“Complacency breeds a blatant disregard for doing what’s right”.
(Nick Saban)
Leadership lessons are available daily. I normally write about my preferred style of Authentic Leadership but continue to seek out new ways to improve my leadership knowledge.
One of my 2024 goals is to read two books monthly. I naturally gravitate to leadership topics and found myself shopping for a new leadership book on Amazon. The algorithm used by Amazon always provides me with recommendations based on my past book selections. There were several interesting books available but the book “The Leadership Secrets of Nick Saban” caught my attention because of his continued success and recent retirement.
Always knew Nick Saban was a great coach who won a lot of football games and put a ton of players into the National Football League (NFL). His players ranged from high first round draft picks to solid contributors that spent years as professional ball players. He is known as an outstanding recruiter and an even better developer of the talent he recruited to the University of Alabama.
His ability to recruit players at a high level and then the development of those players were reasons I wanted to explore his leadership style and techniques. Opened the book without any knowledge of how Coach Saban was able to become successful but wanted to learn directly from him on how he led his teams to multiple championships.
The book opened with the concept of building a team framework. This provides a solid foundation for the team and sets the tone needed for success. Coach Saban’s first meeting was designed to inform everyone of his vision for the team and how team members would operate. Recruiting was identified as the life blood of the program, and everyone needed to be on the same page when it came to recruiting players.
He ensured the team understood that there needed to be other leaders in the organization—he set the foundation but needed others to step up their leadership. He created player leadership councils and allowed players to lead each other. He demanded that players get involved in the daily operations of the team activities. This created multiple leadership voices within the team but that all resonated with Coach Saban’s message. This translates to all organizations that want to see staff and process growth.
Coach Saban also welcomed staff turnover in his organization. He saw staff turnover as a way to improve the organization as new staff members brought in their ideas. These new ideas were added to Coach Saban’s routine to enhance his overall message. He lost staff members yearly but was able to regroup and still win multiple championships. His core beliefs remained but he was willing to adjust based on new staff members input and continued to lead a championship program.
Coach Saban was known for The Process which is the system and mindset everyone must follow. Coach Saban stressed winning each play as the goal instead of winning the game. The concept of do your job each play led to the success his team maintained. This focus gave the players a more immediate outcome than simply saying we need to win this game. Win each play over and over and the game will be won—in theory. This translates directly into the work environment for employees. Teams that focus on the next task and complete it well win—sounds simple, huh? The Process can work for us all.
The last concept I will explore is Be True to Yourself. This resonates with me because it parallels Authentic Leadership and the need to be self-aware. Internal moral perspective requires leaders to evaluate themselves daily to ensure they are not doing anything that compromises who they truly are. You don’t have to rant and rave to get staff members to do the right thing. Leaders can remain themselves and not have to try to become something or someone else. You can be a quiet leader and still get positive things accomplished.
There are a ton of other outstanding leadership lessons in this book. Highly recommend this for your leadership library.
What are you currently reading?
Irie!
“Success is not a continuum; it’s momentary”.
(Nick Saban)
Walk Into the Future 