My friend, Jim Sturm, directs the Looyenga Leadership Center at Minot State University and required his LEAD 201 leadership class to read my dots, then write their own dot as an assignment. In what has become an annual tradition, I’ll be sharing some of the results this weekend and other weekends this summer while I’m away.
Today’s dot was written by Tayton Hjelmstad
I’ve spent a lot of time behind a microphone as a public address announcer for softball games. On the surface, it looks like a solo role. You, a script, and a voice echoing across the field. But the biggest leadership lesson I’ve learned is this: even the most “individual” roles are only successful when they are deeply connected to the team.
Early on, I treated announcing like a performance. Get the names right. Keep the energy up. Do not mess up. But I realized quickly that when I focused only on myself, I missed the bigger picture. Timing cues were off. Music did not match the moment. Player intros felt flat. The reason was simple. I was not truly working with the people around me.
Leadership in a team setting starts with awareness. Who is running the scoreboard? Who is coordinating walk-up songs? Who needs a heads-up before the next inning starts? When I began communicating, really communicating, with those people, everything changed. The flow improved. The energy felt natural. The game experience became something we created together, not something I delivered alone.
Here is the practical takeaway: do not confuse your role with your impact. Your role might be clearly defined, but your impact depends on how well you connect with others. If you want to lead within a team, ask more than you assume. A quick “What do you need from me?” goes a long way. Stay one step ahead for others, not just yourself. Anticipate how your actions affect the group. Make others look good. When they succeed, the whole team wins, and so do you. The best teams do not just share tasks. They share awareness. And sometimes, the strongest leadership does not sound like a voice over a speaker. It sounds like nothing at all, because everything is running exactly how it should.
The mic isn’t the moment, the team is.
