Category Archives: Pat’s Leadership Blog

Leaders may gain a valuable insight from athletic coaches.

Most people have some background at some level in sport. Because they often have this past, they can be very vocal as they see your teams play. And their opinions often reference just how dumb a coach you are!

If you coach, it is a given that you will have your critics.

When you are having a losing season, the profession is no walk-in-the-park. The crowds at games, the radio, the newspaper, and the television are constant reminders that times are tough and that you are the leader.

Given the above, even though you may not recognize it during the difficult times, you do realize at the end of your career why you coached. It is all about relationships. It is about the players who become your friends – cherished friends. You develop an incredibly strong bond with your players and you come to believe just how privileged you were to have coached them.

The literature seems to reflect that today’s leaders neither direct nor manage their people; instead, they coach them.

If leaders realized that they are coaches and took the above lesson from athletic coaches, it could really impact their leadership decision-making in such a positive way.

You coach for the long-haul – for the relationships and the friendships that you build for a lifetime.

Mark Twain once wrote, “I didn’t attend the funeral but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”

It does not have to be that way for a leader at the end.

I believe great leaders do the same four things that great teachers and coaches do:

1. They know their subject matter, be it algebra, football, or a particular business. This knowledge automatically earns them the respect of the people they are leading.
2. They can disseminate their knowledge. We all know of the brilliant professor who cannot bring his knowledge to our level. His brilliance is never questioned, but he cannot simplify his knowledge so we can learn.
3. They teach, coach, and lead with enthusiasm. They are enthused when we take their knowledge and succeed in history, basketball, or business.
4. By far, their most important characteristic is that they care about the people in their charge beyond the narrow confines of a classroom, a baseball field, or a work place. Amos Alonzo Stagg, the football coach at the University of Chicago when they were in the Big Ten Conference, was a perfect example of this trait. His degree was in divinity but he felt he could minister to America’s youth better from a football field than a pulpit.

Combined, these four traits help create enthusiastic followers and enduring respect for a leader. Despite Twain’s sentiment, people do want to attend the funeral of a leader who cared about them.

-Pat

Listening is respect.

When I take the time to listen to you—-really listen—-I am showing you that I respect your insights and that I respect you as a person. People want to be respected, and this is especially true for the people who report to you. They truly appreciate your willingness, as the leader, to value their opinions.

When they know that their ideas will be listened to, they in turn give more respect to the leader and work harder in their position within the organization. They feel they are an important part of making the organization the best it can be.

“Give me your eyes.”

I first heard this expression from a high school football coach, Gordie Gillespie of Joliet Catholic High School at the time, at half-time of a game. After he had listened to the offensive players answer his questions on exactly how the defense was playing, he was ready to give his second half adjustments. Prior to giving the adjustments, he told the players to “Give me your eyes.”

Obviously, he felt if he had their eyes, he very well may have their minds. I took this concept into my forty-four years of basketball coaching and my listening. In basketball, you have a total of only one minute for a time-out. First, I would quickly listen to my assistant coaches’ inputs, then I would go to the huddle to give instructions to the players, having approximately thirty seconds to get our ideas across to them. So, very assertively, I would say to our players, “Give me your eyes,” prior to the instruction.

The players had to pick up the salient points of the adjustments in a very short period of time and often in a very hostile environment when in the opponents’ gym.

I then took this very same concept into my leadership position as the athletic chair. When conducting meetings or in one on one sessions with my colleagues, I gave them my eyes while they were talking. I found that by doing this, I enhanced my listening skills.

Great leaders know two things about ideas: 1) they know they do not have all the answers and 2) they never know where the best ideas will come from. Leaders who believe they have all the answers cannot be worked with. Their egos won’t allow it. I always felt they were the worst people to report to because they had no regard whatsoever for your ideas or the ideas of others in the organization.

But the best leaders were the best listeners. They knew that they wanted to listen to everyone’s input because they never knew where the best ideas would come from.

There definitely have been times in my leadership roles where the best idea actually came from the least experienced person on our team. That is why it was – and is – the best way to lead. You need to listen to everyone in your organization.