Who is Bill Belichick?

One of my readers, noting that I am both a psychologist and a football fan, asked me what I thought of Bill Belichick. This is really more the turf of my PR daughter Karen, and I’ll see if she has more thoughts to add. I am neither a social nor clinical psychologist, nor do I know Coach Belichick personally, so my comments should be taken in those contexts.

But I’ll do my best:

1.  Here is an article from the Boston Globe that sings high praise (prior to the filming debacle) of Belichick’s management skills.  Among Belichick’s strengths noted by management experts are his attention to detail, work ethic, judgment of talent, willingness to make the “tough call,” and his ability to “learn from mistakes.” One would hope that the latter skill comes into play regarding the filming.

2. I didn’t like Belichick’s apology. He started out all right (“I accept full responsibility”), but then messed it all up by claiming that his illegal action “had no impact” on the outcome of the game. How do you know? Scientific reasoning just never seems to be a strength among coaches, and I don’t know why. You just can’t talk about causality without doing the experiment! Personally, I like the military’s approach. When caught doing wrong, military personnel are trained to say “No excuse, sir or ma’am.” How refreshing.

3. Not knowing Coach Belichick, and not wanting to slander him in the least, let’s talk about leaders in general. As David Lykken and Robert Hare have eloquently pointed out, there are some disturbing similarities between exceptional leaders and psychopaths. In both cases, we see charisma, an ability to motivate people, supreme confidence, and other admirable qualities. As Mr F. says frequently, the most selfish person and the most altruistic person will often do the same thing in the same situation. The difference is that the altruist is motivated by the greater good, while the psychopath is interested in furthering his/her personal success. Most people fall somewhere between these two extremes. 

Another hallmark of both leader and psychopath is very high self-esteem. Most people expect effective leaders to have high self-esteem, but are often surprised to learn that psychopaths share this trait. We are so accustomed to hearing the the root of all evil is LOW self-esteem. People with low self-esteem hurt themselves (through depression), but people with HIGH self-esteem can be very dangerous to others. They feel “entitled” to all the good things in life, and others exist only as a means to provide those ends.

For more insight, check out Hare’s fascinating book Snakes in Suits. This is MUST reading for anybody working in an organizational setting. Another gem is David D’Alessandro’s Career Warfare. D’Alessandro is CEO of John Hancock. I’m not going to slander D’Alessandro either, but I sure wouldn’t want to work for him. He comes across as highly manipulative and Machiavellian.

The tricky part is to see who’s who, and Hare is developing his Psychopathy Checklist to help corporations and other organizations to avoid being the next Enron.

So am I calling Belichick a psychopath? No. But like all of us, I fear he has a “dark side.” He has had some issues in his personal life (being named the “other man” in a nasty divorce case). It would be the rare individual who could survive the pressure cooker that is NFL football without starting to believe his own press.

Watching Mr. F and Karen navigate their athletic careers, I have seen coaches do some remarkably evil things (especially when high school and collegiate athletes are concerned). One gets the sense that coaches believe “everybody is doing the same thing” and that “if I don’t do this too, I’ll lose.” It is possible that Belichick is not immune to these traps.

A final observation–part of the responsibility for Belichick, Justin Gatlin, or Barry Bonds falls right in the lap of the fan. We want to see fantastic football, track, and baseball. Perhaps we have raised our expectations so high, that no human being can meet them without resorting to cheating. If performance is just mediocre, we move on to the next bigger, better deal.

I welcome your comments on this–great discussion potential here.