How Is Lance Armstrong A Great Leader

Leadership Failure: Lance Armstrong
Leadership, what does that mean? Every individual that wants to achieve power and control over their future endeavors in creating success wants to be a great leader; however, not everyone has the same ideals of what being a great leader means and therefore they sometimes fail, which is the case with Lance Armstrong, the well-known cyclist winner, cancer advocate, and survivor. In general, according to Forbes, “leadership is a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal” (Kruse, "What Is Leadership?", 2013). Lance Armstrong has done exactly this. He has used his image to motivate and embolden not only individuals with cancer, but many with other health struggles. Unfortunately, he admittedly used performance enhancing drugs to achieve some of his goals.
History
From a very young age, Lance Armstrong was competitive and he was and still is driven to win.
At the age of just 10, he began to run, swim, and take on competitive cycling. By 13, the triathlons began. The Triathlons included combinations of a 1,000 meter swims, 15- mile bike rides and 3-mile runs ("Lance Armstrong Biography Cyclist"). Only 6 years after beginning this journey at the age of 16, he became a professional tri-athlete (“Lance Armstrong Biography Cyclist”). Lance Armstrong eventually shifted to strictly cycling as it was his best sport and, his favorite, in shifting he began to place and win multiple races, including placing 11th in the 1990 World Championship Road Race with the best time of any American since 1976, the U.S National Amateur Champion, First Union Grand Prix, and the Thrift Drug Classic (“Lance Armstrong Biography Cyclist”). From these early years, Lance Armstrong only strived to become better and to fight for a top spot in races to come in the years which followed, not knowing the struggles he would come to
face.
Cancer
At the young age of 25, in 1996 October, Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with Testicular cancer. His cancer was advanced. Tumors were spread to his lungs, abdomen, and lymph nodes and he wasn’t given the best of chances to continue living (“Lance Armstrong Biography Cyclist”). Later tumors were also found on his brain, which lessened his chances of living even more. After surgeries and many rounds of chemotherapy, he became cancer-free in February of 1997 . Lance Armstrong did not ever give up on his passion, cycling. He said that he would race again and he did (“Lance Armstrong Biography Cyclist”). Armstrong used his battles with cancer and his accomplishments in racing to lead others. He started the Lance Armstrong Foundation now LIVESTRONG which was a non-profit organization that was based in Texas. The foundation fights to improve the lives of people affected by cancer (“Our History”). Throughout Lance Armstrong’s athletic career and his battles with cancer he came to be a leader to many.
Leadership and the Failure
Lance Armstrong is a leader for many reasons. He is driven to fight and to win, he is accomplished in many avenues, he is inspirational in sorts due to the fight he has within to beat anything, he has given to others in need, and he has lived through a threatening disease that could have taken everything.
Lance Armstrong used his career wins in cycling and his personal battles with cancer to advance fighting cancer with the foundation, LIVESTRONG, which he began. People all over the world still wear yellow wristbands embellished with LIVESTRONG, which symbolizes the unity and hope in fighting cancer (“Our History”). He had people believing that anything was possible because although he had to overcome this tragic and detrimental disease, he still was able to not only compete, but win in these extremely challenging athletic events. Unfortunately, a downward spiral in his career and leadership began when he had multiple allegations against him for using performance enhancing drugs to achieve better results. The allegations were made by many of his former teammates and initially, Armstrong would deny every single one. He claimed that he had been receiving oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and he even attacked those who aimed to expose his doping. Eventually, he came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview (Goldman, 2013). He said, “It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn’t true”, of his seemingly fairytale that he overcame cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history (Goldmann, 2013). Armstrong admitted that he was a competitor and he was driven to cheat by his “ruthless desire to win” (Goldmann, 2013).
Application to Leadership
Lance Armstrong’s leadership and failures as such can be surely explained by a few leadership theories; however, there is much about the path-goal theory that is seen. Lance Armstrong rationalizes his performance enhancing drug use. He said to Oprah Winfrey in his admission that he did not see this as cheating, but rather “leveling the playing field” (Goldmann, 2013). He wanted to win and he wanted his team to win at any cost. Even as a team captain, one that leads by example, he openly used enhancement drugs and encouraged his teammates to do the same (Goldmann, 2013).