Wilson L. Deaton
4th December 2006, 09:10 PM (21:10)
Bob Lamonte's book, Winning the NFL Way, is subtitled, Leadership Lessons from Football's Top Head Coaches.
LaMonte is a sports agent who specials in NFL coaches. At the time of the writing of this book (2004) he was representing Holmgren, Gruden, Fox, Reid, and Sherman.
LaMonte explores the leadership styles and secrets of these men and presents what he has learned using many specific examples and many quotes from the coaches.
Here are some samples from the various chapters to give you a flavor of the book:
1. A Winning Combination: A Vision with a Strong Game Plan.
He says there is so much emphasis on vision that the plan to make the vision happen sometimes get left out.
2. Passion: The Right Stuff
Good leadership requires passion. Passion requires loving what you do. If you don't have passion, you are doing the wrong thing.
3. The Trust Factor
Excerpt - "'In order for people to follow you,' articulates Sherman, 'you must be a person of high integrity.... Having people believe in you directly affects leadership... This means telling people what you are going to do--and doing it. This gives a leader the right to make demands on people.'"
Holmgren - "Look, if you ask me a question, make sure you want to know the anwer..... My philosophy is that honesty hs to permeate your entire existence. You must live your life this way, at the office and away from the office...."
4. Communication: A Two Way Street
Gruden - "... my job is to make sure every man is on board..."
More Gruden - "We have a prepared game plan for each Sunday and it would be easy to just pass it out. But that wouldn't do it.... I have to work on it all Monday night and all Tuesday night, and when they come in here on Wednesday morning, I've got to dazzle them. I want them to be excited about the upcoming performance."
Author LaMonte - "It's inexcusable for a an educator to bore students!" [Wilson--Tell me that doesn't apply to whole weekly corporate worship experience.]
5. Teamwork: We Win Together
When an employee believes his job contributes and makes a difference to the outcome, he becomesa better team player.
One common denominator among these five head coaches is that with each of them the word "I" is replaced by the word "we." ... Study great leaders in any field and you'll observe that "we" is the most important word in their vocabulary.
6. Facing Adversity
"When a team gets badly beaten it doesn't forfeit the remaining games on its schedule."
"Success in life is going from failure to failure without failing."
7. Adapting to Change
"A head coach must make adjustments throughout the game based on what the opposing team does, who's injured, the score of the game, the time remaining in the game, and so on. A well-coached team follows its game plan but is flexible in making changes."
8. Checking Your Ego at the Door
"Only a secure man invite his people to lead."
Holmgren - "As soon as you start believing its you, not the team you're headed for a fall."
"Leaders with humility seek solutions to problems from their people. ... A strong leader must make people feel comfortable voicing disagreement and he must be willing to listen."
Afterward
Quote from Norman Schwartzkopf - "When placed in comand--take charge."
Overall, the book had some great applicable leadership concepts. If you like football it was especially interesting because of the examples and stories from a side of the game we don't normally see.
If you are looking to throw a leadership book into you reading list, I can recommend this one.
Wilson
LaMonte is a sports agent who specials in NFL coaches. At the time of the writing of this book (2004) he was representing Holmgren, Gruden, Fox, Reid, and Sherman.
LaMonte explores the leadership styles and secrets of these men and presents what he has learned using many specific examples and many quotes from the coaches.
Here are some samples from the various chapters to give you a flavor of the book:
1. A Winning Combination: A Vision with a Strong Game Plan.
He says there is so much emphasis on vision that the plan to make the vision happen sometimes get left out.
2. Passion: The Right Stuff
Good leadership requires passion. Passion requires loving what you do. If you don't have passion, you are doing the wrong thing.
3. The Trust Factor
Excerpt - "'In order for people to follow you,' articulates Sherman, 'you must be a person of high integrity.... Having people believe in you directly affects leadership... This means telling people what you are going to do--and doing it. This gives a leader the right to make demands on people.'"
Holmgren - "Look, if you ask me a question, make sure you want to know the anwer..... My philosophy is that honesty hs to permeate your entire existence. You must live your life this way, at the office and away from the office...."
4. Communication: A Two Way Street
Gruden - "... my job is to make sure every man is on board..."
More Gruden - "We have a prepared game plan for each Sunday and it would be easy to just pass it out. But that wouldn't do it.... I have to work on it all Monday night and all Tuesday night, and when they come in here on Wednesday morning, I've got to dazzle them. I want them to be excited about the upcoming performance."
Author LaMonte - "It's inexcusable for a an educator to bore students!" [Wilson--Tell me that doesn't apply to whole weekly corporate worship experience.]
5. Teamwork: We Win Together
When an employee believes his job contributes and makes a difference to the outcome, he becomesa better team player.
One common denominator among these five head coaches is that with each of them the word "I" is replaced by the word "we." ... Study great leaders in any field and you'll observe that "we" is the most important word in their vocabulary.
6. Facing Adversity
"When a team gets badly beaten it doesn't forfeit the remaining games on its schedule."
"Success in life is going from failure to failure without failing."
7. Adapting to Change
"A head coach must make adjustments throughout the game based on what the opposing team does, who's injured, the score of the game, the time remaining in the game, and so on. A well-coached team follows its game plan but is flexible in making changes."
8. Checking Your Ego at the Door
"Only a secure man invite his people to lead."
Holmgren - "As soon as you start believing its you, not the team you're headed for a fall."
"Leaders with humility seek solutions to problems from their people. ... A strong leader must make people feel comfortable voicing disagreement and he must be willing to listen."
Afterward
Quote from Norman Schwartzkopf - "When placed in comand--take charge."
Overall, the book had some great applicable leadership concepts. If you like football it was especially interesting because of the examples and stories from a side of the game we don't normally see.
If you are looking to throw a leadership book into you reading list, I can recommend this one.
Wilson