BMitch: DC sports are looking up because we now have 'leaders instead of bosses'

There are leaders and there are bosses, and when it has come to DC sports over the years – especially with the Commanders – the latter seemed to be the rule, not the exception.

Brian Mitchell thinks that is changing, and it is already evident in the rebuilds of the Commanders and Wizards.

“I was watching some stuff this weekend and I ran into this thing talking about bosses and leaders, and as I look at DC, the Nats have Rizzo and Martinez, who I consider leaders,” Brian said. “Over in Commanders land, Adam Peters and Dan Quinn, leaders, and now we got the whole crew over here with the Wiz, and I'm starting to believe that these guys are definitely leaders over there now, because they listen, and they hire people that they give respect to.”

That’s something that, if you know anything about B, is right in his wheelhouse.

“One thing people know about me is I believe in leadership; I know people want to say I’m the boss, but what the hell does a boss really mean? If you are a boss and you're not doing the proper things as a leader, you are a waste of damn time,” Brian said. “I like to follow the positivity of things.”

B played a clip of what he was listening to about the boss vs. leader situation, and explained how the latter has helped him achieve his best.

“I’ve had a lot of success in my life because I had a bunch of leaders around me, and those leaders led us in a proper way,” Brian said. “They didn't dictate, they didn't try to make us do things how they just wanted to do it. They asked questions, and it started when I first got here to Washington and watched Joe Gibb. Initially, I was terrified, because when you look at a guy with that much success, and people start talking about him a lot, you don't want to cross him – but the man would ask me questions about what I thought about this offense or that offense, and I was just a rookie – and the more I talked to him, the more I began to say he was very much like my dad. I never saw people as above me or below me, because leaders don’t do that.”

And we have that again now in all three ownership groups, it seems, so things are looking up.

“I started looking at the people that we have in place around town, and the people that we used to have in place around town and, we've gone through dire straits for a long damn time in this town because I think we had a bunch of bosses,” B said. “As nice as Ron could be, he was a boss, because he wanted things to be done his way all the time. They actually brought a guy in here to try and change the culture and when he did, they basically threw him under the bus. And we saw things going wrong with the Wiz for a long time, and Ted Leonsis finally realized you have to let someone with expertise take over, and there are guys in place who have won everywhere.
Implement guys and let them do their jobs, because micromanaging does nothing for anybody.”

Take a listen to Brian’s entire soliloquy about bosses vs. leaders above!