
Leadership skills come from expert knowledge, not interpersonal skills - jseliger
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1158980
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HeyLaughingBoy
Would be nice if we could read the article and not just the excerpt. Since I'm
taking a certificate course on Management & Supervision through my employer,
this is stuff I'm really interested in. Nothing in the abstract says that
interpersonal skills aren't necessary and I find it hard to believe that's
true.

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ryanmahoski
I had the same problem. You have to click the "choose download location" link.
Here's a mirror: s3.amazonaws.com/2008/nba_paper.pdf

In short, an NBA coach who has never been an NBA player will tend to have a
worse W-L record than a coach who has played in the NBA. And NBA allstars who
become coaches have the best coaching records. From the paper: "For the
typical team, the difference between having a coach who never played NBA
basketball, and one who himself played many years of allstar basketball, is
approximately six extra places up the league table."

Which is interesting, but yes, let's be careful when drawing conclusions and
generalizations. To that end the paper said "our findings may be relevant to a
range of high-performance workplaces where the employees are experts." The
researchers merely found some data that suggested a coach's past performance
as a player was positively correlated to his W-L record as a head coach. The
paper did not conclude that interpersonal skills were irrelevant to a coach's
record, nor did it conclude that interpersonal skills mattered less than
playing skills. The researchers did not interview any people or even define
terms like leadership, interpersonal skills or expert knowledge. They did milk
8 seasons' worth of Sporting News though, their primary source.

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ScottWhigham
"Our data come from 15,000 professional basketball games."

That's really all you need, isn't it? 15,000 basketball games out to tell us
exactly how leadership skills in all areas come from.

