7 Ledership Tips From Coach Phil Jackson

I have always been a fan of Phil Jackson as a coach. I have always admired his style and cool, calm collected nature as a coach. He seems to know exactly when to sit, stand, call a timeout and maximize the productivity of his team. Phil will go down as one of the best coaches of all-time in any sport. It appears as though he just coached his last game, according to Phil Jackson, ”All my hopes and aspirations are, this is the final game that I’ll coach.” He will exit with 11 Championships and not other professional coach will come close to that.

There is a lot to be learned about leadership from Phil Jackson’s coaching career and coaching style. 7 Leadership Lessons From Phil Jackson’s Coaching Career:

• 1. Willingness To Coach The Best: Phil was willing to coach the best and show the best how to sin championships with a supporting cast. He was able to win championships with Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal & Kobe Bryant. He’s not scared of leading the best and great leaders want the best on their team.
• 2. Win Without The Coach: Phil was able to prepare his teams in a manner that allowed them to believe in themselves and get it done without his direct supervision. He taught his team how to play through long stretches without timeouts or his direct interaction. He taught his players how to be great leaders and confident thinkers rather than just executors. Great leaders prepare teams to perform at a high-level, even in their absence.
• 3. Mastered The 3-Peat: Phil was able to 3-Peat several times with several teams. He not only won championships, but he did it again and again and again. He 3-peated 3 times and the one time he didn’t 3-Peat he repeated. He even said it in his closing press conference today that the thrill of chasing the “3-Peat” is always a great challenge. Great leaders don’t want their teams to win, but rather win again and again.
• 4. Masterful At Creating A Culture Of Winning: Creating a culture of winning comes with extreme give-and-take, strategy, encouragement and believing in those that you lead. It requires taking the best basketball players on the globe and meshing them role players and players with quirky personalities like Dennis Rodman and Ron Artest. He created cultures that made all players valuable and maximized potential in everyone. He creates a culture of focused chemistry. The number one priority in coaching and leading is to create a strong culture by developing leadership, empowerment, communication, authentic care for others, relationships, trust, and motivation.
• 5. Cool, Calm and Collected: Phil Jackson was one of the most cool, calm and collected coaches in the game. He would sit on the sidelines as cool as the other side of the pillow. He always remained cool under pressure, which translated to his team taking on that same persona. Teams feed off of their leader, if their leader demonstrates a “we got this” mentality, it’s destined to rub off on the players.
• 6. He Knows When It’s His Time: Phil is going to retire into the sunset of Montana and relax. He stated that he has had a good 20 year run of coaching and now it’s time to give some of the younger coaches an opportunity. Some leaders don’t know when their time has passed and they make it rough on an entire organization.
• 7. Great At Selling His Leadership Style To Players: Phil’s style and triangle offense was not an easy sell. He was able to elevate the importance of his unique style of coaching and offense to a place of relevance that the best players to ever play the game such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant bought into it. If a leader has a style worth buying, team members will gladly buy it. Phil Jackson never tried to be someone else, take it or leave it the “Zen Master” was the “Zen Master.”

Great leaders are more focussed with making those around them great. Phil Jackson was a great coach and a great leader. Kobe Bryant says it best in this quote, “He’s absolutely brilliant in bringing a group together to accomplish one common goal.”