Want a lesson in leadership styles? Watch the NBA Finals.

A few weeks after Caleb Martin joined the Miami Heat, he still didn’t have much social capital with his teammates. But he’d been a backup player for most of his career who knew it was important to hang out with the stars – and Jimmy Butler, a six-time All-Star and the team’s leading scorer, was without a doubt the greatest of all. Miami.

Martin had heard that Butler had an aggressive personality, that he was known to bark at teammates and coaches. But Martin didn’t think about the potential consequences of upsetting Butler during a pick-up game on one of those early days. He made a move just as Butler passed him, and the ball sailed out of bounds. Martin saw Butler was frustrated. He marched up to Butler and said, “If you have a problem, tell me.”

For a split second, Martin wondered if his brutality would irritate Butler. He didn’t even have a full-time NBA contract yet. But it didn’t.

“He didn’t think it was disrespectful or anything like that,” Martin said. “No matter how much responsibility he puts on other people and keeps other people, he sticks to it. It’s two-way traffic. He allows feedback.”

Butler’s reputation for being brash and aggressive is not without merit, and he has often cited Martin’s faults. Butler doesn’t shy away from venting his grievances, yelling in team groups, at opponents, or sometimes nothing at all. He’s just as loud with his encouragement.

The Heat’s opponent in the NBA Finals, the Denver Nuggets, has a different type of leader in Nikola Jokic, who is quieter. He does not make speeches or chastise his teammates, and he rarely shows much emotion during games.

Their contrasting styles illustrate ideas that leadership experts have been championing for decades. The underlying ethos followed by both players seems to matter more than how their leadership manifests itself.

“It’s such a good example of avoiding this kind of static concept of ‘what does it mean to be the best kind of leader?'” says Peter Bregman, an author and executive coach who works with leaders of large companies. “Because here you have two completely different people leading in very, very different ways, equally effective. And so it sort of betrays this concept that there’s a best practice for doing this.

Professional basketball provides a helpful guide to understanding leadership. The best NBA players make split-second decisions in front of thousands of people live and millions more watching on television. Their off-field actions are scrutinized and sometimes blamed for their teammates’ mistakes. But whatever the results of their decision making, they often have to return the next day to lead the same people.

When Nuggets players are asked about Jokic’s leadership style, they say he leads by example more than words.

“He’s professional in every aspect of the game,” said Nuggets guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. “Just seeing that, seeing it on the court, makes everyone want to play basketball with him and want to play better.”

When Butler’s teammates are asked about his leadership, they allude to the sharp edge of his personality, but that sharp edge stems from a passion they can understand. They say he holds people accountable, but their shared goal – to be the best team in the NBA – is evident in Butler’s critique.

He also embraces the responsibility that comes with being the leader of the team.

“He’ll do anything for you,” said Miami Heat center Cody Zeller.

Some scholars could explain those differences using leadership language focused on tasks versus relationships. Afsaneh Nahavandi, a professor of management at the University of San Diego, sees Butler as a more task-oriented leader and Jokic as a more relationship-oriented leader.

“Every leader gets something done, so everyone has a task in mind,” Nahavandi said. “But do you approach it by pushing the task and pushing people? Or do you approach it by just letting people develop their own thing and focus on making sure people are happy?

That leadership framework was explored in the 1960s by the psychologist Fred Fiedler, who studied leadership among high school basketball players. Basketball provided a controlled way of understanding how a group of people working together to accomplish a single task responded to different leadership styles.

Fiedler also found that leaders’ success is highly dependent on their environment.

Butler’s style hasn’t worked everywhere. While playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves, his teammates did not respond well to his demanding nature, and Butler left the team after pushing for a trade.

But in Miami, the so-called Heat culture calls for excellence, commitment and a thick skin.

“My style of leadership works here,” Butler said, making air quotes around “leadership.” He added: “It really is a match made in heaven. I love it here.”

Sometimes Butler’s style leads to explosions, like in March 2022 when Butler and Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra yelled at each other during a game and had to be stopped by other players. Today Spoelstra speaks of Butler with reverence.

“I don’t want him to ever apologize for who he is and how he approaches the competition,” Spoelstra said. “It’s intense. It’s not for everyone, and we’re not for everyone. That’s why we think it’s an incredible marriage. We never judge him on that. He doesn’t judge us for how crazy we get.”

The Nuggets also demand excellence, but the language they use about each other is often kinder. They like to talk about their collaborative nature.

“We have guys who understand that selflessness is a big part of being a Denver Nugget,” said coach Michael Malone. He added: “You have to have guys who get along – on the field, off the field – and who come together and share a common goal.”

It refers to a culture in which a less confrontational style, like Jokic’s, could work.

Jokic’s teammates seem to be responding well to that quieter form of leadership, although some have tried to help him adopt a more dominant stance.

DeAndre Jordan, a 15-year veteran, took Jokic aside during training camp to encourage him to say more.

“At first he was like, ‘Brother, I’m not doing that. You have to do it,” Jordan said.

But Jordan and other veterans continued to cheer him on. A few months into the season, they saw him standing up for himself more in groups and giving feedback to his teammates. However, he doesn’t take it beyond the bounds of what makes him comfortable.

“We don’t want him to become someone he’s not,” Jordan said. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to be either.”

Although Jokic and Butler use very different styles, they have earned the trust of their teammates.

Chris Adkins saw clues to how they developed that confidence when he watched some of their interviews. Adkins, the academic director of leadership development at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, saw a manifestation of research that he says has shown that “ability, benevolence, and integrity” are three essential components to fostering trust.

“Their players seem to buy in, whether it’s a more vocal or quieter approach, because they know deep down that this person has high power, they’re consistent with great integrity, they practice what they preach, they walk the walk,” Adkins said. “But they are also committed to us, not just their own egos.”

Jokic is known as a selfless player; he averaged 9.8 assists per game this season. He has often said that his basketball ethos came from a coach in Serbia who told him that when you pass, you make two people happy, but when you score, only one person is happy. He shuns credit when speaking to reporters and is quick to praise his teammates.

Butler grew up outside of Houston and was evicted from his home as a teenager. After high school, with little interest in major college programs, he spent a year at a junior college in Texas before attending Marquette. While Butler has fewer assists than Jokic, he also plays selflessly and inspires confidence in his teammates.

Butler objects to other Heat players being called “role players,” preferring to think of them simply as teammates. When asked if he was too passive in the Heat’s Game 1 loss when he only scored 13 points, Butler said he wasn’t and that he intended to keep looking for his teammates throughout the series.

It may take some time for Heat newcomers to understand how Butler works.

Kyle Lowry joined the Heat in 2021, two years after Butler did. Lowry was a six-time All-Star guard and came from a leadership role in Toronto, which won a championship in 2019. He made it clear he loved Butler’s thirst for winning and his dedication to his teammates, but also said his personality “is very different.” .”

“He might say some things or he might do some things that you think, ‘Oh. Wow.’ But it comes from the best part of his heart,” Lowry said.

How does he know?

“We’re around him every day,” Lowry said, before bumping into it in a good mood. “Unfortunately. But fortunately.”