Why Great Fantasy Football Commissioners Make Horrible Principals

It was 5:30 am and I was on the treadmill getting my workout in before school.  Sweat was dripping in my eyes as my bad knees complained about the pounding I was giving them.  Luckily I had on SportsCenter to distract me.  I was about halfway through my time when one of those Fantasy Football commercials came on urging the viewer to create a league.  It looked simple enough, and I knew a lot of my friends were participants.  I decided to check it out.  

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According to ESPN if I wanted to be a commissioner I would be able to tweak almost every detail imaginable in a never ending quest to create the greatest league of all-time!  As a fantasy football commissioner all that power would be fantastic.

As I reflected on the role of principal vs the role of commissioner I realized that the two roles required entirely different mindsets. As a principal believing you have that kind of unlimited power and behaving as if you do is a recipe for disaster.  

The commissioner in fantasy football is based off of the outdated autocratic model of leadership.  Criticisms of this leadership style mentioned in an article by N Nayab and edited by: Jean Scheid include: 

1. Lack of involvement from the employee in the decision making process leads to employees not assuming ownership of their work, contributing to low morale, lack of commitment, and manifesting in high turnover, absenteeism, and work stoppage.
2. The leader reserving the right to make all decisions leads to subordinates becoming heavily dependent on the leader. The team thereby becomes useless in running operations if they lose contact with their leader, and absence of the leader leads to total collapse and shutdown of operations.
3. The one sided communication flow in an autocratic leadership style restricts the creative and leadership skills of the employees and prevents their development. This harms the organization as well, for the employees remain incapable of assuming greater responsibilities, or to perform anything outside the routine.

An autocratic leader may be successful in the short term and is often romanticized in Hollywood, but once he or she leaves, there is an inevitable collapse of what he or she has built. 

A Dynamic Principal finds ways to empower the staff through servant leadership and is as democratic as possible. This gives the staff ownership which helps create high morale and strong commitment.  An ancillary benefit of this is not as many teachers call off.

With everyone buying-in and sharing in the decisions, when the principal has to leave for the inevitable meeting, is again unavailable, or eventually finds a different job, teachers are able to pick up the slack, make decisions, and even support a new principal.  Under this leadership style teachers are much more flexible and feel safer because they have been part of the solutions.  

Servant leadership creates a culture where an interchange of ideas and open communication is the norm. In this type of environment teachers feel supported and are placed into roles where they become teacher leaders.   A principal who has created and fostered this type of environment knows his staff and their strengths and is able to find opportunities for them to succeed.  

While being a commissioner in a fantasy league is a great way to hangout with your friends and compete for bragging rights it's a horrible way to run a school.