Debbie Laskey's Blog: OLYMPICS LEADERSHIP SERIES

Saturday, August 10, 2024

OLYMPICS LEADERSHIP SERIES – Featuring Mark C. Crowley

With the eyes of the world on Paris, France, for the 33rd Olympiad, which events are you looking forward to? Do you know that the surfing competition will take place 9,770 miles away from Paris in Teahupo'o, Tahiti, an island in French Polynesia? In the spirit of previous leadership series here on my blog, I've asked 17 leadership and marketing experts to respond to five questions with the hope that both the questions and answers lead you to think about the Olympics in new and interesting ways.

For today's post, I'd like to introduce Mark C. Crowley, based in La Jolla, California. Mark's mission is to fundamentally change how we lead people in workplaces around the globe, and he's the author of "Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership for the 21st Century" - a book that has been taught in 11 American universities. Before writing his book, Mark spent over 20 years in the dog-eat-dog world of financial services. He held two national level positions at one of America's largest financial institutions, where he was named leader of the year. Quite untraditionally, Mark proved that deeply caring about and supporting people, and thereby positively affecting employee's hearts, had a profound effect on motivating their sustained engagement, loyalty, and productivity.

Before we begin, here are my two favorite quotes about the Olympics:

"In baseball and in business, there are three types of people. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen, and those who wonder what happened." ~Tommy Lasorda (Team USA Baseball Manager in 1984 and Olympic gold medalist)

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does — that makes you a winner right there." ~Venus Williams (Team USA Tennis, 4-time Olympic gold medalist)

QUESTION: What Olympic MOMENT do you most vividly recall, and why?

MARK C. CROWLEY: I have two. First, at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, when Dick Fosbury decided to high jump by scaling the bar with a backward flop instead of the traditional scissors approach. This instantly taught me that existing paradigms can be changed and aren't set in stone. It obviously had an impact on me!

My dad was an older man when I was born. He was the Minnesota state champion in the pole vault and had hoped to make the 1936 team, but he got hurt and didn't qualify. However, he and a friend (who went on to become a judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals) stowed away on the US ship (set for the 1936 Olympics) from New York to Germany. My father saw Jesse Owens run under the gaze of Hitler. And, my father snuck into Hitler’s box and stole an Olympics flag. I had it hanging in my room as a kid.