In 1993 Jimmy Valvano delivered his remarkable Arthur Ashe Courage award acceptance speech at ESPN’S 1993 ESPY award ceremony. Jimmy Valvano appears to be a Theory Y leader who took full advantage of his condition and leadership skills to present his goals of raising cancer awareness and further the research into this dreaded illness. To convey this agenda, he employs several leadership traits such as, charisma, self-confidence, integrity, sociability and intelligence.
Valvano starts his speech empathetically and thankfully by recognizing the honor bestowed upon him of being mentioned in the same breath as Arthur Ashe. Throughout his speech, Valvano repeats that, “Time is very precious to me [and] I don’t know how much I have left…” Keeping this in mind, Valvano doesn’t spare any time with wasteful jokes, rather he begins by instructing his audience to “laugh, think, and cry” daily. This is Valvano’s first key message to his audience and by the end of his speech he hopes that his audience is motivated to do all three.
Through his openness, Valvano effectively builds a friendly social connection with his audience. Valvano also takes advantage of his charismatic personality to remind the audience that ‘He doesn’t have much time left’ in a way that inspires, not sadden. Valvano’s charisma helps him deliver his ultimate message of AIDS fund-raising vs. Cancer fund-raising. He introduces this message by stating, “…the amount of money pouring in for AIDS is not enough,” Valvano is careful not to offend any critics.
Valvano is also very intelligent in his arguments