The Challenge of Leadership: It Is Not About Being Better, But Making Others Better

Phil Jackson, the legendary coach of players such as Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and Dennis Rodman, was not an amazing basketball player.

He made the NBA so he wasn’t bad but over the 12-year career, he averaged 6.7 points and 4.3 rebounds. These are not world-shattering numbers.

So how did this unassuming player go on to be one of the best coaches of all time?

He did what he was good at and he let other people be good at what they were good at.

Let me explain.

Coaching

The coach can’t play. They can’t go out onto the court and do anything. Therefore they have to let go of the control of the game to the players and work on preparing them to be the best they can be.

This means everything before the players step on the floor. Teaching how to approach the game, how to think about when certain situations arise, and how the team is going to win?

Skills

Phil Jackson was not a basketball expert, he was a people expert.

In his coaching staff, he had coaches who had more knowledge and skill in certain parts of the game.

For the Chicago Bulls, on the court, he had arguably the best player of all time in Michael Jordan. He had one of the biggest personalities of all time in Dennis Rodman, he also had an amazing player in Scottie Pippin and a number of significant role players.

Jackson’s skill was to get all of the people singing from the same song sheet.

He knew for the team to be great he had to get the best out of everyone towards their common goals.

Leadership Is Not Easy

To get everyone performing at their best, he had to make the team comfortable with Rodman going off and doing Dennis things to recharge.

This doesn’t seem fair to everyone else, but the team bought into it.

He had to convince Jordan to involve his teammates more. The best player in the world passing the ball to a worse player sounded crazy, but it made the team better.

You Don’t Have To Be The Best

Leadership isn’t doing the work, it is creating a vision of where the team is going and supporting them to do the work.

• Your job is to get everyone on the same page.
• Help them understand how they contribute to the overall success of the team.
• Give them chances to grow and test themselves.
• Teach them the values of the team so they can work independently.

It means if you are in a dev team and someone is better than you at a certain language, let them be great, put them in positions to be great, and encourage them to be great. You don’t have to be the best at it, to get the best out of your team.

If you are in a sales team, and someone is better at dealing with a certain client, let them be great, put them in positions to be great, and encourage them to be great. You don’t have to be the best at it, to get the best out of your team.

If you are in an engineering team, and someone is better at a particular field than you, let them be great, put them in positions to be great, encourage them to be … you get the idea.

You don’t have to be the best at everything for your team to be great, and if you are the best at everything, you probably are a terrible leader or terrible at finding talent.