Steph Curry and Barack Obama swap ideas on leadership, parenting and relationships

Steph Curry and Barack Obama know each other a little bit from the Warriors star’s visits to the White House and several community organizing efforts they’ve combined on.

Wednesday they connected again, this time virtually, just like many Americans over the last nine-plus months during the coronavirus pandemic.

On the day of his first Warriors media availability since March, Curry took his turn as interviewer, asking the 44th president on Instagram Live about leading the nation, family relationships and his new memoir Promised Land, which set a new record for first-day sales in the U.S. and Canada upon its release earlier this month.

It was no interrogation, but Curry got some interesting tidbits out of Obama, and the interview revealed many of their shared philosophies.

Obama drew parallels between leading a basketball team and leading an administration, noting that faith in teammates is key to any type of group success.

“If you can figure out how to empower the other folks on your team so they’re doing great, that’s good for you. And by the way, they’ll feel good about your leadership because they’re seeing that you’re invested in their success,” Obama said, before taking a veiled shot at his successor, Donald Trump, whose inner circle is reportedly a much more cutthroat environment, as aides vie for his approval.

“The mistake a lot of folks make is they think being a leader is how do I dominate and stay on top of folks. If you have that kind of approach, your organization, whatever it is, is not going to be as good as it should be.”

Curry echoed Obama’s sentiments on a collaborative nature of leadership.

“(Teammates) look at the top and they can see that authentic approach that you just mentioned around, ‘Do you have their best interest (in mind)?’ Even if you don’t agree all the time, even if there are some hard times, hard conversations, that you always have the sense of — we call it ‘trust, care and commitment,’ I learned that back at Davidson.”

The pair also share some commonalities at home — both are married to women who have made names for themselves far beyond who their husbands are. Obama’s memoir success comes on the heels of his wife Michelle’s Becoming topping 10 million copies sold worldwide, while Ayesha Curry has made significant inroads in the culinary world, with her own line of cookware, several restaurants and published cookbooks of her own.

Barack Obama said Wednesday that his wife’s perspective allowed him to address blind spots throughout his presidency and beyond, including her insistence that he come back to the White House residence for dinner at 6:30 each evening.

“Nothing’s better than having a partner who is complementary to you, that sees things you don’t, that has you covered on some blind spots, that can teach you something,” he said. “Now that means there’s gonna be some friction … I am better because I’ve got someone who has strengths that I don’t have, who sees things that I don’t see.”

Steph Curry noted that what matters in his relationship with Ayesha is a mutual respect that overrides any disagreement they may have.

Both Curry and Obama have gone to significant lengths to position themselves as family men despite careers that are time-consuming and travel-heavy.

Obama said he was intentional to try to combat any sense of entitlement his daughters Sasha and Malia may have incurred during his presidency.

“We had to tell the staff at the White House, ‘Look, the girls have to clean their rooms,'” he said. “We were worried, would they end up not having a sense of reality?”

For his parting shot, Curry borrowed from Obama’s lexicon, asking if he could borrow a boast Obama shouted in a recent viral video of him on the basketball court hitting a three-pointer (albeit with a little less grace than a two-time NBA MVP).

“‘That’s what I do’ — can I borrow that?” Curry asked. Obama obliged.

“There aren’t any fans in the arena right now so you’re probably going to hear me yell it on the court,” Curry replied, bringing the conversation back to the issues facing both the United States and the NBA.

Click here to watch the full conversation on Curry’s Instagram.