Hero Teams
Life is a team sport.
This week, I’ve been thinking about a question Brené Brown asked Roger Bennett on The Curiosity Shop. It sounded like a soccer question. It ended up feeling like a leadership question.
“Hero players versus hero teams. What’s your take on that?”
My initial reaction was, “Easy. Hero teams.”
But the longer I listened to Roger unpack the question, the more I realized it wasn’t that simple.
That’s when my mind drifted somewhere else entirely. I stopped thinking about soccer and started thinking about every coaching staff I’d ever been part of.
Every season, somewhere along the way, I found myself wrestling with the same tension: Team interest versus self-interest.
Every team says they’re committed to the collective.
That’s easy when things are going well.
The real test comes when your idea isn’t chosen.
Your role changes.
Someone else gets the recognition.
Maybe that’s the real question behind Brené’s question.
It’s not whether a team has hero players.
It’s whether those hero players are willing to serve something bigger than themselves.
We all want to be part of a hero team.
The harder question is: What actually makes one possible?
🎥 2:24 Watch — The Secret Behind Pixar's Braintrust (From BetterUp's Pixar and the Power of Authentic Storytelling with Peter Sohn & Katherine Sarafian)
💭 Why It Matters
Listening to Peter Sohn answer the question, “What makes the Braintrust system work?” fascinated me because he didn’t describe a perfect system. He simply acknowledged that there were times when it worked and times when it didn’t.
That honesty caught my attention.
He referred to the best creative teams he had been a part of as “trench warfare.” Trust wasn’t created because everyone agreed. Bonds were formed by everyone coming together to make the movie better. That kind of trust required vulnerability. It required people willing to put their best work on the table, knowing it might be challenged, changed, or even rejected.
Listening to him instantly put me back in the “war room” with the different coaching staffs I’ve been a part of. Pixar called it the Braintrust; we called it the war room. Similar to Pixar, the best staffs I’ve worked with shared the same qualities. While everyone had different responsibilities, everyone was committed to doing their job exceptionally well in service of the same mission.
We used to say, “Check your ego at the door.” Looking back, I think there’s a better way to say it.
Star in your role for the team.
Being team-first doesn’t mean making yourself smaller. It means bringing the very best of yourself to something bigger than yourself.
That’s why I find myself borrowing Sohn’s metaphor so often when working with leaders and teams.
“The patient is on the table.”
I love the visual because it brings immediate mission clarity.
The surgeon doesn’t need the nurse to be a surgeon.
The anesthesiologist doesn’t need to prove they’re more important than the surgeon.
Everyone brings expertise.
Everyone has a role.
Everyone has to communicate.
But everyone is focused on the same patient.
When everyone is looking at the patient...
When everyone is looking at the movie...
There’s less room for ego because everyone’s eyes are on the same thing.
Hero teams aren’t built by minimizing individual excellence.
They’re built by aligning individual excellence around a shared mission.
📌 Quote of the Week
“The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team.” — John Wooden
💬 Reflective Questions
Where is your attention during difficult conversations—on defending your idea or serving the mission?
What would change if everyone on your team brought their best work while keeping the “patient” at the center of the room?
✍️ Closing
Hero teams don’t happen by accident. They are built one conversation, one role, and one shared commitment at a time.
Thanks for dropping in.
📅 Ready to lead from the inside out? Let’s connect.
See. Serve. Empower.
— Angel