39)
While Vrabel has certainly brought success to New England, he’s not our coach. He’s the coach of a group of players and coaches at 1 Patriot Place, and it’s their opinion that really matters: can he lead them? Will they listen to his coaching advice? For the rest of us, there needs to be a different lesson: our reflexive defensiveness makes it harder for us to hear signals of problems. That may not be relevant today, but when it’s clear that we’ve stopped listening, people stop talking to us.
Reaction 4: Let’s wait and see
Hard to distinguish from the reaction of “who cares?” from most of the non-football world, this is, for most people, the best response to have. You’re not directly impacted, even if sports fandom holds a quasi-religious place in your heart.
Lesson: To engage in the present, be of two minds about the future. (1% Leadership, Chapter 15)
There are multiple paths that this could go down. The team, both players and coaches, could lose confidence in him, and his ability to lead the New England Patriots would be adversely impacted. Or the team could rally behind him, and, learning from a leader with feet of clay, could take to his coaching even more, and excel even more than expected. As observers, we can consider both options, and … just not invest our own emotional energy in one outcome being more right than the other, even if we have beliefs and preferences. If we’re wrong, it isn’t on us, but it can be a learning opportunity.
My prediction? Assuming he keeps his job, Vrabel’s Patriots will respond well to him, and circle around him. They’ll focus on playing the game of football, and the more noise there is outside the locker room, the stronger the bonds they’ll forge. Does that mean a Super Bowl? It’d be folly to predict that outcome this early in the season; there are 32 teams with their eyes set on the prize, and all of them are contenders. Okay, most of them are contenders.