By Christopher Stevenson
Sixteen out of the 44 books on my office bookshelf are dedicated in one way or another to leadership. I have books on leading change, leading innovation, influence, the characteristics of leadership, decision making, and leading strategy. I have spoken with leadership experts and participated in executive education programs and conferences focused on leadership. Even still, I don't know that I could easily explain what makes a good leader. What I can do, though, is recognize the characteristics of a good leader when I see them, and I saw them, or rather heard about them, on NPR's Morning Edition today in a story about Texas Christian University football.
Texas Christian is a relatively small school, just 9,000 students, but they have built one of the top football teams in the country, and are ranked just behind Florida, Texas and Alabama. They've not had a bowl appearance in 50 years, but this year the Horned Frogs are undefeated. How did TCU do it? Many credit Gary Patterson, their coach, who has a reputation for identifying strong, if not superstar, athletes overlooked by the bigger schools and then bringing out the best in them.
That's not the entire secret to the team's turnaround, however. Patterson describes his transformation during his tenure with TCU--moving from berating players for their errors to identifying what the team needs to do to succeed--and the positive effect it has had on results, including the possibility of playing for the national championship this year.
While it's hard to tell exactly why Coach Patterson is so successful just by listening to a four-minute radio segment, a couple things struck me about his leadership.
First, Patterson has shifted from trying to motivate his players through extrinsic means (i.e. hollering at the players) to intrinsic motivation--sharing the vision of achieving a championship and working together to reach the goal. For more information on extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivators, check out this great video from Bigger Picture.
Second, and for me it's equally if not more important than the first, Coach Patterson evaluated his leadership style and was courageous enough to change it to improve the team. I cannot speak for others, but it is extremely difficult for me to objectively evaluate my own strengths and weaknesses, let alone make necessary changes, but that is exactly what Patterson did.
Now, I know that none of what I'm sharing is groundbreaking, but sometimes it's just nice to look up to someone who's showing strong leadership and reaping success because of it. I encourage you to listen to the Morning Edition story and then leave a comment about someone whom you've seen exhibit true leadership.
