A Note from Bill: I posted this entry on Friday, two days before the Super Bowl. Well, the big game is over, my gritty and humble Giants are the champions, and Patriots coach Bill Belichick, once revered as a genius, is now being pummeled as petty and small--whether for leaving the field before the final whistle blew, or the curt way he conducted himself in his post-game remarks.

His ungracious (an not uncharacteristic) behavior underscores my original point: It's dangerous to look to the gridiron or to the baseball diamond for lessons about business leadership. Here's the original post....

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The days before (and immediately after) a Super Bowl are filled with all kinds of excited chatter, some of which is even about the game. (As a lifelong New York Giants fan, I am hoping against hope for a monumental upset.) There's lots of anticipation about the ads, and what they say about the state of Madison Avenue's creative prowess. There's lots of speculation about the future of mass media, and how few TV events are still capable of holding the attention of tens of millions of people. And of course, there are the inevitable analogies between sports and business, and, in particular, the tendency to anoint the winning coach as a master of strategy, motivation, and leadership.

Might I urge everyone to raise a skeptical eyebrow on this last tendency?

My fellow discussion leader Tom Davenport did a fascinating post on how the New England Patriots as an organization use analytics to evaluate players and make decisions. That's good stuff, and a topic worth studying. But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about a much more human tendency to (wrongly) equate success in one area with success in another area.

As parents, we've all reminded our kids that professional athletes are not role models. Just because you can run fast or hit hard doesn't mean you're a good person. Well, what goes for kids and their reverence for athletes goes for executives and their reverence for coaches. Just because someone has won a few Super Bowl trophies (or World Series rings) doesn't mean that they represent a model of effective leadership. Fortune may declare Joe Torre a "Manager for All Seasons," and Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy may have a New York Times bestseller touting his Quiet Strength, but I hope we're all smart enough not to believe that these or other successful coaches have much to teach us about how to build and run great companies.

Quite the opposite. The personal style of most professional football coaches is appalling: arrogant, paranoid, humorless. That was never more clear than at the outset of this NFL season, when "Spygate" reared its ugly head. How did Patriots coach Bill Belichick react to getting caught red-handed breaking NFL rules by taping his opponent's defensive signals from the sidelines? He issued two written statements in which he apologized (grudgingly) for his actions, and then held two press conferences at which he refused to say anything above and beyond what was in the written statements (and didn't even read the statements aloud.) As reporters asked the inevitable questions, Belichick did his best impression of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. But instead of "ten minutes to Wapner" it was "we're getting ready for San Diego" and "I'm moving on." It was a genuinely creepy performance--this supposed leader of men wasn't man enough to face the music.

But the limitations are about more than style. Football is literally a zero-sum game--every Sunday there's a winner, a loser, and nothing in between. Everything about business, especially these days, is the in between. Your supplier can be a competitor, your rival in one market can be a partner in another. How you conduct yourself is as important as whether or not you land a specific deal. And all sorts of stakeholders (especially customers) want to see that companies and their leaders demonstrate a set of values that are in sync with their strategy to create economic value.

I'm as much of a sports fan as the next guy, and I love the drama and mythology surrounding both the Super Bowl and great coaches. (The David Maraniss book on Vince Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered, may be one of the most moving biographies I've read in the last two decades.) But the next time I am tempted to anoint a successful football coach as a role model for business leadership, I'll think back to Bill Belichick's performance at the beginning of this season...and think again.