A game plan for effective leadership : lessons from 10 successful coaches in moving from theory to practice

243 Pages·2008·5.416 MB·English

by  Robert H Palestini

Education | Leadership
P
A
L
E
“Palestini puts the ball in your court with real-life leadership principles that can be
S
applied to coaching, parenting and all levels of executive management.” T
I
—Dr. Jack Ramsay, ESPN analyst and former NBA coach N
I
“In this book, Dr. Palestini demonstrates how the use of situational leadership theory
by ten successful basketball coaches has contributed to their effectiveness and how A
these same leadership principles can be appropriately applied to anyone’s leadership
LG
e
behavior, whether the individual be a parent, a teacher, an administrator or a CEO.” ssA
—Phil Martelli, head basketball coach, Saint Joseph’s University noM
s
f E
r
Conventional wisdom is that leaders are born, not made. In A Game Plan for Effec- o A GAME PLAN FOR
mP
tive Leadership, Robert Palestini argues that his experience and research indicate that 1 L
0
leadership skills can be learned. The fi rst chapter of this book speaks to the so-called A
S
science of administration and leadership, while the second chapter deals with the art of cuN
leadership. One needs to learn how to lead with both mind (science) and heart (art) to be secF EFFECTIVE
truly effective. The building blocks of quality leadership are the skills of communication, fsO
u
motivation, organizational development, management, and creativity. Mastering theory lR
C
o
and practice in these areas of study will produce high-quality leadership ability and, in aE
c
turn, successful leaders. hF
e LEADERSHIP
sF

niE
A Game Plan for Effective Leadership uses the case-study approach to facilitate moving M C
o
theory into effective practice. Chapters contain extensive studies of ten of the most vT
successful basketball coaches of our times, including Phil Jackson, Bobby Knight, Mike gniVI

Krzyzewski, Pat Riley, Pat Summitt, and Dean Smith. The book examines how these orfE ROBERT PALESTINI
coaches were able to place leadership theory into effective practice. The lessons are m
L
T
invaluable to leaders and aspiring leaders, including parents, teachers, school principals, hE
e FOREWORD BY Phil Martelli
athletic directors, coaches, and CEOs. oA
r
yD 2004 Consensus National Coach of the Year
t
oE
Robert Palestini is dean and professor of educational leadership at Saint Joseph’s P R
r
University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. caS
t
ciH
e
I
P
For orders and information please contact the publisher
Rowman & Littlefield Education
A Division of Rowman & Littlefi eld Publishers, Inc.
ISBN-13: 978-1-57886-814-8
A wholly owned subsidiary of 10 Successful Coaches
ISBN-10: 1-57886-814-9 Lessons from
The Rowman & Littlefi eld Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200
Lanham, Maryland 20706 in Moving from Theory to Practice
1-800-462-6420 • fax [phone]
www.rowmaneducation.com Cover Design by Devin Watson
GGaammeePPllaannEEffffeeccttiivveeLLeeaaddeerrsshhiippDDSSRRPPBB11 11 66//1166//0088 22::1133::0044 PPMM
A G A M E P L A N
F O R E F F E C T I V E
L E A D E R S H I P
Lessons from 10 Successful Coaches
in Moving from Theory to Practice
Robert Palestini
Rowman & Littlefield Education
Lanham,Maryland • Toronto • Plymouth,UK
2008
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Education
A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group,
Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowmaneducation.com
Estover Road
Plymouth PL6 7PY
United Kingdom
Copyright © 2008 by Robert Palestini
All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Palestini, Robert H.
A game plan for effective leadership : lessons from 10 successful coaches
in moving from theory to practice / Robert Palestini.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-57886-813-1 (hbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-57886-813-0 (hbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-57886-814-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-57886-814-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
eISBN-13: 978-157886-883-4
eISBN-10: 1-57886-883-1
1. Leadership. I. Title.
HM1261.P34 2008
303.3'4--dc22
2008004520
(cid:2)™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
CONTENTS
Foreword Phil Martelli v
Preface vii
1 Contemporary Leadership Theory 1
2 Leading with Heart 21
3 Phil Jackson 47
4 Dr.Jack Ramsay 64
5 Pat Riley 92
6 Bobby Knight 107
7 Mike Krzyzewski 120
8 Dean Smith 134
9 Pat Summitt 145
10 John Thompson 172
11 John Wooden 188
12 Bob Hurley 200
13 Leadership Lessons Learned 212
iii
iv CONTENTS
Appendix The Heart Smart Organizational Diagnosis Model 217
Notes 225
References 229
About the Author 231
FOREWORD
I
t has been my pleasure to watch Bob Palestini work for over 20 years
as a graduate dean and professor at Saint Joseph’s University as well as
a highly successful high school basketball coach in the ultra competitive
Philadelphia Catholic League. His expertise and research interest is ed-
ucational leadership. His eleven books on leadership have been out-
standing in their own way but this endeavor relates his theories on lead-
ership to daily coaching. What a great connection.
Having just written my own book, Don’t Call Me Coach, in which I
present the idea that everyone is a coach in his or her own way, I can re-
late to Dr. Palestini’s basic premise that the tenets of situational leader-
ship theory and effective coaching go hand-in-hand whether we are dis-
cussing business, educational or social settings.
In this book, Dr. Palestini demonstrates how the use of situational
leadership theory by ten successful basketball coaches has contributed
to their effectiveness and how these same leadership principles can be
appropriately applied to anyone’s leadership behavior, whether the indi-
vidual be a parent, a teacher, an administrator or a CEO. Each of us in
our daily lives is asked to assume a degree of responsibility. Bob gives us
the road map to follow with excellence being the result. Palestini’s book
v
vi FOREWORD
has practical applications that will allow each of us to develop and im-
prove our leadership capabilities.
Phil Martelli, head basketball coach,
Saint Joseph’s University Hawks
PREFACE
T
his is a book about leadership. The conventional wisdom is that lead-
ers are born, not made. I disagree! My experience and, more impor-
tantly, scholarly research indicate that leadership skills can be learned.
Granted, some leaders will be superior to others because of genetics,
but the basic leadership skills are learned and can be cultivated and en-
hanced. The first chapter of this book speaks to the science of adminis-
tration, while the second chapter deals with the art of administration
and leadership. One needs to lead with both mind (science) and heart
(art) to be truly effective.
The effective building blocks of quality leadership are the skills of
communication, motivation, organizational development, management,
and creativity. Mastering the theory and practice in these areas of study
will produce high-quality leadership ability and, in turn, produce suc-
cessful leaders; doing so with “heart” will result in highly successful and,
what some authors have called, heroic leadership.
There is another assumption that many educational practitioners make
regarding effective leadership and administration that I would also dis-
pute. Namely, that “nice guys (and gals) finish last.” To be a successful ad-
ministrator, the belief goes, one needs to be firm, direct, even autocratic.
Once again, scholarly research, as well as my own experience, indicates
vii
viii PREFACE
that no one singular leadership style is consistently effective in all situa-
tions and at all times. Empirical and experiential studies indicate that ef-
fective leaders vary their styles depending on the situation. This situa-
tional approach is a recurring theme in this book. In the concluding
chapter, we argue that effective leaders use both their minds and their
hearts in the leadership process, and that, in fact, nice guys and gals do
oftentimes finish first.
Some 25 years ago, when I was coaching high school basketball, I at-
tended a coaching clinic where the main clinicians were Dean Smith,
coach of North Carolina University, and Bobby Knight, then coach of
Indiana University. Both coaches were successful then, and three
decades later, they remain successful and, in one case at least, revered.
In the morning session Bobby Knight explained how fear was the
most effective motivator in sports: If you want athletes to listen to you
and want to be successful, you need to instill fear in them. In the after-
noon session, Dean Smith explained how love is the most effective mo-
tivator in sports: If you want to win and be successful, you must engen-
der love in the athletes. You can understand my sense of confusion by
the end of that clinic. Here were two of the most successful men in
sports giving contradictory advice. As a young and impressionable
coach, I was puzzled by these apparently mixed messages. Over the in-
tervening years, I have often thought about that clinic and tried to make
sense of what I had heard. After these many years, I have drawn two
conclusions from this incident, both of which have had a significant im-
pact on my philosophy of leadership and on this book.
The first conclusion has to do with the situational nature of leader-
ship. Bobby Knight and Dean Smith impressed upon me the truism that
there is no one singular leadership style that is effective at all times and
in all situations; and, second, that despite reaping short-term success,
the better style for ensuring long-term success is one that inspires love,
trust, and respect. Just as athletes become robotic and are fearful of
making mistakes when fear is the only motivator, so too are employees
who are supervised by an autocratic manager. The leader who instills
fear in his or her subordinates stymies all initiative, creativity, and self-
sufficiency. Thus, I arrived at my conclusion that effective school ad-
ministration and leadership, which is my field, and leadership in general
begin with love, trust, and respect.
PREFACE ix
In addition to an emphasis on the nature of leadership, this book fo-
cuses on placing theory into practice. We cannot underestimate the
value and importance of theory. Without theory we have no valid way of
analyzing and correcting failed practice. Without a theoretical base, we
oftentimes lead by trial and error, or by the proverbial “seat of your
pants.” On the other hand, however, knowledge of theory without the
ability to place it into reflective practice is of no value and not charac-
teristic of effective leadership. Leaders should adopt one of the leader-
ship theories described in this book and place it into reflective practice,
modeled after the leadership behavior of some of the coaches that are
highlighted here.
This book uses the case study approach in order to facilitate placing
theory into effective practice. Each chapter contains an extensive study
of one of ten of the most successful basketball coaches of our times. We
will analyze each case and see how these coaches were able to place
leadership theory into effective practice. I believe that the lessons
learned will prove invaluable to leaders and aspiring leaders, whether
that is a parent, teacher, school principal, or CEO.
I chose coaches as my subjects because they are basically teachers,
and as we shall see, being able to teach one’s followers and thus foster a
learning organization is a valuable asset if one wishes to be an effective
leader. I also chose coaches because their leadership behavior is more
observable and more chronicled.
This book also takes an organizational development approach to pro-
ducing effective leadership. Picture yourself standing in the middle of a
dense forest. Suppose you were asked to describe the characteristics of
the forest; what types of trees are growing in the forest; how many acres
of trees are there; where are the trees thriving; where are they not.
Faced with this proposition, most people would not know where to start
and “would not be able to see the forest for the trees.”
Newly appointed executives and administrators often have this same
feeling of confusion when faced with the prospect of having to assume
a leadership role in a complex organization like a school or a company.
Where does one start? An effective way to start would be to systemati-
cally examine the components that make up an organization. Such a sys-
tem of organizational diagnosis and prescription will lead to a compre-
hensive and integrated analysis of the organization’s strengths and