Attacking Alejandro Villanueva for respecting the national anthem at the Steelers-Bears game, Sunday, Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin stated, "I was looking for 100 percent participation, we were gonna be respectful of our football team."

Those words prove Tomlin is incapable of command leadership.

As I see it, there are three basic principles of leadership; the ability to make effective decisions with limited information, the ability to inspire subordinates to fulfill their maximum potential, and the ability to unify a group in pursuit of a common objective. On each count, Tomlin has just proved that he doesn't make the cut.

On the first point, the ability to make effective decisions with limited information, Tomlin's immediate failure was his inability to recognize that the Steelers were already in a hyper-politicized situation. His decision-making process should have flowed from that precept towards balancing player personal beliefs with respect for Pittsburgh fans and the nation.

For one, Tomlin could have allowed those who wanted to stay in the locker room to do so, and those who wanted to go on the field and either kneel or stand to do so. This would have kept the Steelers' organizational focus on their actual mission: winning football games.

Tomlin has also failed on the second point: the ability to inspire subordinates to fulfill their maximum potential. By representing Villanueva's rendered patriotism as an insult, Tomlin suggests that anyone in the Steelers organization who supported him should feel guilty and failed the entire organization. This matters in that Chris Hubbard told PennLive that when it came to the team's decision on whether to boycott the anthem, the "vote was split nearly in half." As such, Tomlin's petulant strike at Villanueva is also a strike at a large chunk of his roster. Even if only at the margin, we must assume Tomlin has unnecessarily frayed his support with some players.

On the final consideration, the ability to unify a group in pursuit of a common objective, Tomlin failed by injecting confusion and personal emotion into an already tense situation. Whatever happens before January, the Steelers will now play under the cloud of this major political story. That's the antithesis of Tomlin's stated intent before Sunday's game, when he noted, "We're not going to let divisive times or divisive individuals affect our agenda... we're not going to play politics with football players, with football coaches."

Tomlin might have thought that having all the players do one thing was appropriate, but it was idiotic. After all, for months we have seen various teams engaged in mixed protests -- some players protesting, some not -- but this hasn't affected their ability to play and win. Tomlin has thrown an IED into that machinery.

Leadership is hard, but Mike Tomlin doesn't have it.