Hawthorn Football Club reengaged Leading Teams for the 2013 season. Hawthorn captain, Luke Hodge’s insightful speech at the club’s Peter Crimmins Medal is one of the best examples of our model in action.
Hodge discussed a turning point at their pre-season camp in Mooloolaba last December; the beginning of Leading Teams’ reengagement with the club. “A lot of questions got thrown around; why we lost, how we lost and the main one was ‘Have we been hard enough on each other?’. At that meeting, we came up with six behaviours that we believe that if we follow them and mark each other on them and live them, then we would be here saluting the premiership cup.”
One of key elements of the Leading Teams model is having an Agreed Behavioural Framework, which involves team members creating a Trademark and reviewing against it regularly and rigorously. The six behaviours that the Hawthorn players came up with were that every player must:
- Live an elite lifestyle
- Respect all
- Have a selfless attitude
- Leave their ego on the hook
- Have open and honest conversations – give and receive feedback when the time is right
- Fight to the death
Hodge said, “The standards were set and we have no doubt that the meeting [Trademark development session] in December was one of the main reasons that Box Hill and Hawthorn had successful years and both won the premiership.“
