Baseball and Leadership

I had an opportunity to attend a lunch speech by Mr Jeff Luhnow, then General Manager of Houston Astros in early July 2018, shortly after the team won the 2017 World Series baseball championship. It was a much needed won for the city of Houston shortly after the disastrous flood who devasyead a large part of the city. Mr. Luhnow explained how he led the transformational change of Houston Astro from a historically worst professional baseball team in 2014 to its first ever world championship in a few short years. He shared some of the key decisions during the transformation by creating a vision, having the right people, leveraging digital technology, and willing to take bold actions, all important components of what leadership is about.

A year later, whistleblowers revealed that the Houston Astro had been using a sophisticated system to steal opposing team’s signals to create an unfair advantage throughout the season including the playoff. According to subsequent Major Baseball Leader Investigation report, “virtually all of the Astros’ players had some involvement or knowledge of the scheme.” Even though Luhnow later denied any knowledge about the cheating scheme, the report stated that Jeff Luhnow had at least some knowledge but might not have given it much attention. The scandal completely tarnished the reputation of the organization and all the leaders including Luhnow were eventually fired by the Astros. Ironically, I remember vividly Mr Luhnow used the term “on the bleeding edge” to describe learning through making mistakes. He admitted during the speech that he had made mistake including the releasing of J D Martinez who later became a star outfielder in the Boston Red Sox. “The key is to accept responsibility and learn from the mistakes”. Assuming the MLB report was accurate, it seems that Mr Luhnow failed to take his own advice in this case by taking responsibility of the scandal.