Written by Recently, Australian Supercar Erebus Motorsport team boss Barry Ryan has come under fire for his arrogant and insensitive style of leadership. Ryan suggests that he is the victim of clever editing to make him appear to be a ‘villain’ for entertainment’s sake.
This is not the first time Ryan’s leadership has been called into question though; his fiery tirades documented on the docuseries “Inside Line: A Season with Erebus Motorsport”. This program followed Erebus throughout its 2019 campaign and exposed Ryan’s questionable behavior. His storming out of the Gold Coast precinct in the middle of race day, and his volatile outbursts to engineers and mechanics were highlighted as was his unrestrained criticism of driver Luke Youlden.
Youlden, who has since retired from racing, was subjected to Ryan’s wrath after his illustrious career sadly culminated in a disastrous 2019 Pirtek Enduro Cup campaign, where he crashed badly in practice and was involved in a horrifying high-speed crash, colliding with the back of Dale Wood’s car ending the race for the day for Youlden.
Despite this both men speak highly of each other, so is Ryan’s method of communicating with his team effective? He insists that “… most people in the industry have said that they know that I might have blown up then, but five minutes later, you’re going down and fixing the situation.” … “I’ve learned things from it, I’m not going to change. Anybody who thinks I’m going to change, they’re dreaming.” His belief in his methods is unshakable regardless of the widespread speculation of his management style. Rumors that the poor culture cultivated within the team by Ryan’s conduct has driven 2017 Bathurst 1000 winner, David Reynolds, to break his contract with Erebus this year only one year into his 10-year contract. It is also suspected that the exodus of driver Anton De Pasquale, race engineers Alistair McVean and Mirko De Rosa, crew chief Dennis Huijser and sponsor Penrite at the end of last season were largely due to Ryan’s brutish manner.
Ryan remains unapologetic about his management of the team, touting that his passion for the sport and his devotion to success is evidence of his value as team boss, but at what point does supercharged passion become a rage-filled rant? Anytime any member of the team feels threatened or hurt by the behavior of their leader … then they have gone too far. Verbal abuse is as insidious as physical abuse is and it displays a clear lack of respect for the team and undermines the confidence of the individual. Passionate motivation and enthusiasm from a leader are excellent, but there’s a fine line between inspiring peak performance and inciting mistrust and discord.