Sam Walker on The Impact of Great Captains

Sam Walker is the author of The Captain Class, a profile of the captains of the 17 greatest dynasties in sports history. He is a columnist, keynote speaker and teambuilding consultant for corporations, military units, nonprofits and professional and Olympic sports teams. Over two decades at The Wall Street Journal, Walker served as sports columnist, sports editor, deputy page-one editor and leadership columnist. He attended the University of Michigan. He lives in New York with his wife and two children.

Sam had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“I’ve been blessed and cursed at the same time by being easily bored” (4:55).

“When you walk in a door that you’ve never been through before, you see that people are dealing with a lot of the same things, the same issues, the same stresses” (8:35).

“The book is really about what are the real qualities of effective leadership” (15:30).

“The big threat to great leadership and sustained excellence is rarely a lack of ability, it’s burnout” (16:20).

“I need to be effective as a leader, but I also need to be efficient” (17:45).

“You need to understand your superpower and your kryptonite” (18:45).

“[Great leadership] is behavior. It’s what you do. It’s not anything you’re born with. It’s making the right choices in the right contexts” (20:40).

“These captains don’t over celebrate. They’re almost more relieved when they win because they feel like that’s how things are supposed to go” (24:05).

“Everyone talks about Michael Jordan being a leader except Michael Jordan” (25:30).

“I don’t think the instincts of being a great captain and the instincts of being a great coach are really the same” (28:20).

“No one has studied more dynasties than me. That’s what I do. I seek out these dynasties because I want to understand long term successes” (29:40).

“There are three things which I have always called the contagious behaviors of the boss or leader: relentless effort, toughness, and emotional control” (32:35).

“The things that I notice about these great leaders is that they’re not obvious leaders” (34:10).

“Leadership is about what you do not who you are” (34:25).

“These captains had very good relationships with people” (37:15).

“There’s no two dynasties that have had exactly the same culture” (43:45).

“Be the best version of who you are, not of who you want to be” (45:25).

“What is your unique culture?” (48:30).

“Leadership is about this intense one-on-one communication where you talk as much as you listen” (54:15).

“The act of being heard makes people feel safer” (55:25).

“All of these great dynasties had a superstar who was rarely the captain” (59:15).

“There’s three phases of a dynasty: the building phase, the committing phase, and the maintaining phase. These three phases are completely different” (1:09:00).

Additionally, make sure to check out Sam’s website and to follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn!

Thank you so much to Sam for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.