With the NBA season in full stride, superstar Luka Don\u010di\u0107 has laced up for his second season with the Los Angeles Lakers. It\u2019s worth looking back at his dramatic and painful evolution as a leader and examining the important lessons he offers leaders off the court.<\/p>\n
In early February, when the Dallas Mavericks abruptly traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers, it shattered the basketball player\u2019s world. Before Don\u010di\u0107\u2019s first game as a Laker, the team\u2019s star, LeBron James, shared some sage words for the devastated athlete<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cLuka, be your f—ing self,\u201d James said, in a pre-game huddle. \u201cDon\u2019t fit in. Fit the f— out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n And that\u2019s exactly what Don\u010di\u0107 has done. Months later, in his sophomore season in Los Angeles, his transformation from shaken newcomer to team cornerstone has become the most dramatic storyline in basketball \u2014 a hero\u2019s journey of a displaced star finding new ground.<\/p>\n As a journalist, executive coach and former strategic advisor at tech giant Palantir, I have closely watched the star athlete\u2019s response to adversity. Like Don\u010di\u0107, born in Slovenia, I am an immigrant, arriving in the U.S. as a graduate student and know the challenge of parachuting as an outsider into a new subculture and rising to the top. I often examine athletes as case studies in leadership<\/a>, because they reveal the best potential for leaders under pressure. <\/p>\n Take, for example, another athlete: U.S. Olympic pommel horse champion Stephen Nedoroscik, who made headlines last summer for his unique personality<\/a>, playing Rubik\u2019s Cube during breaks as he brought his team to an Olympic medal. His teammates described him as a \u201cpositive instigator.\u201d<\/p>\n As a leadership coach, the term struck me as the perfect way to describe people who act as catalysts for meaningful transformation, leading me to create a new coaching<\/a> program called the Positive Instigation Coaching Program. As the U.S. and the world confronts a national and global crisis in leadership, it\u2019s an aspiration all of us can try to achieve.<\/p>\n ‘Positive Leadership’<\/p>\n Don\u010di\u0107 and Nedoroscik exemplify so many of the traits that psychologists Marcel Meyer, Dulce M Red\u00edn, and Arm\u00e9nio Rego have identified as part of a “Positive Leadership Action Framework.” I see the traits in my tech founder clients, who invariably go through a \u201cvalley of death\u201d when they don\u2019t have funding or product-market fit and are just a hair\u2019s breadth away from failure, often, like Don\u010di\u0107, for reasons beyond their control. The ones who survive and thrive exhibit the strength to rise above the crisis, pivot on a dime and, above all, be humble enough to learn from the adversity. They also understand who they are and what they do will only matter if they can build community and look beyond their own commercial interests. <\/p>\n Psychologists have found a similar phenomenon in childhood: the \u201cpositive peer influencer.\u201d While peer pressure<\/a> often carries a negative connotation, research shows it can be a powerful force for good. As Brett Laursen and Ren\u00e9 Veenstra wrote in Child Development<\/a> Perspectives (2022), \u201cPeer influence is an instrument of change, with outcomes that are not preordained: The same processes that make influence a source of harm also make it a valuable interpersonal resource.”<\/p>\n Studies confirm that children surrounded by peers with strong interpersonal or social skills often improve their own. One study in Early Childhood Research Quarterly found \u201cvalue-added effects of peer abilities” on gains in cognitive, pre-reading, and expressive language skills in preschool settings. Positive peer environments also nurture emotional well-being. A 2024 review in Frontiers in Psychology concluded that “peer acceptance,” or being liked and having friends, are “crucial to the individual’s adjustment and overall wellbeing.”<\/p>\n \u2018Give Back to the Community\u2019<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Don\u010di\u0107 admitted to ESPN that he threw his iPhone upon hearing the news of his transfer, cracking the screen. But over many months, amid reports that he was traded for being undisciplined about his work ethic, Don\u010di\u0107 proved that he could work hard to overcome some of his failings, navigating adversity with grit and giving back to his new community. In one of his first responses to the trade, he donated $500,000 for recovery efforts in Los Angeles, which was putting out its own fires, literally.<\/p>\n In an interview, Don\u010di\u0107 explained why he gave the donation: \u201cBecause, everywhere I play, I give back to the community, like the community gives back to me.\u201d <\/p>\n