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Is that experience will teach. If a division on a Navy ship is having problems with motivation or execution, you find the best CPO you can, put him in charge, and watch things change. Why? Because for hundreds of years, those who have studied organizational behavior AND those who have been responsible for getting things done have understood that leadership and character are more than words, they are concepts people respond to. Leadership by the CPO, since he has gone through the same things the rest are going through, is FAR more valuable than the leadership of the division officer, who is typically an engineer three to five years out of college and is viewed as one of "them" - the forces that make the job so crummy.
Now the Hawthorne experiment also showed that a type of improvement in productivity can be made from change alone, regardless of the effectiveness of management. But what the Japanese, using the wisdom of Deming, proved is that the productivity and quality improvements can be made permanent if you can get the members of the production team to buy in AND to feel valuable in participating in continual change and improvement. And Toyota ate GM alive.
How does this apply to baseball? Well, think back to a pair of heralded prospects of the Ms in times past - Yuniesky Betancourt and Jose Lopez. Now, I'm not sure about all of what went on with those two, but the result screams of lack of leadership/mentorship. From talented, capable prospects to selfish, out-of-shape prima donnas in about three years. A tragic waste. But it is always a risk with talented people who begin to feel entitled.
You may not be able to measure leadership, but it is definitely a major component in both individual and team performance. And it can't always come from the "officers", the managers in charge, which, regardless of the "Sarge" nickname, is exactly what Wedge is. There has to be a CPO component. Is Morse ready to be that guy? I thought early on yes, he was. But it is now obvious to me (my tergiversation) that Raul has been essential to this team, and remains so as more young players come up.
Leadership and clubhouse chemistry. No, you can't provide numerical values for them. But do you think ANY Red Sox fan doubts their importance? Do you think the change in John Lester's performance is random noise. Bullbleep! They have leadership that has meshed with the clubhouse in ways that Bobby Valentine, for all his talents, could not - most especially because he couldn't get what I call the CPO component to follow and help him. Is that solely Valentine's fault? His previous success speaks for itself; in the right situation he has been a brilliant leader. But in that clubhouse it was not to be. And pace Bronx Zoo, that's no way to run a ball club.
After having been on ships chosen as the best in the fleet by competitive analysis several times in my career, and having been an enlisted technician, a CPO, a junior officer project engineer, and an officer with major responsibility aboard an aircraft carrier, I can say I KNOW what leadership is, even if I can't tell you what percentage it played in our exercise grades or retention results (100% most likely). And it is the essential "IT" in TEAM performance, which is NEVER simply the summation of the WAR (or performance evals) of a group of men/women.
In April, I thought Raul would be more valuable to the team as the second hitting coach. I was wrong. The Ms have been better, and more importantly, WILL be better, for him being on this team. I, too, hope he won't be needed next year, that others will pick up the role and be the leader. I suspect that Seager, for all his youth, is getting close. But if JackZ signs another high-character broken-down DH that runs lousy routes in LF, don't be surprised if he make a positive difference.