Leadership Training

On November 12, 2024, future Hall of Famer Tom Brady joined Harvard Business School professor Nitin Nohria at a Fortune Magazine symposium to discuss principles of success from his football career that translate to the business world.

Brady emphasized the importance of setting a high standard for work ethic and teamwork. He shared, “I would get in the weight room at 6:30 in the morning. Guys would walk in at 6:45, thinking they were early since the first meeting was at 8:00. I’d joke, ‘Good afternoon!’ The next day, they’d show up at 6:30, but I’d be there at 6:15. By the end, we had a culture where everyone came early and stayed late. We weren’t just punching the clock; we were pushing each other to succeed.”

Brady also highlighted the collective nature of achievement, both in sports and business. “When you succeed, there’s enough credit to go around for everybody. The greatest joy, even as a seven-time Super Bowl champ, is knowing I have thousands of friends and teammates I gave everything for. We played in all conditions, lost and celebrated together. The joy of life was sharing those moments with others.”

He reflected on the deep bonds formed through teamwork: “I didn’t have a brother growing up, but now I feel like I have thousands-from all over the country, all backgrounds. We loved each other and what we were trying to accomplish.”

Brady concluded by encouraging business leaders to find colleagues they love working with and to push each other beyond comfort zones. “It’s okay to feel uncomfortable. That’s how we grow. Unless we stress ourselves-our minds and bodies-we don’t grow.”

You can watch the video here (time stamp 18:38-20:17)

Seven-time Superbowl champion Tom Brady was inducted into the New England Patriots Hall of Fame in a ceremony at Gillette Stadium on June 12, 2024. He thanked many people who helped him along the way. Near the end of his 20-minute speech, he spoke about the important life lessons he learned that made him and his team successful.

I would encourage everyone to play football for the simple reason that it is hard. It's hard when you're young to wake up in the offseason at 6:00 A.M. to go train and work out knowing that all your friends are sleeping in and eating pancakes. It's hard when you're on your way to practice, weighed down with all your gear and it's 90° out and all the other kids are at the pool or at the beach. And your body is already completely exhausted from workouts in two-a-days. It's hard to throw, catch, block and tackle and hit kids when they're way bigger and way more developed than you, only to go home that night bruised and battered and strained but knowing you have to show up again the next day for just the chance to try again.

But understand this: life is hard. No matter who you are, there are bumps and hits and bruises along the way. And my advice is to prepare yourself because football lessons teach us that success and achievement come from overcoming adversity. And that team accomplishment far exceeds anyone's individual goals. To be successful at anything, the truth is you don't have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren't: consistent, determined and willing to work for it. No shortcuts. If you look at all my teammates here tonight, it would be impossible to find better examples of men who embody that work ethic, integrity, purpose, determination and discipline that it takes to be a champion in life.

Editor’s Note: You can watch the video here (16 min. 45 sec – 18 min. 48 sec).

When the No. 1 seed Alabama men’s basketball team suffered an upset loss in the Sweet 16 in 2023, coach Nate Oats sought out advice from one of the greatest coaches of all time—Alabama’s football coach, Nick Saban.

It will come as no surprise to learn that Nick Saban, the seven-time title-winning football coach, had some wisdom to offer his colleague. Saban emphasized the importance of not dwelling on the opportunity the team had just lost, but focusing on the next opportunity to come.

Saban’s approach paid off. Despite losing more games and earning a lower March Madness seed than it did the year before, the 2024 Alabama basketball team reached the first Final Four in the program’s 111-year history.

“It’s a great philosophy in life,” Oats said this week. “There’s a lot of adversity you hit … You live in the past; you’re not going to be very good in the present.”

That’s where Saban came in. One of the greatest winners in the history of college sports, Saban also happens to know plenty about losing. As Oats pointed out, most of Saban’s championships came during seasons marred by at least one crushing regular-season defeat.

It may be surprising that Saban was so willing to let Oats pick his brain. But as it turns out, it’s something the pair have been doing for years. After he was hired from Buffalo, Oats asked Saban if he could embed himself into Bama’s practice facilities to see how the best college football coach of all-time ran his program.

Oats said, “I went and watched practices. I sat in on staff meetings. I shadowed him for a day. I went on road trips with him to see how they operated. I tried to learn as much as I could.”

In his newsletter, blogger Aaron Renn reflects on the crucial role of mentors:

One of the core functions of mentors is to [tell you the things] people are already thinking and saying about you behind your back - and helping you overcome them. A Financial Times profile of American Express CEO Steve Squeri shows how a mentor did this for him.

Squeri is the grandson of Italian and Irish immigrants and the son of an accountant who worked nights and weekends at Bloomingdale’s department store to make ends meet. During his studies at Manhattan College, Squeri lived at home. He had never been on an aircraft until he joined a training program at what is now the consulting group Accenture.

Four years later he moved to Amex. There, his Queens accent and cheap suits stuck out so badly that an executive took him aside. He said, “You have a really sharp mind, but the rest of you needs a lot of work. [Senior managers] tend to use all the letters of the alphabet when they talk.”

The mentor took Squeri shopping, arranged for [speaking] lessons and even organized sessions with a cultural anthropologist so the younger manager would feel comfortable when he was sent to the group’s overseas offices. Squeri says, “I’m an example of how anybody can get to the top with a lot of hard work and having people that run the company that … are looking at individuals broadly and not judging books by their cover.”

Renn comments: “This mentor saw a diamond in the rough guy and made it his business to polish him up. This sort of thing is worth its weight in gold. [But notice how] good mentorship gets uncomfortable.”

At one point, U.S. Men’s Soccer Team star Christian Pulisic was dropped from the starting lineup by head coach Gregg Berhalter. Pulisic said, “There were moments when he benched me and I wanted to kill the guy — I hated him, I was so angry. But then the next game comes along, and then I find myself in a better place. The way he handled a lot of situations, I have to give him a lot of credit.”

Pulisic said that he developed an understanding for Berhalter’s coaching methods during his first camp under the coach. In that camp, Pulisc suffered a slight injury. After getting a scan on the injury, Berhalter summoned Pulisic for a meeting. The coach suggested that the injuries may have happened because Pulisic wasn’t training with the intensity at which he played in games. Pulisic was taken aback at first, but eventually he took in the advice. He said:

It changed the way I look at training, even today. ... Listen, it wasn’t easy, and it took me a little while, but I said “Let me take this onboard,” and since then I’ve been in a much better place. It’s things like that. The way that he deals with players, you can tell he is passionate, and he cares about his players. He’s not going to tell you it easy, or what you want to hear, he is going to tell you what he feels is going to improve you.

Navy Seal Admiral, William McRaven, talks about an important lesson Seals learn: Think first of others. In an interview with AARP, he said:

I like to tell the story of Sgt. Maj. Chris Faris, my right-hand man in Afghanistan. One day, I did a Zoom call with my doctor, and she told me I’d been diagnosed with cancer. I needed to go back to the States immediately to have my spleen removed and start chemotherapy. She added, “Your military career is probably over.”

When I got back to my office, Chris was there, and he noticed something wasn’t right. After I told him, he said, “OK, boss, we’ve got the morning briefing coming up, and you need to be there. The troops are counting on you.”

So, we did the video teleconference with thousands of our team members around the world. And before I could say anything, Chris asked someone to put up a list of the people who’d been injured in combat the night before. Then he gave me a look, and I knew what it meant. I had a problem, but it paled in comparison to what these young men and women were going through. That was exactly the right thing to tell me at the time. It helped put my minor problem in perspective.

Where would the self-help and business media be without the secret habits of highly successful people? Almost every week there’s a new article outlining a high-flying individual’s behaviors—with the implied promise that using the same techniques could deliver us fame and fortune, too.

You’ll hear how top CEOs like Elon Musk begin work early, skip breakfast, and divide their time into small, manageable tasks. Other inspirational figures are more idiosyncratic in their habits. Bill Gates, for example, would reportedly rock backwards and forwards in his chair while brainstorming. This was a bodily means of focusing his mind that apparently spread across the Microsoft boardroom. Further back in history, Charles Dickens carried around a compass so he could sleep facing north, something he believed would contribute to more productive writing. Beethoven counted exactly 60 coffee beans for each cup, which he used to power his composing.

Why do successful people follow such eccentrically specific habits? And why are we so keen to read about them and mimic them in our own lives?

A key reason for this is that humans are social creatures; we are primed to look to people of higher status for advice. Given this tendency, it may be only natural that, reading a biography of a famous writer or watching an interview with a billionaire businessperson, we are tempted to take on their idiosyncratic rites and rituals. All in the hope that we can somehow achieve the same success, without recognizing how many other factors would have played a role in their achievements.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Copying a successful business leader’s superstitious habits and idiosyncrasies is not a guarantee of success in the business world. However, Scripture does tell us to “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (Heb. 13:7). Following the godly habits of our spiritual leaders is a sure way to success in our spiritual life.

An article in The Wall Street Journal noted a new highly prized management skill—empathy. According to the article,

Empathetic leadership has long had corporate disciples. But the concept has become a bigger focus of [corporate leadership] as businesses seek ways to bolster staff worn down by the pandemic’s stresses, or at least show they are trying. Appreciating co-workers’ points of view and understanding their struggles, some executives say, leads to more engaged, happy, and productive staff. Many workers say that is lacking.

For example, the ticketing company Eventbrite Inc. began an empathy-focused leadership development program in 2020 that all managers can take. It includes lessons on active listening, showing vulnerability, and building trust with employees. Cisco Systems Inc. says it is building leader and team-coaching courses that weave in empathy. In one course, participants spend eight hours learning about each others’ strengths and personal styles, as well as how to better understand and trust each other.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Of course, empathy is a good quality, but the Bible and Jesus identified this human need before any management experts did.

Sales were stagnant at the insurance company where Daniel P. Amos worked as the chief executive. So, he decided to take a huge risk with a novel ad campaign that poked fun at the company’s name. The TV commercials featured an obnoxious white duck often getting injured and then loudly quaking “Aflaaaac.” The little-known business soon became a household name. Aflac’s stagnant US sales doubled between 1999 and 2003.

Amos told The Wall Street Journal that leading a company always involves taking risks. He said, “I like to manage risks [since] everything we do is risk related. [If you avoid risks] you are really not taking a broad enough perspective for a company to succeed.”

Amos, now 70, learned to evaluate risks while studying risk management and insurance at the University of Georgia’s business school. Among his risk-taking advice he gave this nugget: Never risk a lot for a little. He added that he lives by that risk principle every day of his life.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Many things about following, serving, and leading for Jesus involve risk. We can’t avoid it. But with Jesus we never have to worry about risking a lot for a little. Our risks for him are always worth it.

According to many industry analysts and insiders, the rising dominance of streaming platforms over the traditional broadcast networks is causing an unintended consequence: a lack of leadership development. As NBC’s Sierra Ornelas puts it: “Structurally, we'll have to figure out a better way to do this, because the structure we have now is not working.”

The pipeline from writer to showrunner has become strained by the explosive growth of the streaming series. The pace at which new streaming series are being greenlit and produced, combined with the shorter runs of episodes, are creating a situation where inexperienced writers don’t have enough opportunities to gain valuable mentorship experience.

When there were only a few networks and a few cable channels, there was a path to becoming a showrunner that made up for the lack of training a writer would have in logistics. Basically, the training came through mentoring and experience. When television consisted of 20-22 episodes a year, even junior writers could watch their script go from their hands to the screen. Writers moved up the writer ranks, and by the time they were pitching their own shows, they would have seen at least 50 episodes of television being made.

Something systemic needs to be done to ensure that new writers are trained as much as some were in the old system. Because as sink-or-swim as television has always been, the lack of experience and support in the new one will simply leave many to fail.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Successful ministry never happens in a vacuum. Rather, mentorship is an essential element of Christian community, and without it our people tend to drift aimlessly.

After multiple fights at Southwood High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, resulted in the arrests of 23 students, a group of about 40 dads stepped up to put a stop to the violence. Known as Dads on Duty, the men work shifts, so there are always several fathers on campus from the time students first arrive to when they go home for the day. The dads are there to lift spirits, tell jokes, dole out advice, and just let the kids know there's someone looking out for them.

Michael LaFitte said he started Dads on Duty because "we decided the best people who can take care of kids are … us." Since the group formed, there have been no fights on campus, with one student explaining, "The school has just been happy, and you can feel it." Dads on Duty will have a permanent presence at Southwood High, and the group would like to see other chapters form across the country.

Bestselling author Peggy Orenstein spent two years speaking to boys across America. In a lengthy piece for The Atlantic, she cites a survey of 1,006 ten to nineteen-year-olds, on a variety of youth issues. Orenstein writes:

The definition of masculinity seems to be … contracting. When asked what traits society values most in boys, only 2 percent of males in the survey said honesty and morality, and only 8 percent said leadership skills. When I asked them what they liked about being a boy, most of them drew a blank. “Huh,” mused Josh, a college sophomore. “That’s interesting. I never really thought about that. You hear a lot more about what is wrong with guys.”

As part of her research, Orenstein interviewed those knowledgeable on the history of Western masculinity:

The ideal late-19th-century man was compassionate, a caretaker. But such qualities lost favor as paid labor moved from homes to factories during industrialization. In fact, the Boy Scouts, whose creed urges its members to be loyal, friendly, courteous, and kind, was founded in 1910 in part to counter that dehumanizing trend. ... Today there is much confusion about masculinity and the proper way to raise boys.

Then, during the second half of the 20th century, traditional paths to manhood—early marriage, breadwinning—began to close, along with the positive traits associated with them. Today many parents are unsure of how to raise a boy, what sort of masculinity to encourage in their sons. But as I learned from talking with boys themselves, the culture of adolescence, which fuses hyper-rationality with domination, sexual conquest, and a glorification of male violence, fills the void.

Abdul Kalam, former President of India, once shared this powerful example of a vital quality of good leadership. In 1979, he was the Project Director of a mission to launch a satellite into orbit. Preparations for the event had gone on for nearly 10 years with much anticipation of a successful launch.

The satellite launch vehicle went into orbit, but after a while, it started malfunctioning and eventually crashed. As Abdul Kalam said, "The satellite that should have landed in orbit, landed in the Bay of Bengal!"

Abdul Kalam says that he was dreading the press conference as he would have to give answers for the massive failure. At that difficult moment however, his Chairman, Satish Dhawan, went with him to the press conference and took the responsibility and the criticism, for the failure. He went on to affirm and support the hard work done by his team with an assurance that they would succeed the next time around.

Sure enough, the following year, the satellite was launched successfully as predicted. However, at that moment of resounding success, this time around, Satish Dhawan requested Abdul Kalam to handle the press conference that was to follow.

In a moment of failure, Satish Dhawan stood by his team and took the blame for the failure. In the moment of success however, he stepped back and let his team receive the credit for the effort. It was a lesson Abdul Kalam would never forget. A good leader stands by his team in times of failure but lets them receive due credit in times of success!

The Bible says, "Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act" (Proverbs 3:27)

In an article for CT Pastors, Ken Shigematsu writes:

My mentor and close friend, Leighton Ford, was ambitious for God and he yearned to have a significant impact. After graduating from Wheaton College, he wed Billy Graham’s sister, Jeanie, and became part of the “royal family” of the Christian world. A rising star, Leighton began preaching in large football stadiums around the world. He was named Clergyman of the Year, and Time magazine identified him as the person most qualified to succeed his brother-in-law, Billy Graham.

Leighton’s son, Sandy, had become an accomplished track and field runner. Like his father, he aspired to become a minister of the gospel. Unexpectedly, he was diagnosed with a rare heart disease that caused arrhythmia. After an operation to address his condition, Sandy seemed fine. But then, while running shortly after his 21st birthday, the arrhythmia struck again. A few days later, he died on the operating table.

A few days after Sandy’s funeral, Leighton went to Sandy’s room near the university to gather his son’s belongings. As he looked over Sandy’s desk, Leighton found an unfinished poem. It was titled “To Dad, for his 50th birthday:

What a golden honor it would be to don your mantle, to inherit twice times your spirit. For then you would be me and I would continue to be you.”

Leighton wept. He thought of the mantle that would never fall on his son’s shoulders. But in the midst of his searing loss and pain, Leighton sensed the Holy Spirit calling him to begin a new ministry, one that would mean stepping out of the limelight. He felt led to invest himself into a small group of younger men and women to help them “run their race” for God through one-on-one spiritual mentoring.

Leighton, now in his 80s, has been blessed with many sons and daughters. He is no longer an A-list Christian celebrity, but his influence is deep and wide. And he is now truly content with his life and calling. As Sandy’s poem foretold, the mantle of Leighton’s ministry has fallen—not on Sandy, but on his many spiritual sons and daughters.