Well, my philosophy on leadership—leadership is influence,
and even greater, it's an inspiring influence. I'd
have to say my leadership is probably based a lot on the word love. I
have a strong faith, and in the Bible, in First Corinthians, chapter
thirteen, there's a chapter that describes love, that entire
chapter. It has a section where it starts saying love is kind, love is
patient, love is self control, and when you go through that if you think
of what they are talking about, or what God is talking about love to be,
[it's] a leader. You can put, 'a leader is
kind.' 'A leader is patient.'
'A leader is self control.' 'A leader
is honest and truthful.' A leader is all of these things, and
I feel that if leadership is based in love and service, this is my idea.
There's nothing within me that thinks of a leader as being a
boss or just having power through position like telling people what to
do just because you have the position.
Page 14I think of
it more as: you do have an authority, but you don't want it
because of position. You want it because people respect you, and they
see that you do what you say. You are a role model. I do not see how you
cannot be a role model because you cannot say—whatever you
ask people to do I think if you do what you say, you can't
tell people, "just do what I say not what I do." You
cannot say that to people. At least, you can say it, but I do not think
you'll have the respect. You gain great respect by integrity,
and by honesty, and by vulnerability: being real. If you're
asking people to do it then you need to do it yourself. That way when
people see that they will follow you. You know, character. First of all
let me just say this. There's a book by Jeff Janssen, sort of
like a sports psychologist, and I really believe this part of his
[book], where you can't lead anybody else until you can lead
yourself, and leading yourself is about character. You have to have that
kind of character. That's the things I'm talking
about now with the leadership based on love and service. You have to
have character, honesty, and integrity. And then you have to be
composed. You have to have a cool head in a hot situation. You have to
show composure in crisis situations. You have to have commitment
yourself. How can you ask somebody else to be committed to excellence
and you're not yourself? They have to see that, and you have
to have confidence. You can't lose confidence in yourself.
You have to speak with confidence and know what you're about,
and once you get your own house in order you can begin to qualify to
have people who might want to follow you. Without getting your house in
order, you're going to be a weak leader. But a strong leader
has their house in order in these areas, and then they want to serve
other people, want to help other people become all that they want to
become and all that they can become. You want to help them to reach
their goals. I've found that if you
Page 15help
other people reach the goals enough, you'll find out that you
reach all your goals and above and beyond. Just because you are serving
the people around you in that way, whether it's your staff or
whether it's players, whoever it is you're helping
them to reach their goal. Then you'll reach yours, and you
don't have to worry about that. I see leadership as serving
people and [as being] an inspiring influence, and I see love as the
bottom, the core of it for myself. You have to love people, and really,
truly have a desire to help them.