Who would you rather have leading the New York Yankees? George Steinbrenner the Yankee owner who died on July 13th or Dawn Lepore, CEO of Drugstore.com?

In an interesting juxtaposition of leadership styles, the July 18th, 2010 New York Times had stories about both these leaders.

In an interview with Lepore (“Never Duck The Tough Questions”), she notes that “You have to be transparent as a leader and you have to take criticism openly.” She speaks about the importance of creating a culture in which people are free to speak their minds, stating that, “the worst thing you can do is have people with stuff on their minds that they won’t tell you.”

“The Boss Unbound” dissects the leadership style of George Steinbrenner. His favorite movie was “Patton” and his leadership style for years reflected his admiration of that autocratic leader. In his 35-year ownership of the team, Steinbrenner hired and fired 20 managers and eleven General Managers. He was banned from baseball “for life” in 1990 after being discovered hiring a gambler to dig up dirt on one of his own players (“for life” turned out to be only 3 years).

Yet, in spite all this, Steinbrenner is remembered as a winner who created a baseball dynasty in New York.

Not so fast. It wasn’t until Steinbrenner returned to baseball after his suspension that the Yankees started winning championships again Prior to that, as the article points out, there had been “an 18 year drought.”

What changed? Steinbrenner did. According to the article, ““He allowed his baseball people more leeway and only then did the team succeed. When he was at his most intimidating, that’s exactly when the team suffered most.”

Certainly, Steinbrenner changed baseball by outspending everyone else in his drive to produce winning teams. But the Yankees didn’t become the winners we remember until Steinbrenner himself changed.

Of course, it’s silly to even think that Dawn Lepore would have won more championships than George Steinbrenner. But the Yankees didn’t recapture their glory days until Steinbrenner became a little more “Lepore.”

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Reprinted by permission of the author, Larry Barkan http://www.larrybarkan.com