Recently, we've witnessed our sporting leaders do what they do best and lead admirably through adversity. We've also been given a fantastic example of how not to lead by the head hauncho of the NFL, Roger Goodell. Goodell's handling of the Ray Rice drama has been nothing less than terrible, terrible to the point where Rice will now only serve (he's probably already served it) a small ban.

Since the rather silly incident in an elevator, Ray Rice and his wife have stayed together, got married and presented a united front. Unfortunately for them, no one really cares, all they care about his sitting on their high horse and remembering the footage from that elevator. Rice has hopped on a roller-coaster which Goodell is directing and it has made the waters that flow beneath it a whole lot more murky.

Rice was issued with a two game ban after the initial footage of him dragging his wife out of the elevator surfaced. This two game ban was served despite Goodell and many influential figures - Ravens officials etc, - almost certainly knowing about the rest of the unreleased video footage: the footage of Rice striking his wife. This is why Rice won a case to throw out Goodell's much more severe ban after the second round of video footage went public. Goodell made the mistake of issuing a hugely underwhelming punishment, only to flip because the public said so. And no judge is gonna let you charge a person twice for the same crime.

There have been reports that Goodell is rather close to the owner of the Baltimore Ravens, and as Rice showed some sort of remorse, Goodell conveniently swept it all under the rug. Goodell simply has his hands in too many pies, he's trying to please the owners of NFL teams while also reacting to public outcry. It's a difficult road to ride down when corporate interest and public interests hardly ever intersect.

This isn't about whether the actions of Rice were right or wrong, there's only one answer to that. But the way Goodell has handled this saga should serve as a case study on how not to lead. Rice and his wife had apparently been completely honest throughout the process with Rice telling Goodell and officials that he had punched his wife and that all the sneaky whispers were true. Yet Rice was still issued with a small ban.

Goodell's intentions appeared clear. The footage of the actual striking was easy to access and if the NFL had the footage of Rice leaving the elevator, you can bet your bottom dollar they had the footage of what happened in the elevator. Yet the NFL said they didn't. They played dumb because... well, they are dumb.