As a lifelong fan of the Kansas City Royals, I’ve been following with interest the decision of Ned Yost—the team’s manager since 2010—to retire at the end of this current season. In fact, I watched a replay of his press conference the other day where he made the announcement and fielded reporters’ questions about his decision and the timing.
To understand his rationale, you need to know a little bit about the franchise. Located in Kansas City for 50 years, the Royals are what is known as a “small market team.” They don’t have the revenue streams and financial resources to spend as lavishly and have the player payroll of the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Boston Red Sox of the world. As a result, the Royals have to be incredibly judicious in the use of their resources.
Because they weren’t for a while, they fielded really, really bad teams for a number of years—decades, in fact. But about eight years ago, through some prudent drafting and some shrewd trades, they began to be competitive—in fact, they surprised people when they won the American League pennant in 2014 (losing in Game 7 of the World Series) and became World Series Champs in 2015. This all happened on Ned Yost’s watch. He guided the franchise to this stunning period of unparalleled success.
However, due to their small market limitations, many of Royals’ marquee players signed lucrative deals with other teams after their contracts expired—contracts the Royals could not afford to match because of their financial constraints. As a result, they lost a number of talented veteran players and entered what is called a “rebuilding phase”—playing younger players with promise and letting them learn (and take their lumps) at the major league level. For the last two years, the Royals have lost 100 games each season. Granted—some young players have gotten some valuable experience and improved their skills to where the future looks brighter. But after the championship runs of a few years ago, the past couple of years have been pretty bleak.
That is where what Ned Yost had to say about his decision to retire was so interesting. His rationale for retiring now, as opposed to a couple of years ago, was that he knew there would be some rough days and believed it was his obligation to get the team through the worst of those times so things would be on the upswing when he turned the managerial responsibility over to someone else. He felt like he had the capital to endure the challenges associated with rebuilding the team, so he opted to stay put until things began to turn around and look brighter.
There are some really powerful leadership lessons in that. One has to do with the courage to hang in there during difficult times. Another has to do with seeing a bigger picture and being willing to pay a price so that the next person can experience success. Sometimes the best measure of leadership effectiveness isn’t what happens on your watch as much as it is what happens after you leave. To be an effective leader, you need to have a view of the organization that extends beyond your service to it. As a leader, you get the privilege of writing a chapter in the organization’s book. But an effective leader realizes other chapters will be written after he or she is gone and strives to do everything possible so those chapters are promising and bright.
I know a little bit about this. In one of my pastorates, I inherited a situation with an established staff member who, while exceptionally gifted, had rubbed a number of people in the church the wrong way over the years. The issue was raised to me during my initial interview with the board, but I wasn’t aware of just how deep-seated and ingrained it was until I’d been there for a couple of years. It was one of those situations where I realized a departure probably needed to happen and, regardless of when and under what circumstances it did, it would be difficult. The church, and whoever happened to be in place at that time, would pay a tremendous price.
In my fifth year of service, the transition happened. We were doing some compensation adjustment and amendment of job responsibilities and this staff member, rather than choosing to remain and function under this new arrangement, opted to resign. It was emotional … it was misrepresented and misunderstood … it was most unpleasant. To put it mildly, it was not a fun season! A big part of me wanted to step away and be free from the tension and mental stress. But at the same time, I felt a keen responsibility to shepherd a congregation that had been very supportive and affirming of me through this difficult season. It was a couple of years later, when the dust had settled and a healthy sense of unity and cohesion had begun to emerge, that I sensed the worst was over and believed God gave me the OK to step away from that place.
The bottom line is that effective leadership can’t always gauged by the external benchmarks or standards you can easily measure. During that season, our numbers took a beating. Our statistics tanked. But in many ways, that may have been one of the more effective seasons of my ministry journey in terms of my leadership. For I stayed put in a place that was somewhat at risk and saw them through a treacherous season. If you liken it to a canoe trip, I hung in there while we went through the rapids and didn’t get out of the boat until we were in more placid waters to where a healthy transition could more easily occur.
As a rule, effective leadership can’t always be measured by immediate results. If you look at Ned Yost’s record as manager of the Royals, he will have a sub .500 mark—i.e., he will have lost more games than he won. But even though he led the Royals to a brief season of unexpected success, his willingness to not ride off into the sunset after that period ended—to hang in there through the difficult times that followed until the turnaround began to happen—may be the most striking and powerful gauge of his leadership effectiveness. For effective leadership involves doing what’s in the long-term best interest of the organization, even at significant and considerable personal cost to ourselves. To do what’s personally preferred, or avoid the difficult thing, is to abdicate the moral authority that is the foundation of effective leadership.