Lead Your Team Like Coach Reid
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any Kansas Citians can vividly recall Super Bowl LIV. It’d been 50 years since the city had seen an appearance in the big game and the Chiefs were now staring at a 10 point deficit halfway through the fourth quarter. Over the next six minutes and 32 seconds the hometown team would score three touchdowns, bringing home the Lombardi Trophy with a final score of 31-20. Patrick Mahomes would be named Super Bowl MVP.
It takes high levels of athletic excellence to win two Super Bowl Championships in four years, which is what the Kansas City Chiefs have achieved. It also takes a certain style of leadership by the head coach to allow players to perform at their best. Can you imagine if Head Coach Andy Reid developed every offensive play by himself, he never asked his players for their ideas of how to be successful and he didn’t allow Patrick Mahomes to change the play without getting permission? If Andy Reid were to lead his team that way, chances are Kansas City would still be without a Super Bowl Championship in over 50 years. To think about Andy Reid not empowering his players and not tapping into their best thinking is unimaginable. In fact, it is unimaginable to think a leader in any organization would lead that way. The reality is, for many leaders and for many years, this has been the default way to lead their teams. To tackle this subject, it’s important to start with the basic question: what is the role of a manager? In today’s digital age of constant change and limitless information, the needs of employees have dramatically shifted from those of years past. Herminia Ibarra and Anne Scoular discussed this transformation in the Harvard Business Review.
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“Previously as a manager, you knew what needed to be done, you taught others how to do it and you elevated their performance… your goal was to direct and develop employees who understood how the business worked and were able to reproduce its previous successes. Not today,” stated Ibarra and Scoular. “Rapid, constant and disruptive change is now the norm, and what succeeded in the past is no longer a guide to what will succeed in the future… the role of the manager, in short, is becoming a coach.” What does this approach mean for those in charge? According to Ibarra and Scoular, many successful companies are moving away from the “traditional command-and-control practices and toward something very different: a model in which managers give support and guidance rather than instructions and employees learn how to adapt to constantly changing environments in ways that unleash fresh energy, innovation and commitment.”
Leadership Skills as a Coach
To be successful the change has to be believed and carried out from within the company. The help of consultants can be vitally helpful, but it’s temporary and done by outsiders. “[Creating] a true learning organization is ongoing and executed by those [on the] inside,” Ibarra and Scoular acknowledged.
