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Recently on the “Mike and Mike” ESPN morning show, Mark Schlereth, a former NFL player, said when he played for the Washington Redskins, Coach Joe Gibbs had two mantras:

• Lose “yourself”; and
• Great talent makes plays the first three quarters; great character makes plays in the fourth quarter.

In my forty-four years of coaching, I found both of these statements to be absolutely true. In fact, I wish I had been aware of them when I was coaching. I certainly would have quoted Coach Gibbs to our players.

The very best teams have players who do what Coach Gibbs preached – they lose “themselves.” In abandoning ego, their total mind-set is on the team and they will do anything they can to help the team win.

Through the years we had players who probably should have been starting, but, for the sake of the team, they agreed to come off the bench. They were complete team players and they were so valuable to us because when we were sluggish, they could enter the game and immediately pick up our tempo.

We also found that character was critical in building a team, so to the best of our ability, we recruited character. Not only would character make plays in the fourth quarter, it could very well be the key ingredient to making or breaking a season. I never coached an undefeated basketball team. Almost every season I coached, our team went through some rough periods, some stretches of losing.

Teams that do not have people of character go south when the losing comes. Players start pointing fingers at everyone – coaches and teammates alike. But teams with character fight through the tough times and overcome the obstacles.

Mike Ditka said it well when describing his Chicago Bears Super Bowl championship team. He said they definitely had characters on that team, but they also had character.

Coach John Wooden of UCLA fame also said it well when he stated that great teams have players who sacrifice their individual glory for team glory.

Is it not the same in any business or any organization? Leaders, like coaches, want to develop people who lose themselves for the sake of the entire organization. These people are people of character.

Coach Gibbs’ two mantras go hand-in-hand. Players with character do lose themselves into the team concept.

I recently read an article encouraging leaders to think often about their leadership legacy.

The article stated, “And a legacy takes time to build so the sooner you define it and think about it, the higher your odds are of successfully doing it.”

It went on to say, “We want to improve the world beyond our immediate span of control. That’s why proactively thinking about your legacy is so critical.”

When I think of the great leaders I have been blessed to work with, I could not disagree more. I don’t think the great ones think about their legacy at all. They simply go to work, roll up their sleeves, and give the day their best effort.

When all is said and done, I think the best leaders do three things:

• They remain life-long learners in their business. They know there is so much to learn about their work and they strive to learn every day.
• They have great energy and they consistently give their best effort. They don’t give effort periodically; they practice consistency of effort.
• Most importantly, they care about the people in their charge beyond the narrow confines of a work-place. And those working for him/her know that care is genuine.

I believe that because great leaders are so busy spending their time working on the above three concepts, they literally don’t have time to think about their legacy. They are too busy doing what counts.

At the end of the day, great leaders don’t concern themselves with their legacy. Others think about and often honor their legacy but the leaders themselves don’t take the time to do so.

Bob Knight, one of the winningest coaches in college basketball history, once said the game ultimately comes down to two things – simplicity and execution.

I think the worst thing teachers, coaches, and leaders can do is to complicate their teaching. And it is easy to do so. A good lesson for me in keeping it simple was when our coaching staff would draw up a new play for our team. On paper, it seemed simple. However, inevitably when we brought it to the floor, it was more complicated than we thought. We then had to tweak it immediately so the players would be more comfortable in its execution.

Pete Carril, the former greatly respected Princeton basketball coach, took simplicity to another level. He used to say you have to be good at what you do a lot. In basketball it’s dribbling, passing, and shooting. You may be spectacular at dunking. That’s great, except that you don’t do it very often in games. So, don’t spend an inordinate amount of time dunking, but do spend a great deal of time dribbling, passing, and shooting. The great ones – Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird – figured this out.

So, pause and determine what you have to do a lot as a leader. Is it speaking, listening, running meetings, strategic planning, problem solving? Whatever the main priorities are, work to get proficient at them.

You want to get good at what you do because ultimately your leadership efficiency will be judged on your execution. You have to get the job done. Leon Hillard of the Harlem Globetrotters kept execution simple when he said, “Don’t tell me; show me.” Leaders can do all the talking they want but it amounts to nothing if the organization’s plans are not executed.

Simplicity and Execution. Simplicity, all of us knowing what the plans are and all of us on the same page, leads to Execution.

A couple of weeks ago, Bob Knight, former Indiana basketball coach and current ESPN analyst, was talking to Wichita State University coach, Gregg Marshall, and Marshall asked Knight what they had to do to improve. Knight coached an undefeated team to the NCAA national championship and Marshall’s team finished the regular season this year at 31 – 0.

First, I thought it was great that Marshall asked this question. Too often when teams have a great season, their coaches get a little arrogant. But here is a coach of an undefeated team humbly asking another coach what they have to do to improve. That question was genuine because with the all the excitement and television coverage the NCAA tournament generates, it can become how a team is remembered, not the regular season.

Secondly, Knight did not hesitate to answer. He said keep your practices short so your players have their energy for the tournament games. Basketball is a long season and fatigue can take over at the season’s end. Coaches must manage individual and team fatigue as the season winds down.

My former coaches and I totally agreed with Coach Knight. In fact, we even took it a step further. Because we always wanted our players to practice hard, we would tell our kids at the onset how long the physical part of practice would last. Knowing it would be short in duration, the athletes would give all they had.

Can leaders take this thought process into their meetings?

I once heard this insight about meetings. “Meetings are people sitting around talking about things they ought to be doing.” How many times were you sitting through meetings thinking about all you had on your “To Do” list? Or, have you ever found yourself in a meeting and thinking about your next meeting that starts in 15 minutes? And because of this thinking, you may not have been giving all you had to the meeting.

Having spent forty-four years in education, I can attest to sitting through numerous meetings where I was thinking about all I had to do. I know my concentration was poor at best throughout the course of these meetings.

I do believe that keeping meetings short and meaningful is a great concept and that setting a time limit at the beginning of the meeting does keep everyone alert and participating. Fellow workers do appreciate leaders who keep meetings concise and moving.

Pete Carril, the outstanding former Princeton basketball coach, in his book, “The Smart Take From The Strong,” says the following about the basics. “One of the things I’m grateful for about my coaching career is that I started teaching guys to play in the tenth grade… I taught the basics.”

He went on to say, “Even at the college level, I always spent a good half hour on the basics. And one thing I noticed: Sometimes in an effort to shorten our practices, we cut out the basics. If we did that for a long period of time, the guys began to slip.”

Then going on to coach in the NBA, he said, “And now I’m teaching the basics to the pros.”

While we were speaking together at a basketball coaches’ clinic, Joey Meyer, the excellent DePaul coach, said this to me. “You’re lucky you began coaching at the high school freshmen level while I went from playing college ball directly to coaching at the collegiate level.”

I never thought of that before, but I was fortunate to begin at that level because I had to learn to teach the basics to these young players. And I carried that same concept into my thirty-four years of collegiate coaching.

Is it any different in business?

I always respected our Joliet 7UP Bottling Co. executives. From the president on down, when these folks graduated college and went to 7UP, they all began the same way – driving a truck to deliver the product. With this beginning, they learned the basics of the trade.

Tom Thayer, a starter on the Chicago Bears Super Bowl champions, never forgot where he came from. To this day when someone in Tom’s hometown of Joliet, Illinois needs help, they can count on Tom. He never forgot where he came from.

If you begin doing the basics and never forget that beginning, you will prevent slippage in your leadership role.

I recently read an article where the writer listed two non-negotiables in coaches: humility and non-stop learner.

I played college baseball with Ed Spiezio, who went on to be a Big League player with the Cardinals, Padres, and White Sox. Ed was by far the best hitter I have ever seen or played with or against in the Chicago area.

Leadership-Ed SpiezioPrior to Ed’s going to pro ball, we all played semi-pro baseball in the Joliet area. When we played at different parks on a Saturday afternoon and got together in the evening, Ed never talked about how he played unless someone asked him. It was not unusual for him to have hit two home runs that afternoon but I never heard him offer that information unless asked.

Everyone in our area was happy for Ed’s success in the majors because we all knew and respected him for his genuine humility.

Pete Tyrgovich played on Coach Wooden’s last UCLA national championship team. I’ll never forget Pete’s telling me that in his last year of coaching, at age sixty-five, Coach Wooden talked about how much he was learning about basketball that year. And this is the coach whose teams previously won seven NCAA tournaments in a row and ten in his last twelve years of coaching! So, arguably the best coach in collegiate basketball history, was a non-stop learner.

Every great leader I have ever known has embodied these two non-negotiables. They have been truly humble and never stopped learning.

As a leader, where do the best ideas for your organization come from?

I once heard that the mind is like a parachute. It works best when it’s open.

Through the years I have found that if you keep an open mind, you will find that you never know where the best ideas will come from.

When I served in high school administration, we always had a student, a senior, in our administrative cabinet. Each year it was a different student. I thought the best ideas annually came from that student.

I saw the same thing when, as the Athletic Chair at the university level serving close to 400 student-athletes in 14 sports, we established a Student Athletic Advisory Board composed of an athlete from each team. Some of the very best ideas we had for our Athletic Department came from these students. They brought ideas to our Athletic Department that we, as athletic administrators, never thought of.

As a collegiate basketball coach, we had to beat a certain team to advance to the national tournament. They had the best offense I had coached against in my forty-four years of basketball coaching. The coach with the least basketball coaching experience on our staff came up with the best idea to defend their offense. It was the singular best idea that advanced our team to the nationals.

In a recent blog post, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter calls for business leaders to “encourage new ideas, especially from below and from unexpected sources.” In short, she says that innovation is inclusive, not exclusive, and that it’s a mistake to assume that all of the good ideas come from an elite group of insiders. (Source)

The key, I believe, is for leaders to have an open mind and to be respectful of the resources you have around you. Everyone has unique experiences and insights that can be used to advance the greater good of the organization.

Keeping that parachute open can be the best thing a leader can do.

John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach used to say, “If you take care of the little things, the big things take care of themselves.”

Bob Boyd, the former University of Southern California basketball coach, used to say, “It’s not what you teach, it’s what you emphasize.” And if you emphasize the little things, the big things do fall into place.

As most successful basketball players and coaches can attest, investing quality time practicing free throws can pay substantial dividends in the big game. A former St. Francis player and current youth basketball coach reports that after spending considerable practice time this season on free throws, his 7th grade team recently went 21-of-30 at the line to easily defeat a much larger 8th grade team. Final score: 49-28. Yes, they won the game by the exact amount of free throws they made.

When I asked Dr. Jack Orr, the president of the College of St. Francis for nineteen years, what was the most important thing he did to have such a successful presidency, his answer was, “Attention to detail.”

How do leaders give attention to detail?

I think the best way is the written word. We had an event at St. Francis that brought a celebrity from the world of sport to a fundraising dinner. We averaged approximately 600 people in attendance annually.

There was a great deal of detail that went into planning for this fundraiser. We developed a ten page document delineating all the detail that had to be executed to make the program successful. Every year we would begin our first meeting by going over this document and assigning a person or persons for each detail.

This program has now had a 36-year run. I believe its success is due to the attention paid to the little things.

As Apple founder Steve Jobs said, “Details matter, it’s worth waiting to get it right.”

An ABC newscast recently featured Pope Francis and emphasized that he is living simply and that his life-style is having a profound effect on people – Catholics and non-Catholics alike. His impact has been so great that Time Magazine named him its 2013 Person-of-the-Year.

Isn’t it amazing how the simple can often be the profound?

It seems that throughout history, we have had so many leaders surround themselves with all things majestic. They use material things to show the rest of us that they are the leaders. They are above us. They separate themselves from us. They are the leaders and their surroundings express their supreme position.

Then we have leaders like Gandhi and Mother Teresa. They are leaders who walk with the people – not above them – and they are leaders who truly make a difference.

Gandhi summed up his leadership style with this simple quote, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Mother Teresa explained her philosophy of leadership when she said, “Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person.”

Pope Francis seems to fit the Gandhi/Mother Teresa mold and maybe he is teaching all leaders that we don’t need to be surrounded by all the hoopla. Instead, it is leading simply that has the most impact on those we lead. “Don’t wait for people to come ringing. You need to go out and look for the poor,” he said in describing his leadership values.

Leaders can learn from these leaders by living simply and leading simply.

It seems that the least respected teachers in American high schools are the Physical Education and Health teachers, many of whom are coaches. All they do is throw out the balls and play games. They are not really “teachers.”

This is not at all an accurate picture. Most P.E. teachers I know are as hard-working and dedicated as the best Chemistry, Math or English teachers. I have always known them too, to have the highest levels of energy and enthusiasm

Besides these character traits, another overlooked aspect is the importance of their role in today’s society and their impact on children and adults.

Recent research by the Physical Activity Council “emphatically shows that children in PE are less sedentary and participate in more activities outside of school.”

Risa Livisso-Mourey, the CEO of the Robert Wood Foundation, recently wrote, “The U.S. spends $2.7 trillion a year on health care, more than any other country by far, and yet we are not healthy….So my big idea for 2014 is the emergence of a ‘culture of health.’”

How important is the health of a leader?

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, leading medical professionals are drawing linkages between physical fitness and cognitive abilities. “John Ratey, a neoropsychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and others are finding that … physical activity seems to be important during childhood, powering the brain through the many changes that help us to mature into adulthood. But it may also play a role as we reach advanced age, with a decline in fitness explaining why some people are more prone to dementia than others.”

Coaches and Physical Education teachers are constantly stressing the importance of being in great physical shape and numerous studies have validated the value of physical shape in concert with mental performance.

If you believe in the mind-body connection, then exercise must be a priority in your life-style. And prioritizing is the only way you can attain this connection. You must decide how many times you will work-out each week, prioritize time for your work-outs, and then follow through.

Arguably, one of the most important tasks a leader does on a daily basis is decision-making. The better physical shape a leader is in, the better her / his decision-making may be.

Let’s recognize the work of P.E. teachers and coaches. Their work can lead to life-long health and quality decision-making.