In "Mentor Leader," Tony Dungy, the first African American coach to win the Super Bowl, writes that the secret to success is good leadership -- and good leadership is all about making the lives of your team members or workers better. An excerpt.
The mandate of a mentor leader: Focus on significance
On January 24, 2010, as I sat in the stands at Lucas Oil Stadium, watching the Indianapolis Colts celebrate their victory over the New York Jets in the AFC Championship Game, I couldn't help but reflect on my relationships with the five men who now stood on the podium at midfield, handing the championship trophy from one man to the next--owner Jim Irsay, general manager Bill Polian, head coach Jim Caldwell, and team captains Peyton Manning and Gary Brackett.
I felt a measure of satisfaction that day, knowing that each of these leaders--along with the rest of the team--had committed to a common vision and a common goal at the beginning of the season. The goal, of course, was to win a championship, but along with that, everyone was concerned with raising the performance of all the others, with helping them become better players, better coaches, and better men. Each man had a different role and responsibility in accomplishing that goal, but they had all been united in purpose and in their pursuit of excellence. And now they were able to celebrate their success together.
Not only were these men leaders in a positional sense within the organization--and thus were enjoying the team's success--but they had also embraced the principles of mentor leadership and were leaders in a relational sense as well. If they hadn't established the types of relationships they had with each other and with the other coaches and team members, but had only counted wins and losses, they would not have had the same level of positive influence on each other, and the season would not have been as successful. But I knew these men were good, grounded people, whose desire in everything they did was to make each other better--which, in my view, is a more accurate measure of success than wins and losses. It is also a defining characteristic of a mentor leader.
Source: MSNBC.com
Excerpted from "Mentor Leader" by Tony Dungy. Copyright (c) 2010, reprinted with permission from Tyndale House Publishers. For more information, click here.
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