On the Road to Victory!

    

5 Leadership Lessons from the World Champion Philadelphia Eagles

As a season ticket member who has missed just two Philadelphia Eagles home games in the last 45 eagles-logo.jpgyears spanning more than 400 professional football games, Sunday night’s Super Bowl win was a dream come true and a moment I’ve been waiting a very long time for.  As a student and coach of leadership, the entire season has been surreal as faithful Eagles fans saw their championship dreams slowly disappear as star player after star player got hurt and the team went into every important game as the underdog given little expectation to win anything.

So as Tom Brady and Bill Belichick – perhaps the greatest Quarterback-Coach combination in the history of sports are saying, “What Happened?”

The answer is easy.  Leadership happened. Good old-fashioned leadership.  From the owner Jeffrey Laurie, to the Vice President of Football Operations Howie Roseman, to the Coach Doug Pedersen, to and through the entire organization, there was aligned leadership that everyone believed in and executed flawlessly. Here are five take-away lessons from a most unanticipated yet amazing sports championship in decades:

“We do the things like practice and have discipline for this moment right here”

This quote from the coach Doug Pederson after the game summarized it all.  The championship wasn’t just won in the Super Bowl game; it was won on the first day of training camp when the coach talked about a discipline and a process of doing the right things such as being on time, being prepared, paying attention to the small things like having a dress code.

The lesson for business leaders is that the basics set the foundation for winning and that foundation must occur with every detail every day.

“An individual can make a difference, but a team can make a miracle”

Another quote from the Coach, this became the mantra for selfless teamwork and a focus on doing whatever it takes for the whole rather than just individual performance.  The Eagles team that just won the World Champion has a lot of good players but no one star that steals the spotlight or all of the playing time.  Every position including the running backs had multiple players with great talent who played the system and were happy for each other to get the opportunity to be successful.

How many business leaders can look at their teams and see the same belief and full buy-in to work together as a team to achieve miracles?

Keeping it Positive and Moving Forward

Bad stuff in life happens.  For the Eagles, they lost their best running back, then their Hall-of-Fame left tackle, their best defensive player, their best special teams player, and then their quarterback who was having a Most Valuable Player season.  A loss of any one of these players on most teams would have meant the end of the season. The loss of all of them should have meant a losing season.  But the Eagles turned the negatives into positives and kept moving forward every game, every week, every day.

In business, bad things happen as well. People leave, the competition comes up with a new disruptive product, there’s a hurricane, etc.  The lesson we can take from the Eagles is that leaders never get down; they get positive and keep moving forward.  Everyone on the team was prepared for tough situations and they used that preparation and positive belief to keep it moving forward not just to survive, but to the ultimate success.

“People Here Just Love Coming to Work”

Was a quote from the MVP Quarterback Nick Foles when asked about the culture.  The leaders of the team created a fun and highly productive culture where people wanted to come to work.  This culture was supported by the desire to be prepared, but more importantly is was fostered through a “meritocracy” where good performance war rewarded and poor performance wasn’t tolerated.

For business leaders, this is a tricky thing but the Eagles proved again how important it is to reward the doers, reward the team, and make sure you exit the under-performers.

“I’m so happy for each and every one of you”

The final point comes fittingly from the head coach as he opened up his victory speech to the team.  This statement was real and authentic.  This is a leader with deep emotional intelligence but more importantly, authentic leadership capabilities that are believable and motivating to the people he leads.

As business leaders, it’s a mistake to just drive to performance and the numbers.  It’s critical to understand the people on your team and to be truly happy for them is individuals when they achieve success.

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Robert Brodo

About The Author

Robert Brodo is co-founder of Advantexe. He has more than 20 years of training and business simulation experience.