Basketball Drills Front and Back of the Line

These 10 points were assembled by Eric Musselman, USC Men’s Head Coach, and former NBA and D-League Head Coach.  

The second part of this post are some notes from Tony Dungy on Leadership as well as a link to a post I made last fall with more notes from Coach Dungy on Leadership.

In my opinion, it is helpful to continually think about and review our beliefs on leadership for ourselves as we will be getting busier and busier with school and pre-season upon us.  I believe that the more thought we put into our beliefs on leadership, the more we improve our behavior as leaders.   I also hope that you might find some ideas to share with new coaching staff members and some of your players who will be leaders for the upcoming season.

At a time when the world is thinking a lot about leadership I believe it’s a great opportunity for each one of us to think about what leadership means to us. Below are thoughts on leadership from the book Soup. Whether we are a leader of the Los Angeles D-Fenders, leading a business, team, hospital. sports team, classroom, church or home, as a coaching staff, think about what principles and ideas guide as a leader. You can read a sample from the book by clicking on the image at the left.

1. People follow the leader first and the leader’s vision second – It doesn’t matter if the leader shares a powerful vision, if the leader is not someone who people will follow the vision will never be realized. As a leader, who you are makes a difference. The most important message you can share is yourself.

2. Trust is the force that connects people to the leader and his/her vision – Without trust there is a huge gap between the leader and the vision. Without trust people will stay off the bus. However if people trust the leader they will hop on the bus with the leader and help move the bus forward towards the vision.

3. Leadership Is not just about what you do but what you can Inspire, encourage and empower others to do.

4. A leader brings out the best within others by sharing the best within themselves.

5. Just because you’re driving the bus doesn’t mean you have the right to run people over -Abraham Lincoln said Most anyone can stand adversity, but to test a person’s character give them power. The more power you are granted the more it is your responsibility to serve, develop and empower others. When you help them grow they’ll help you grow.

6. Rules without Relationship Leads to Rebellion -Andy Stanley said this and it’s one of my favorite quotes. As a leader you can have all the rules you want but if you dont invest in your people and develop a relationship with them they will rebel. This applies amazingly to children as wel. It’s al about relationships.

7. Lead with optimism, enthusiasm and positive energy, guard against pessimism and weed out negativity.

8. Great Leaders know they don’t have all the answers – Rather they build a team of people who either know the answers or will find them.

9. Leaders inspire and teach their people to focus on solutions, not complaints. (The No Complaining Rule)

9. Great leaders know that success Is a process not a destination – One of my heroes John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, never focused on winning. He knew that winning was the byproduct of great leadership, teamwork, focus, commitment and execution of the fundamentals. As a leader, focus on your people and process, not the outcome.

The remaining leadership takeaways are from Tony Dungy’s “The Mentor Leader” If you are interested in finding out more about the book or reading a sample, you can do so on the Amazon web site by clicking on the book cover on the left.

I posted some other notes from Coach Dungy. You can see them at this link: Mentor Leaders

When everyone else understands that his or her role is also to lift, encourage, and equip – and that all members of the organization are dependent on one another – it becomes clear that nurturing relationships is necessary to the organization’s health.

If you start making excuses to cut out the things that are important because of urgent circumstances it will become a habit.

We may say that something is important to us, but in the end our actions will determines what we mean. And the people we are trying to influence and guide—our family, friends, team members, employees, and others—will measure our influence by the consistency of our actions and words.

Research conducted by the Leadership Research Institute has shown that in times of crisis, people gravitate toward the person of highest character, not necessarily the person who is ‘in charge’ or even the person they believe to be the most competent. Rather, people will tend to build a relationship with and follow the person they view as the most trustworthy, who cares the most, and who is willing to always do the right thing.

If the people in your organization can’t rely on you—whether on the big things or the little things—how are they going to follow you?

Most of the time, we are only judged on the outcome, whereas the only thing we can control is the process. Make your process the right one and stay true to it.

In any event, leaders who are accountable earn the respect of those they lead. Without that respect, they cannot lead for long.