NFL NFC conference championship in San Fran this weekend. Winner goes to the Super Bowl.

The 49ers are led by first year head coach Jim Harbaugh. Let me quote from an article on MSN today. The words in italics are from the article, the words that follow the quote are my comments.

No problem. “He’s authentic,” Smith said. “He’s an honest coach, and he coaches everybody the same way, no matter who you are.” This is from Alex Smith the quarterback. A couple of things in that comment. First, authenticity – be yourself. Second, integrity, Harbaugh is honest. Third, fairness, he is consistent with all players.

San Francisco is built to play working-man’s football under Harbaugh’s exceedingly intense yet nurturing guidance, Of course we see that Harbaugh has high standards and pushes the men hard but he is nurturing. Nurturing? Absolutely! Remember that leaders take care of people.

“Such a great group of guys, coaches and players. I think we love coming to work every day; I know I do. And we’ll get one more week at least. I’m loving it.” When you have an energized and engaged workforce great things happen. In sports we measure that with wins, in business we look at morale, turnover, production, customer satisfaction and then the financial measures.

The comparisons between sports and business can often be overdone but when we talk of the principles of successful leadership being universal we are on safe ground. When I say universal I dont mean they work all the time for everybody. Let’s face it. Sometimes you do all you can and the follower chooses not to follow. By universal principles of leadership I mean they work on most of the people  most of the time. They work in the Marines, they work for the 49ers and they will work for you.

Operate with integrity, set a good example, be authentic, take care of people, have direction, and have fun. There are others but this is a good start.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Excellence, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.