Patch Blog: My Candidate For L.A. City Council—Tim Tebow

We need professional football in Los Angeles so that our local politicians can see leadership modeled. Los Angeles needs elected officials who can pull a Tim Tebow.

I listen to a ton of sports talk radio—largely because I enjoy the white noise while I work. And I think I might even have developed an original thought based on the swirling debate around Denver Bronco quarterback Tim Tebow.

As a lifelong Washington Redskins fan, I was prepared for heartbreak when my Google search of the words “what we can learn tebow” confirmed that my discovery—much like the Americas before Columbus—was already occupied by others.

Tebow is an anchor of leadership excellence, organizational transformation and personal growth conversations all over the Internet—a true agent of change. Step away from the obvious debate about his evangelical faith and what you see is glaringly visible: A person driven by core values who selflessly exerts himself week in and week out, all the while acknowledging for whom he works, with whom he works—and his own fallibility.

At first I thought it was Tebow’s recent post-game comments, after another improbable comeback against the Chicago Bears, that caused sports bloggers to declare:

“… without trying to he teaches Leadership 101 every Sunday for anyone who pays attention. He’s not trying to be a great leader. He just is one. And it impresses the heck out of me more and more every week.”

But the discussion about Tebow’s leadership skills and their correlation to organizational transformation began weeks ago when he was declared the Bronco’s starting QB and led his team to its first stunning comeback win. In subsequent weeks—and after subsequent wins—human resource blogs started discussing Tebow in relationship to “winning ugly”—learning to succeed in business and life with the resources you’ve been dealt.

Dan Lohrman at Govtech.com summed up exactly what I was thinking in a career advice column:

“I’ll take a humble, hard-working, teachable, improving person with good character and a positive attitude ahead of the more powerful, skillful, overly-proud, mocking professional with a bad attitude—almost every time. This is true in sports, for geeks at the office and in most areas of life.”

Tim Tebow is not the inventor of universal leadership traits. But his story, the recent and perhaps short-lived success of his team, and the emotions he evokes from fans and non-fans alike make this a splendid learning opportunity.

Los Angeles needs elected leaders who realize their constituents deserve selfless service. We deserve leadership grounded in core values that transcend identity politics—leaders who genuinely merit the people’s respect. We deserve leadership that makes the most of limited resources, takes blame and gives credit, and is humble rather than narcissistic. We deserve good old-fashioned retail leadership that inspires our hearts rather than turns our stomachs.

And we need professional football in Los Angeles so that even if those engaged in our local political games can’t model the on-field leadership of elite athletes, at least the rest of us can finally see a local sport up close in which, for a change, we aren’t the ones constantly getting hurt.