What Bobby Cox’s Turnaround Teaches Us About Leadership Recovery
With the news of Bobby Cox’s passing this month, the tributes poured in. Fourteen straight division titles. A World Series ring. A Hall of Fame plaque. But the story that keeps coming back to me isn’t about his wins. It’s about what happened in June 1990, eighteen months before anyone was calling it a dynasty.
The Atlanta Braves finished last in the National League West in both 1989 and 1990. Last. Two years in a row. Then, mid-season 1990, the Braves dismissed manager Russ Nixon, and Cox stepped into the dugout himself as manager. The Braves went from worst-to-first in 1991, won the pennant, and didn’t stop winning their division for fourteen consecutive years.
Most people tell that story as if the magic was the 1991 season. I’d argue the TSN turning point was the quiet decision in June 1990 that almost nobody talks about.
The Talent Was Already There
Here’s what I find most instructive about this story for the work I do. John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Steve Avery, Ron Gant, and David Justice — none of them were new in 1991. Cox had spent four years as General Manager building that roster. He’d drafted, acquired, and developed the core of that team. They existed. The organization had invested in them.
And yet the team was finishing last.
So what changed? Not the talent. The conditions around the talent.
When Cox stepped into the dugout, he wasn’t inheriting a broken roster. He was finally positioned to work directly with the people he’d built the system around. He knew them. He understood what they needed to perform. That proximity — that direct relationship between a leader and the people they’re leading — unlocked what was already there.
I think about this constantly in the context of leadership recovery. When a high-performing leader is struggling, the instinct is to look at the leader. What’s wrong with her? What does she need to fix? What development gap are we filling? But so often, the talent isn’t the problem. The conditions around the talent are the problem. The structure is wrong. The support is absent. The leader is positioned too far from the work where her impact would actually land.
A struggling leader is rarely without capability. More often, the capability is still there — but it’s become obscured by pressure, damaged stakeholder relationships, unclear expectations, or a narrative that’s already started to take hold around her. The first recovery question isn’t “Is this leader failing?” The better question is “What capability is still present, and what is preventing it from showing up consistently?”
Clarity of Role Is Not a Soft Issue
After the 1990 season, Cox stepped out of the GM role and handed roster-building responsibilities to John Schuerholz, allowing Cox to focus fully on managing the team from the dugout. With Schuerholz shaping the roster and Cox leading the players on the field, the Braves began a run of 14 straight division titles from 1991 to 2005.
Two leaders, clearly defined roles, no overlap, no ambiguity about who owned what.
I’d buy that as a contributing factor to fourteen straight division titles. Wouldn’t you?
Role clarity sounds like a management 101 concept, but it’s not. In my experience, the absence of it is one of the most common and most costly conditions that puts otherwise capable leaders into recovery mode in the first place. Unclear expectations, competing accountabilities, scope that’s grown without structure to support it — these aren’t minor inconveniences. They’re the conditions under which good leaders start to look like they’re failing.
There’s a parallel lesson here about alignment. When a leader is in trouble, she can quickly become surrounded by vague concern. HR is concerned. The boss is concerned. Peers may be frustrated. The team may be uncertain. Everyone is watching, but not everyone is aligned. That’s dangerous. Recovery requires more than a willing leader. It requires the sponsor, HR, and the leader herself to be clear about what’s actually happening, what genuinely needs to change, and whether the organization is still willing to support recovery. Without that alignment, the leader may be working hard in entirely the wrong direction.
Recovery Requires Runway, Not Just Repositioning
Here’s what gets glossed over in the “worst-to-first” headline: the talent Cox assembled wasn’t new in 1991. It had been building for years. What 1991 represented was the maturation of a foundation laid under difficult conditions.
Recovery is not a quick fix. It requires time, the right conditions, and a commitment from the organization to stay the course long enough to see results. The Braves didn’t win the pennant because they panicked and overhauled everything. They won because someone made a structural decision — Cox to the dugout, Schuerholz to the front office — and then gave the system time to work.
Frankly, most organizations I work with don’t have the patience for that. When a leader struggles, the pressure to act is immediate. Performance management timelines kick in. Conversations shift from “what does this leader need?” to “what’s our exit strategy?” And in the process, organizations write off talent they spent years building — talent that, under different conditions, would have delivered exactly what they needed.
Therein lies the challenge. Recovery looks slow from the outside. But the alternative — cycling through leaders, losing institutional knowledge, repeating the same onboarding mistakes with the next hire — is far more expensive and far less likely to produce a dynasty.
What the “Worst-to-First” Label Gets Wrong
The worst-to-first framing is irresistible. It’s a great story. But it flattens something important.
What Cox built wasn’t just a turnaround. It was a long-term recovery — a disciplined effort to create the conditions where capable people could finally perform at their best. The 1991 pennant was not the beginning of that recovery; it was the result.
Turnarounds aren’t created by optimism. They’re created by disciplined belief, better structure, closer leadership, and a clear path back to performance. That’s true in baseball. It’s also true in leadership.
When I work with organizations through The Athena Leadership Recovery System™, the first question I ask isn’t “what’s wrong with this leader?” It’s “what’s wrong with the conditions this leader is operating in?” Nine times out of ten, that’s where the real answer lives.
Bobby Cox showed us that in 1990. He just didn’t have a framework for it yet.
What would change in your organization if you started asking the same question?
Not every leader can be recovered. But some can.
And when the right leader is recovered at the right time, the result is not just a saved role. It can become the beginning of a stronger, clearer, more resilient chapter of leadership.
Wondering whether recovery is still possible?
If you are watching a capable woman leader struggle and wondering whether the situation can still be saved, The Athena Leadership Recovery System™ can help clarify what is happening, what is at risk, and whether there is a viable path forward.