As many of you know, I am a cyclist and a professional cycling fan. For those that aren’t cycling fans, there is something going on that hasn’t happened since 2013 — an American cyclist is leading the Vuelta a Espana (one of the three Grand Tours. The others are the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia.) It is an exciting time for American cycling.

Sepp Kuss — Follower and Now Leader

Sepp Kuss is a 28 year old American cyclist from Durango, Colorado. A graduate of the University of Colorado with a degree in advertising, he started off as a mountain bike rider. He became a full time road cyclist. For most of the year he lives in Andorra, a tiny principality between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains, so he can live and train at altitude. He is married to Noemí Ferré, a former Spanish professional cyclist. They have a 6 month old poodle, Bimba, who is typically with Noemi at the end of every stage.

Since 2018 Sepp Kuss has raced professionally for Team Jumbo-Visma, a Belgian cycling team. For the past five years, his role on Jumbo-Visma was to be a climbing domestique — he would stay with the team leader (called a General Classification of GC leader) in the mountains and ride as hard as he could in front of him in order to tire his opponents out and enable the GC winner to have an easier ride and be in the position to win the race. He was very good at his job — he helped Jonas Vingegaard with the Tour de France in 2022, Primos Roglic win the Giro d’Italia in 2023, and Jonas Vingegaard win the Tour de France again in 2023. I liked his skills as a follower — competence, work ethic, judgement, initiative, loyalty, and ego management — so much I wrote two previous articles about him:

Followership and the Domestique (#74)

Followership and the Vuelta 2021 (#156)

Something special has happened this year in the Vuelta a Espana. Starting in Madrid on August 26, 2023 over 150 of the best cyclists in the world have been vying to be the General Classification leader of the race and wear the red jersey. After Sepp got in a breakaway that put him into second place on Stage 6, he took the red jersey and the overall General Classification leader on stage 8. For the past 7 stages he has held the red jersey and the overall lead for the race. His two teammates, Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic are ranked second and third in the General Classification. No team has won all three Grand Tours in aa year. And no team has swept all three podium spots in a Grand Tour. There are six more stages until the race finishes in Madrid.

As Sepp said yesterday “There are no gifts. There is no overcomplicating how we use the three of us. I think it’s nice to have three of us in the position we are now, but we can’t overly put emphasis on that and lose the bigger picture, which is just winning the race with one of us in the end.”

As an executive coach, it has been fascinating to watch the follower transform into the leader. The same six qualities that made him a great follower — competence, work ethic, judgement, initiative, loyalty, and ego management — also have helped Sepp Kuss become a great leader. One of the most important ones for Kuss in his situation at the Vuelta is ego management. Ego management is defined as subordinating his own ego for the greater good of the team or organization. Right now, the two General Classification leaders for the team, Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard (they won the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France respectively this year) are sitting #3 and #2 in the General Classification standings. Not only does Kuss have to make sure he races hard and stays in the lead, he has to manage upwards and make sure that the two leaders (Roglic and Vingegaard) remain happy with the situation. It is a challenging situation for any leader to navigate.

Last American to Win a Grand Tour

As an aside, the last American to win a Grand Tour (one of the three three week cycling races in Italy, France, and Spain) was Chris Horner. Chris, who raced professionally from 1996 to 2019 spent most of his time with Astana and Radio Shack. Chris was an all-arounder — during his career he won the Tour of California, Tour of Georgia, and the Tour of the Basque Country. In 2013, at the age of 41, he won the Vuelta a Espana by 37 seconds over Vincenzo Nibali. Chris is now a cycling commentator for NBC and has his own YouTube channel called the “Butterfly Effect” where he comments on cycling. Here is the link to the YouTube channel — the Butterfly Effect.

Conclusion

Are you ready to transform yourself from being a great follower into also being a great leader like Sepp Kuss? Do you need to do a better job of managing upwards and managing your ego to take the next step? Then reach out to me here and start the conversation about doing six months of executive coaching to take yourself to the next level. There are two slots left for 4th Quarter.

In the meantime, watch the six days of the Vuelta a Espana and see if Sepp Kuss wins the race on Sunday, September 17, 2023 and becomes the first American grand tour winner since 2013.