206: Sam Walker - The Hidden Force That Creates The World's Greatest Teams
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk
Ryan Hawk
4.9 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2017
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Episode 206: Sam Walker - The Hidden Force That Creates The World's Greatest Teams: Captains
Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Radio
- The 7 Traits of Elite Captains:
- Extreme doggedness and focus in competition, often to the point of madness
- A tendency to play aggressively up to, and often beyond, the limits of the rules
- A willingness to do thankless jobs in the shadow of more acclaimed teammates
- A bias against making big speeches in favor of continuous practical communication
- A talent for displaying their commitment and motivating teammates through aggressive nonverbal means
- An unwavering commitment to defend their principles and speak truth to power
- The presence of a "kill switch" for shutting off emotion when it's not useful
- Studying the moment when teams went from good to great
- Why LeBron James is a unicorn
- "His model of leadership is completely new."
- Relation to the business world -- Some of the greatest leaders don't think they deserve the title (job title or to be captain) -- Tim Duncan & Yogi Berra
- The rituals of Tim Duncan
- Short conversations with each teammate
- Great facial expressions
- Effective messaging
- Never giving big speeches
- How to be a charismatic connector like Tim Duncan
- Great captains (and leaders) are not "yes men." They defend their principles and speak truth to power
- Jack Lambert purposely left blood on his jersey as a message to his team -- Great captains have a talent for displaying their commitment and motivating teammates through aggressive nonverbal means
- The ability to develop "emotional maturity." A measured approach
- As Liz Wiseman said "Great leaders have a buffer between the stimulus and their response"
- They are able to build resilience
Social Media:
- Follow David on Twitter: @SamWalkers
- Read: The Captain Class
- Connect with me on LinkedIn
- Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community
- To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12
More Learning:
Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon
Episode 071: Nate Boyer - Green Beret, Texas Football, The NFL
Episode 179: How To Sustain Excellence - The Best Answers From 178 Questions
Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why
Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell
The Learning Leader Show is supported by Rhone. Use the code "Hawk" for 15% off. Rhone... premium activewear engineered with principle, performance and progress for the modern man. Rhone builds clothing around 3 main tenants: Cutting-edge Performance, Premium Comfort, and Simplistic Style.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | What was fascinating is that on the high-performing teams there was always a leader who did exactly what Duncan did |
| 0:06.7 | Circulated widely talking to individuals with great intensity in short bursts they call these people charismatic connectors and I realize then |
| 0:15.9 | that we have a completely backwards idea of how you motivate people and how you |
| 0:20.6 | communicate. We think you got to give a speech, you've got to fire up the troops, |
| 0:24.4 | you've got to be someone who just radiates charisma and passion and intensity, |
| 0:29.5 | but really the opposite is true. |
| 0:31.9 | None of those outward qualities matter. |
| 0:34.4 | It's all about a leader who is constantly engaging |
| 0:38.6 | and constantly talking about the matter at hand in a low-key way. |
| 0:44.0 | Hey and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. |
| 0:50.0 | I am Ryan Hawk. |
| 0:52.0 | Thank you so much for being here. It is Mindful Monday. Go to |
| 0:57.0 | Learning Leader.com enter your email address sign up. We'd love to have you receive your mindful Monday email every Monday morning at 9 o'clock |
| 1:07.0 | eastern discussing the latest most insightful thoughts on leadership from the past weeks articles |
| 1:15.3 | books Ted Talks videos discussion back and forth love to have you learning |
| 1:20.2 | leader dot comment your email address for Mindful Monday. |
| 1:22.9 | On to tonight's episode, it's with award-winning writer Sam Walker, |
| 1:28.9 | the Wall Street Journal's deputy editor for Enterprise, |
| 1:31.5 | the unit that oversees the paper's in-depth page one features |
| 1:34.9 | investigative reporting projects, his most recent book. |
| 1:39.2 | It's an incredible one titled The Captain Class, the Hidden Force, |
| 1:42.9 | that creates the world's greatest teams. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ryan Hawk, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Ryan Hawk and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.