The Akron Zips’ football team just had a big upset victory over Marshall University and Head Coach, Terry Bowden gave me all the credit – lol. After the game, Terry sent me a text, “it was all your talk” and I replied, “I’ll take five percent of the credit.”
Well, a couple of weeks ago, I had a fantastic time with one of college football’s great coaches and people, Terry Bowden, head football coach of the Akron’s Zips and a wonderful leader of young men. If you recall, Terry was Bear Bryant Coach of The Year with the Auburn Tigers. Terry is the son of College Football Hall of Fame Coach Bobby Bowden, long-time head coach of the Florida State Seminals. I delivered an inspirational talk for Terry’s team and those young men got me pumped up! You can watch a segment of the talk if you click on the image to the left or the link that follows: David Sarkus’ talk with the Akron Zips Football Team.
During my visit to Akron, I had some very good one-one-one time with Coach Bowden and we discussed leadership. I often say that you can drive people as hard as you want as long as they know they know that you love them or really care about them. Terry and I discussed this a bit and he agreed but he also made me think. Terry asked, “But why would you want to?” This is a great question. Some leaders may want to push or even punish in order to better define the role-relationship (boss-subordinate), to let them know who’s in charge, or the boss may be fulfilling their ego-driven needs. But really, why would you want to?
In our world, we have leaders who drive people really hard. Maybe the drive is for productivity, quality, or safety – but how hard should we drive them? Echoing some of the thoughts of Coach Bowden, “drive them hard enough to keep them improving or winning.” These are vert insightful words to think about and heed.
When it comes to safety and productivity – push your people hard enough to get the job done well and to keep improving. Drive them hard enough to excel or sustain excellence but be aware of individual and team limits. Everyone has different limits, but keep people moving forward.
How do you know when limits may be exceeded? Well, you’ll get anger, frustration, and resistance. And resistance will lead to disrupted relationships that will lessen or fracture the leader’s base of influence. Resistance will also damage the leader’s ability to maintain important relationships with his or her workers. So the next time some of your more disruptive leaders are pushing your people too hard – think about the effects – anger, frustration, and resistance.
Is it worth it to push your people beyond their limits? What’s the premise and payoff and is it really worth it?