Every Saturday morning I have the “privilege” of attending a former Olympic medalist training her team (my kid has nothing to do with her sport, but the noise is loud enough that you do not have the chance of opting out attending her training session too). One would expect her to be an inspiring figure setting the bar of ethos and effort as high as we mere mortals would expect to come with an Olympic medalist.
Instead what we observe is the devastation of young personalities, and definitely a copy of how she was trained, failing to understand that she overcame the verbal abuse, won the medal and possibly it does not have to be this way for her athletes too. And surely it does not have to be this way for the rest of the 100 or so swimmers that train next to her team.
Being a jerk or an asshole does not make you a great leader or coach. It is a pure coincidence that there are assholes that are indeed brilliant leaders.
Managing organized complexity 