Last year’s Celebrity Apprentice finals pitted Academy Award Winning Actress Marlee Matlin against country singer John Rich. 

Both celebrities had strong track records throughout the season.  Both showed tremendous leadership, creativity, and results.  But when the final curtain went down, John Rich was the winner.

The final competition was to develop a marketing campaign and promotional event for Seven Up Retro.  Even though the task was focused on promoting Seven Up, Rich continued to ask his guests for donations to his charity (all contestants on Celebrity Apprentice play for a charity of their choosing).  He raised $275,000 the night of the Seven Up Retro promotional event.  Trump seemed impressed and asked Matlin for her reaction.  Matlin argued that it shouldn’t have an impact on Trump’s final decision because the task wasn’t to raise funds, it was to run a promotion.  She also argued that she raised far more than $275,000 when she was project manager during the actual fund-raising task several weeks prior (in fact Matlin’s project raised more money than all prior Celebrity Apprentice Fund-Raisers combined).

I have a lot of respect for Marlee Matlin and thought she did a great job all season.  However, I believe that her response to Trump knocked her out of contention to win. 

At the time, Trump said that Rich’s fund-raising would not play a role in his final decision but I have a hard time believing that.  Does Donald Trump want people who simply follow his directions and do their assigned tasks (albeit well)?  Or, would he rather have a person who, in the context of completing a task, finds additional opportunities to create value and reach his goals?

Of all of the success that John Rich had throughout the season, his actions in the final task firmly established him as a leader.  Throughout the season he stated that his main goal was to raise money for his charity, St. Jude’s hospital.  He never took his eye off the goal.  Regardless of the task ahead of him, he found a way to move closer to that goal.

I often hear leaders complain that they could have achieved a different or better result if they had been given the chance.  In my workshops, leaders who fall short in activities will often shift the blame to me saying that my instructions didn’t specifically tell them to do X or Y (of course, the instructions never say that they CAN’T do X or Y).

That’s not what leadership is about.  A good leader knows what he or she wants to accomplish and figures out how to make it happen, regardless of what was specifically asked of him or her. 

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Brad Kolar is the President of Kolar Associates, a leadership consulting and workforce productivity consulting firm.  He can be reached at brad.kolar@kolarassociates.com.