How To Coach Leaders Like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg

You may or may not know the name Bill Campbell.  If not, he is one of the most influential leaders in American history.  Campbell was a personal coach for iconic leaders like Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerburg and Sheryl Sandberg.

His life and career were recently profiled in the incredible book Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook Of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell.  As you read the book, you get a graduate level education on how to add value and coach elite talent.  I cannot recommend enough you read this book.  You can do so by clicking HERE or on the image provided.

The following is How To Coach Leaders Like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg we learn from Bill Campbell.  Before getting to Campbell’s lessons, I have a question for all leaders.  If this all-star line-up of leaders have personal coaches, shouldn’t you as well?

The following are principles or direct quotes from the book.

1. Get to know people beyond the resume or headlines.
2. Shine the spotlight on others and stay in the background.
3. Display unusual generosity.
4. Be willing to role up your sleeves and get dirty.
5. When Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985, Campbell was one of the few who supported him.  Jobs remembered that loyalty when he returned in 1997.
6. Keep your opinions to yourself.  Ask great questions.
7. Make sure the team is communicating and tensions are brought to the surface.
8. Walk the halls of the organization and get to know its people.
9. Give high-performing teams the resources and freedom to go great things.
10. It’s all about results.  Help create culture but do so to achieve results.
11. Raise the standard.  Create cultures where anything less than operational excellence is not tolerated.
12. Lay awake at night thinking about how to make others better.
13. Have fun.
14. Help executives run great meetings.
15. Style or substance?  Be 100% substance.
16. Avoid consensus.  Get the best idea.  Get the best idea by getting all the opinions and ideas out into the open.
17. Value boots on the ground.
18. Focus on the customer’s problem more than your process.
19. Respect them.
20. Build trust.  Trust means people feel safe to be vulnerable.
21. Coach only the coachable.
22. Listen intently.
23. Be completely candid.
24. Be intensely loyal.
25. Work hard.
26. Be a continual learner.
27. Give them your full attention.
28. Do not wait on the feedback.  Coach in the moment.
29. Give people confidence.
30. Give people belief.
31. Give people courage.
32. Give people energy.
33. Give people encouragement.  Make sure you are credible with your words.
34. Assess people’s talent.
35. Fill the communication gaps by observing, listening and bringing teammates together.
36. Work the team and then the problem.  Get the team right and you will get the problem right.
37. Tolerate and encourage eccentric behavior.
38. Connect successful people.
39. Always tackle the hardest problems first.
40. Stay relentlessly positive.
41. Talk about winning (and winning right) often.
42. See little flaws in the organization and make them better.
43. Bring a different perspective.
44. Show empathy during trying times.
45. Affirm people.
46. Show compassion for people.
47. Care about people.
48. Love people.

What is one thing from this list you can implement today to make you a better coach?

My book Timeless: 10 Enduring Practices Of Apex Leaders is available for purchase.  If you have ever wanted to become the leader God created you to be, this book is for you!  By combining leadership lessons from biblical heroes like Jesus, Daniel and Joseph, along with modern day leaders like Bill Gates, Nick Saban, Kobe Bryant and multiple pastors, Timeless will equip and inspire you.  This book is not to be read alone.  Discussion questions are included in each chapter allowing you to develop those in your circle of influence.  Click HERE or on the image provided and order your copies TODAY.