I am so excited about this series. It is teaching us that becoming a leadership genius is possible. Leaders can get better by implementing a certain set of practices into their daily activities.
Yesterday, we looked at 15 Practices Of A Leadership Genius, Auburn head football coach Gus Malzahn. Today in Part 2 of this series, we will look at an 10 additional Practices Of A Leadership Genius.
These practices flow from ESPN’s Keith Van Valkenburg incredible profile of the revolutionary coach. You can read Van Valkenburg’s incredible article in full by clicking here.
The following are the second 10 Qualities Of A Leadership Genius:
- Leadership Geniuses Thrive In Comfortable Environments – The Malzahn family eventually found a home at Shiloh Christian School in Springdale, AR. It was the perfect environment to raise their two daughters.
- Leadership Geniuses Do Not Waste Time – Leadership geniuses do not have time to waste. Malzahn’s first quarterback at Shiloh Josh Floyd said, “We could tell right away he was such a driven guy. He doesn’t mess around much. He wants to get things done and get it done quick. He’d see you in the hallway and he’d chase you down to quiz you about a play. You could tell he just never stopped thinking about football.”
- Leadership Geniuses Embrace Routine – Leaders know when they have a successful routine things are less likely to fall through the cracks. Malzahn liked knowing what he would be doing at each moment of the week.
- Leadership Geniuses Ask A Different Set Of Questions – After his first season at Shiloh, Malzahn began to ask a different set of questions. He asked his staff, “What if we sped things up the entire game? What if we embraced risk, shrugged at conventional wisdom, ignored time of possession and tried to lengthen the game, not shorten it? What if we tried to get a play off every five seconds and gave ourselves 10 possessions a game instead of six?” Leaders, what different questions are you asking?
- Leadership Geniuses Get Bored Easily – In addition to becoming bored with the speed of traditional football games, he also felt the phrase “defensive wins championships” was “trite”.
- Leadership Geniuses Simplify Things For Others – Leadership geniuses take their complex thoughts and simplify them so they can be multiplied through others. They put the cookies on the bottom shelf. Malzahn focused on athleticism and Bible characters rather than expecting teenagers to learn complex play calls.
- Leadership Geniuses Instill Confidence Through Repetition – Because leadership geniuses do only a few things well while also simplify things for others, they instill great confidence in their teams. Floyd added, “He had a way of instilling confidence in us through sheer repetition. The joke used to be he’d say, ‘One more play and we’re done with practice.’ Then we’d run it 10 or 20 more times before we’d actually be done.”
- Leadership Geniuses Adjust Their Systems To Their Talent – While coaching in high school, Malzahn adjusted his system to the talent each year. This was a tremendous advantage when he transitioned to coaching in college because he could quickly adjust to his new team.
- Leadership Geniuses Relentlessly Prepare – Former high school All-American Mitch Mustain said, “I laugh sometimes when I hear people talk about how simple his offense is. It works out on game day because he coaches the crap out of the rest of the week.”
- Leadership Geniuses Need Complete Freedom – Despite an 8-0 record with Mustain as his quarterback at Arkansas, enigmatic head coach Houston Nutt did not approve of Malzahn’s uptempo style and benched the quarterback. That off-season Malzahn resigned and Mustain transferred to USC. Nutt lasted only one more season.
This series is teaching us you too can become a leadership genius. The first 25 practices can be done by any leader. Tomorrow I will be posting the 3rd and final part of this series.
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