Eric Musselman and the 2 Questions Any Leader Must Decide

For Eric Musselman, the decision to follow in his father's footsteps and become a basketball coach was relatively easy.

How he's navigated career twists, overcome obstacles, and rebranded himself has been anything but.

Musselman, who now has the Arkansas Razorbacks in the Sweet 16 for the third consecutive season, began his career coaching in the Continental Basketball Association and quickly found himself on the sidelines of the NBA.

He coached two different franchises — was fired by both — before taking a career pivot to enter college basketball, first as an assistant at Arizona State and then LSU.

By the time he accepted the head coaching position at the University of Nevada-Reno in 2015, Musselman had humbled himself and proven he was willing to do what so many leaders refuse to: Start over.

Musselman's unique ability to embrace dramatic change has long been one of his key virtues as a coach and teacher. But his greatest tool, one that's vital to any great leader, is his willingness to possess:

VERISIMILITUDE.

According to Webster's Dictionary, Verisimilitude means "the quality of seeming true or of having the appearance of being real."

Most fiction writers and filmmakers aim to have some kind of verisimilitude to give their stories an air of authenticity. They need not show something actually true, or even very common, but simply something believable.

With every shirt Musselman rips off after a big win, every table he hops up on or the unbridled enthusiasm he exhibits on Twitter, he's in complete harmony with his core competitive nature.

Among the key questions any leader must decide are "Who am I?" and "How am I going to act?"

We're often guilty of adjusting to the norms of society or the team we represent, but this can easily lead to a leadership style that's fake, not believable, and over time, simply not effective.

All leaders need listening skills, divergent thinking, and the ability to communicate and maintain a plan.

But equally important is verisimilitude.

For Musselman, it took years to find his genuine voice and authentic behavior.

Now that he has, he's become one of the faces of college basketball and a mainstay of the NCAA tournament, a once-fired coach who's learned from his experiences at every step to reach the pinnacle of his profession.