Michael Jordan is widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time. Six championships. Five MVPs. A career built on relentless preparation and an unflinching standard for himself and the people around him. He was also, by his own account, a difficult teammate. The recent documentary footage shows a man who pushed harder than anyone expected him to push, and who paid a price for it.
Should you try to Be Like Mike in the workplace?
The standard above the standard
Jordan held himself to a standard that most of his peers could not match. He arrived early. He stayed late. He studied opponents the way a chess player studies a board. When teammates fell short of the standard he set for himself, he let them know. Sometimes with words. Sometimes with a stare. Sometimes with a closed fist in practice.
In the modern workplace, the closed fist is no longer available to you. Neither is the stare across the locker room. The leaders I work with today operate in environments where psychological safety is the price of admission. Where talented people will leave if they feel diminished. Where the cost of the wrong word in the wrong meeting is measured in resignation letters.
What still applies
Hold yourself to a higher standard than you hold anyone else. Prepare more than the people in the room. Know the details that others overlook. Show up first. Stay last. Earn the right to ask more of your team by asking more of yourself first.
Surround yourself with people who can take direct feedback and give it back. The executives I coach who are growing fastest are the ones who actively seek out colleagues willing to tell them what is not working. They do not staff for comfort. They staff for capability and candor.
What does not
Treating teammates as instruments of your ambition. Believing that intensity excuses cruelty. Confusing fear with respect. The leaders I have coached across four continents who hold long-term careers, who build teams that follow them from organization to organization, are not the loudest people in the room. They are usually the calmest.
The competitive standard is non-negotiable. The delivery is everything. Be like Mike in your preparation and your standard. Be someone else in how you talk to the people who are trying to help you win.