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The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check Wally's Three Star Leadership Letter

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Aristotle said: "The structure of the best tragedy should be not simple but complex and one that represents incidents arousing fear and pity." He would have loved Robert Mondavi.

Mondavi died on May 16 at the age of 94. He was mostly deaf and slightly daft at the end. He was a man who, more than any in my lifetime, embodied the sharp intellect and steely nerves of heroes, brought low in the end by his own tragic flaws.

He was born on the Iron Range of Northeast Minnesota, His father and mother, Cesare and Rosa, had come from the Marche region of Italy. They moved on from the Midwest to Northern California.

They prospered. First the business was wholesaling grapes and other fruit. After Prohibition ended, it was wine. By the time Robert and his brother Peter were old enough for college, Cesare and Rosa could send them to Stanford. After college they joined the business.

Despite their father's directive to work together, the brothers were constantly at each other's throats. In 1965, years after their father's death, it all came to a head.

Robert bought a mink coat for his wife, in anticipation of a White House dinner. Peter accused Robert of using company money to buy the coat. Robert demanded that Peter take back his accusation. When that didn't happen, Robert punched Peter in the face. Hard.

The family sent Robert off to cool off. Instead he started his own winery that produced its first vintage in 1966. He also changed the world of wine and the way Americans drank it. To understand the magnitude of Robert Mondavi's achievement, you have to reflect on the world before and after Mondavi.

Before Mondavi, Americans were not great wine drinkers. The wines we drank at home were mostly jug wines and simple table wines. If you ordered fine wine at a restaurant, it was almost certain to be French.

Robert Mondavi saw no reason why American wine could not be as good as the best French wine. And he made it so.

He innovated in many ways. He began holding blind wine tastings where he pitted his wines against the world's best and often came out on top.

Then, in 1976, wines from his winery bested French wines at the Judgment of Paris tasting. From that moment on, the best American wines stepped up to take their place with the best wines of the world. And wine, ordinary wine and great wine, became part of American life.

Mondavi didn't just promote his own wines. He understood that it made more sense to promote Napa Valley wines, then California wines. And he did it with great products and showmanship. His winery never bought an ad until the 1990s.

That's all part of the success story. But the great tragedies all have success mixed with failure. While Robert Mondavi succeeded at his great goal in life, many other things turned out badly.

Mondavi the winery became a corporation. Mondavi the man made huge charitable gifts backed by corporation stock. When the stock began to go south, it was leverage to wrest control of the corporation from the Mondavi family.

The family itself was not in the greatest shape. Robert's drive to succeed left little time for things like parenting. The very hard edges that made him a success in business created sons whose hostile relationship mirrors that of Robert and his brother. Can you say, "tragic flaw?"

In the Greek tragedies, the emphasis and focus is on the tragedy. In real life, it's often the other way around. Even today, many people who associate Robert Mondavi with fine wine have no clue about the company or family or personality problems.

In ten years or a hundred those stories may be gone from everything but the business pages and history books. But people will still tell stories about the Italian immigrant's son, born on the Iron Range who raised the standard for American wine. They'll still tell the story of the blind tastings, and the innovations, and the Judgment of Paris tasting.

That's true immortality, the stories they tell about you when you're gone. And it's those stories that will outlast all the rest.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.