The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership

By Bill Walsh

PART I

My Standard of Performance: An Environment of Excellence

The ability to help the people around me self-actualize their goals underlines the single aspect of my abilities and the label that I value most—teacher. —BILL WALSH

There is a significant price to pay to be the best.

I have tried to describe my anguish, but the words come up short. Everything I had dreamed of professionally for a quarter of a century was in jeopardy just eighteen months after being realized. And yet there was something else going on inside me, a “voice” from down deeper than the emotions, something stirring that I had learned over many years in football and, before that, growing up; namely, I must stand and fight again, stand and fight or it was all over.
In my mind—or gut—and in spite of the pain, I knew I had to force myself to somehow start looking ahead—to overcome my grief over the debacle in Miami.
I wish I could tell you that’s what happened—that I simply turned a switch and was magically transformed from an emotional basket case into an invincible field general.
I was able to summon strength enough to pull my focus, my thinking, out of the past and move it forward to our next big problem. It does take strength to shift your attention off the pain when you feel as though your soul has been stripped bare.
When the inevitable setback, loss, failure, or defeat comes crashing down on you—losing a big sale, being passed over for a career-making promotion, even getting fired—allow yourself the “grieving time,” but then recognize that the road to recovery and victory lies in having the strength to get up off the mat and start planning your next move. This is how you must think if you want to win. Otherwise you have lost.
For me, on that flight back home after the Miami loss, it meant working one minute at a time—literally—to regain composure, confidence, and direction.

Failure is part of success, an integral part. Everybody gets knocked down. Knowing it will happen and what you must do when it does is the first step back.

Unbeknownst to me, we had hit rock bottom against the Dolphins. Sixteen months after I spent part of a transcontinental flight experiencing an emotional meltdown, the San Francisco 49ers became world champions, defeating the Cincinnati Bengals 26-21 at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, in Super Bowl XVI. In fact, a football dynasty was in the works.
During the ensuing fourteen years, the San Francisco 49ers won five Super Bowls. It happened only because at the moment of deepest despair I had the strength to stand and confront the future instead of wallowing in the past. Many can’t summon the strength; they can’t get up; their fight is over. Victory goes to another, a stronger competitor.
When you stand and overcome a significant setback, you’ll find an increasing inner confidence and self-assurance that has been created by conquering defeat. Absorbing and overcoming this kind of punishment engenders a sober, steely toughness that results in a hardened sense of independence and a personal belief that you can take on anything, survive and win.

MY FIVE DOS FOR GETTING BACK INTO THE GAME:

1. Do expect defeat. It’s a given when the stakes are high and the competition is working ferociously to beat you. If you’re surprised when it happens, you’re dreaming; dreamers don’t last long.
2. Do force yourself to stop looking backward and dwelling on the professional “train wreck” you have just been in. It’s mental quicksand.
3. Do allow yourself appropriate recovery—grieving—time. You’ve been knocked senseless; give yourself a little time to recuperate. A keyword here is “little.” Don’t let it drag on.
4. Do tell yourself, “I am going to stand and fight again,” with the knowledge that often when things are at their worst you’re closer than you can imagine to success. Our Super Bowl victory arrived less than sixteen months after my “train wreck” in Miami.
5. Do begin planning for your next serious encounter. The smallest steps—plans—move you forward on the road to recovery. Focus on the fix.

MY FIVE DON’TS:

1. Don’t ask, “Why me?”
2. Don’t expect sympathy.
3. Don’t bellyache.
4. Don’t keep accepting condolences.
5. Don’t blame others.

My Standard of Performance: High Requirements for Actions and Attitudes

I approached building the 49er organization with an agenda that didn’t include a timetable for a championship or even a winning season. Instead, I arrived with an urgent timetable for installing an agenda of specific behavioral norms—actions and attitudes—that applied to every single person on our payroll.
To put it bluntly, I would teach each person in the organization what to do and how to think.
For me to do this I had to have autonomy, the power to quickly make decisions in all relevant areas.
- Equally important, he let everyone in the organization know that I was the boss and that he would not undercut my authority. Without this power and support my task would have been virtually impossible given the abysmal situation.

I came to the San Francisco 49ers with an overriding priority and specific goal—to implement what I call the Standard of Performance. It was a way of doing things, a leadership philosophy that has as much to do with core values, principles, and ideals as with blocking, tackling, and passing; more to do with the mental than with the physical.
It began with this fundamental leadership assertion: Regardless of your specific job, it is vital to our team that you do that job at the highest possible level in all its various aspects, both mental and physical (i.e., good talent with bad attitude equals bad talent).

An Organization Has a Conscience

My conviction that an organization is not just a tool like a shovel, but an organic entity that has a code of conduct, a set of applied principles that go beyond a company mission statement that’s tacked on the wall and forgotten. In fact, we had no mission statement on the wall. My mission statement was implanted in the minds of our people through teaching.
Great teams in business, in sports, or elsewhere have a conscience. At its best, an organization—your team—bespeaks values and a way of doing things that emanate from a source; that source is you—the leader. Thus, the dictates of your personal beliefs should ultimately become characteristics of your team.
You must know what needs to be done and possess the capabilities and conviction to get it done. Several factors affect this, but none is more important than the dictates of your own personal beliefs. Collectively, they comprise your philosophy.

A philosophy is the aggregate of your attitudes toward fundamental matters and is derived from a process of consciously thinking about critical issues and developing rational reasons for holding one particular belief or position rather than another. Many things shape your philosophy, including your background, experiences, work environment, education, aspirations, and more. By adhering to your philosophical tenets you are provided with a systematic, yet practical, method of deciding what to do in a particular situation.

It is a conceptual blueprint for action; that is, a perception of what should be done, when it should be done, and why it should be done. Your philosophy is the single most important navigational point on your leadership compass.

My Standard of Performance—the values and beliefs within it—guided everything I did in my work at San Francisco and are defined as follows:

Exhibit a ferocious and intelligently applied work ethic directed at continual improvement; demonstrate respect for each person in the organization and the work he or she does; be deeply committed to learning and teaching, which means increasing my own expertise; be fair; demonstrate character; honor the direct connection between details and improvement, and relentlessly seek the latter; show self-control, especially where it counts most—under pressure; demonstrate and prize loyalty; use positive language and have a positive attitude; take pride in my effort as an entity separate from the result of that effort; be willing to go the extra distance for the organization; deal appropriately with victory and defeat, adulation and humiliation (don’t get crazy with victory nor dysfunctional with loss); promote internal communication that is both open and substantive (especially under stress); seek poise in myself and those I lead; put the team’s welfare and priorities ahead of my own; maintain an ongoing level of concentration and focus that is abnormally high; and make sacrifice and commitment the organization’s trademark.

Focus on Details

After careful analysis, they identified thirty specific and separate physical skills—actions—that every offensive lineman needed to master in order to do his job at the highest level, everything from tackling to evasion, footwork to arm movement. Our coaches then created multiple drills for each one of those individual skills, which were then practiced relentlessly until their execution at the highest level was automatic—routine “perfection.”
Our practices were organized to the minute—like a musical score for an orchestra that shows every musician what to play and when to play it. Our coaches then drilled the team so they could “play it” better and better.
From the start, my prime directive, the fundamental goal, was the full and total implementation throughout the organization of the actions and attitudes of the Standard of Performance I described earlier.
I directed our focus less to the prize of victory than to the process of improving—obsessing, perhaps, about the quality of our execution and the content of our thinking; that is, our actions and attitude. I knew if I did that, winning would take care of itself, and when it didn’t I would seek ways to raise our Standard of Performance.
During this early period I began hiring personnel with four characteristics I value most highly:
- Talent
- Character
- Functional intelligence (beyond basic intelligence, the ability to think on your feet, quickly and spontaneously)
- Eagerness to adopt my way of doing things, my philosophy.

The Top Priority Is Teaching

In a very real way, everything I did was teaching in some manner or other. I would take out a calendar and plan when I would talk about different subjects with individual players, with a squad, with the entire team,
I would discuss a topic from every angle, every approach, never repeating it the same way, such as when I spoke on the subject of communication and interdependence—trying to keep the idea fresh and not become rote.
I was insisting that all employees not only raise their level of “play” but dramatically lift the level of their thinking—how they perceived their relationship to the team and its members;
Players had a connection to—and were an extension of—the coaching staff, trainers, team doctor, nutritionists, maintenance crew, and, yes, the people who answered the phones. Everybody was connected, each of us an extension of the others, each of us with ownership in our organization.

Victory is produced by and belongs to all.

Likewise, failure belongs to everyone.

Everyone has ownership.

We are united and fight as one; we win or lose as one.

I nurtured a variation of that extreme attitude in our entire organization, most especially the players: “You can’t let your buddies down. Demand and expect sacrifice from yourself, and they’ll do the same for you.” That is the measure, in my opinion, of any great organization, including a team of football players—that willingness to sacrifice for the team,
It has a transformative effect. Bonding within the organization takes place as one individual and then another steps up and raises his or her level of commitment, sacrifice, and performance.
The leader’s job is to facilitate a battlefield-like sense of camaraderie among his or her personnel, an environment for people to find a way to bond together, to care about one another and the work they do, to feel the connection and extension so necessary for great results. Ultimately, it’s the strongest bond of all, even stronger than money.

Winners Act Like Winners (Before They’re Winners)

The culture precedes positive results. It doesn’t get tacked on as an afterthought on your way to the victory stand. Champions behave like champions before they’re champions; they have a winning standard of performance before they are winners.
My high standards for actions and attitudes within our organization never wavered—regardless of whether we were winning or losing. (Talk about some serious inner conviction!)
I envisioned it as enabling us to establish a near-permanent “base camp” near the summit, consistently close to the top, within striking distance, never falling to the bottom of the mountain and having to start all over again.
It also meant that as the years accrued, personnel had to be changed so that we remained near the summit. Players past their peak or near the end of their usefulness had to be taken out of the organization. And, yes, this is as cruel and hard to do as it sounds. It is perhaps the hardest task I faced, and I tried to execute it in a humane, direct, and honest manner. But it’s impossible not to hurt an individual’s deep self-respect when it’s being done—when I had to look a great performer in the eye and say, “It’s time for you to leave.” There is perhaps no way you can do it without causing deep pain. But, the organization, our team, came first.
In many ways, it comes down to details. The intense focus on those pertinent details cements the foundation that establishes excellence in performance.

Establishing Your Standard of Performance

Start with a comprehensive recognition of, reverence for, and identification of the specific actions and attitudes relevant to your team’s performance and production.
Be clarion clear in communicating your expectation of high effort and execution of your Standard of Performance. Like water, many decent individuals will seek lower ground if left to their own inclinations. In most cases you are the one who inspires and demands they go upward rather than settle for the comfort of doing what comes easily. Push them beyond their comfort zone; expect them to give extra effort.
Let all know that you expect them to possess the highest level of expertise in their area of responsibility.
Beyond standards and methodology, teach your beliefs, values, and philosophy. An organization is not an inanimate object. It is a living organism that you must nurture, guide, and strengthen.
Teach “connection and extension.” An organization filled with individuals who are “independent contractors” unattached to one another is a team with little interior cohesion and strength.
Make the expectations and metrics of competence that you demand in action and attitudes from personnel the new reality of your organization. You must provide the model for that new standard in your own actions and attitude.

How I Avoid Becoming a Victim of Myself

I have a terrible time closing out a set in tennis. Why? Because I tell myself to try harder and harder, to hit the ball better and better. I become a victim of myself and go into a kind of stupor because I’m trying so hard without really knowing what the heck I’m trying to do.
Individuals or organizations can get almost mesmerized by pressure and stress and be unable to function as cleanly as they are capable of doing.
You just want to function very well, up to your potential, effortlessly—do what you already know how to do at the level of excellence you’ve acquired—
- Seems like Bill read some eastern philosophy based on this concept of Wu Wei
By focusing strictly on my Standard of Performance, the 49ers were able to play the bigger games very well because it was basically business as usual—no “try harder” mentality was used. In fact, I believed it would be counterproductive.

Teaching The System

He liked tight management principles and wanted things clear and easily understood. This was important because Bill’s overall system was complex. For it to work, people had to understand it. Consequently, he was explicit in his instructions: “Here’s what we’re going to do and here’s how we’re going to do it.” Bill was very demanding in that respect, not just of players but of everyone in the organization.
He had written a series of lectures for each department detailing what he expected in all ways—appearance, attitude, performance, and more.
He made it very clear. There was no confusion in their minds as to what he expected. And because he had such a marvelous background and such a keen eye for running things, he expected a lot. That included respect for one another within the organization—no cliques or hierarchy.
There was intensity and urgency, a focus all the time, a tight ship. He was friendly, but he held himself in a certain manner so that you knew he was in charge.
- Sounds like Frank Slootman, AMP IT UP

People loved him even though he was insistent, a real stickler not only about playing football but about raising the image of the franchise from within. That’s where he started—by raising the self-image of the San Francisco 49ers organization.
My tie was a good example. What the heck did it have to do with a Super Bowl? Bill saw the connection. It was one of the tiny things—thousands of them—that he put in place that were part of eventually winning.
Communication within the organization was extremely important to Bill,
Bill Walsh was not afraid of talent. He hired assistant coaches who were extremely good, and he did it with the expectation that they would move on—up to head coaching positions.
While you were a 49er, you were expected to give it your all, but Bill was very enlightened in the way he supported the lives and careers of employees beyond just what they could do for his team.
I doubt any coach in the NFL was bringing the precision to it that Bill did—drawing up plays almost to the inch and then teaching the players to perform with that same exactness. And that Standard of Performance permeated the whole organization in people’s attitude and how they—we—did our jobs.

PART II Success Is Not Spelled G-E-N-I-U-S: Innovation, Planning, and Common Sense Opportunity Is in the Eye of the Beholder

the extraordinary precision required for successful execution of the play. We couldn’t have the receiver running approximate routes and inexact distances each time; the route called for on that play was twelve yards exactly—not eleven, not thirteen, but twelve, and to an exact spot on the field.
- Keith Rabois mentions this exact reference and the impact it has on his companies

Lessons of the Bill Walsh Offense

Success doesn’t care which road you take to get to its doorstep.
Be bold. Remove fear of the unknown—that is, change—from your mind.
Desperation should not drive innovation. Here’s a good question to write on a Post-it Note and put on your desk: “What assets do we have right now that we’re not taking advantage of?”
Be obsessive in looking for the upside in the downside.

Few things offer greater return on less investment than praise—offering credit to someone in your organization who has stepped up and done the job.

Write Your Own Script for Success: Flying by the Seat of Your Pants (Is No Way to Travel)

Contingency planning is critical for a fire department, football team, or company and is a primary responsibility of leadership. You must continually be anticipating and preparing to deal with what management expert Peter Drucker characterized as “foul weather.” He viewed it as the most important job of leadership. He may be right, but I would expand Drucker’s category to include “fine weather”
Having a well-thought-out plan ready to go in advance of a change in the weather is the key to success. I came to understand this when I realized that making decisions off the top of my head was a recipe for a bad decision—especially under pressure.
it plugged me into the future; I was visualizing the game ahead, “seeing” what would happen. I could close my eyes and literally see all twenty-two men running and responding to some specific play I had drawn up.
- Similar to Phil Jackson visualizing for 45 minutes before each game

I kept asking and answering this question: “What do I do if . . . ?”
Most leaders take this no deeper than the first level of inquiry. You must envision the future deeply and in detail—creatively—so that the unforeseeable becomes foreseeable. Then you write your script for the foreseeable.
I learned through years of coaching that far-reaching contingency planning gave me a tremendous advantage against the competition because I was no different from anyone else; it was almost impossible for me to make quick and correct decisions in the extreme emotional and mental upheaval that accompanied many situations during a game.
Developing the plays may have taken more energy from me than the game, but once the scripting was complete, I felt we could breathe easier; now all we had to do was perform.
The contingency scripting provided a well-thought-out basis for situational decision making and action, but from start to finish our entire team, especially the assistant coaches, were intensely analyzing every single thing that happened on the field and looking for the right response, whether it was scripted or not. There was tremendous flexibility, creativity, and adaptability applied to what I had on the clipboard in front of me, just as there should be for you and your organization.
By analyzing, planning, and rehearsing in advance you can make a rational decision, the best choice for the situation at hand. And that still leaves room for those gut-instinct decisions you may want to make.

Michael Ovitz, a top talent agent in Hollywood for many years and later president of the Walt Disney Company, recognized the link between scripting and success: “Every detail is important. Where do you have a meeting? What is the surrounding environment? People who don’t think about these things have a harder time in business. It’s got to be the right place. It’s got to be the right color. It’s got to be the right choice. Everything has to be strategized. You have to know where you’re going to come out before you go in. Otherwise you lose.”

What is the width and depth of the intellect you have applied to your own team’s contingency planning? What is the extent of your own “scripting”? What could happen tomorrow, next week, or next year that you haven’t planned for, aren’t ready to deal with, or have put in the category of “I’ll worry about that when the time comes”? Planning for the future shouldn’t be postponed until the future arrives.

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“I’m at my best when all hell breaks loose.” But it’s usually not true; you cannot think as clearly or perform as well when engulfed by stress, anxiety, fear, tension, or turmoil. You are not at your best. Believing you are creates a false sense of confidence that can lead to slipshod preparation.

Control What You Can Control: Let the Score Take Care of Itself

What Bill Walsh did is easy to describe: (1) He could identify problems that needed to be solved; and (2) He could solve them.

What was so striking, especially in retrospect, was how he imagined, planned, and prepared everything. Everything. He had given every aspect of everything so much deep thought and careful planning.
Bill forced us to think at a higher level, which was the starting point for getting players to play at a higher level and the organization to operate at a higher level. That was his total focus, like an obsession. All he talked about was improvement.

PART III Fundamentals of Leadership: Concepts, Conceits, and Conclusions “I Am the Leader!”

The Common Denominator of Leadership: Strength of Will

The leader who will not be denied, who has expertise coupled with strength of will, is going to prevail.
What they share beyond expertise and great success, however, was their indomitable will. They simply would not quit in their effort to install their own system, to push forward with their plan, not someone else’s or a committee’s.
Some leaders are volatile, some voluble; some stoic, others exuberant; but all successful leaders know where we want to go, figure out a way we believe will get the organization there (after careful consideration of relevant available information), and then move forward with absolute determination. We may falter from time to time, but ultimately we are unswerving in moving toward our goal; we will not quit. There is an inner compulsion—obsession—to get it done the way you want it done even if the personal cost is high.

It is good to remind yourself that this quality—strength of will—is essential to your survival and success. Often you are urged to “go along to get along,” solemnly advised that “your plan should’ve worked by now,” or told other variations that amount to backing away from a course you believe in your heart and know in your head is correct.

You look around the room and find yourself with only a few supporters. Or perhaps not even a few. Heads are bowed, everybody’s eyes are lowered, looking down at their hands, embarrassed to look at you. You may be standing alone. This is when you find out if you’re a leader.

My ultimate job, and yours, is not to give an opinion. Everybody’s got an opinion. Leaders are paid to make a decision. The difference between offering an opinion and making a decision is the difference between working for the leader and being the leader.

Be Wrong for the Right Reasons

We all have in our mind inspiring examples of individuals who persevered beyond the point of reason and common sense and prevailed. We tend to ignore the more numerous examples of individuals who persisted and persisted and finally failed and took everybody down with them because they would not change course or quit. We ignore them because we never heard about them. Failure rarely garners the amount of attention that victory does.
The lesson I took from it was this: A leader must be keen and alert to what drives a decision, a plan of action. If it was based on good logic, sound principles, and strong belief, I felt comfortable in being unswerving in moving toward my goal. Any other reason (or reasons) for persisting were examined carefully. Among the most common faulty reasons are (1) trying to prove you are right and (2) trying to prove someone else is wrong. Of course, they amount to about the same thing and often lead to the same place: defeat.
A leader must have a vision, which is simply an elevated word for “goal.” Significant time and resources will be applied to achieving that goal. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that you proceed and persist for the correct reasons; your tactics must be sound and based on logic seasoned with instinct.

Here’s a short checklist worth keeping in mind when it comes to persevering, to doing it “your way” at all costs:

A leader must never quit.
A leader must know when to quit.
Proving that you are right or proving that someone is wrong are bad reasons for persisting.
Good logic, sound principles, and strong belief are the purest and most productive reasons for pushing forward when things get rough.

Be a Leader—Twelve Habits Plus One

A defining characteristic of a good leader is the conviction that he or she can make a positive difference—can prevail even when the odds are stacked against him or her. A successful leader is not easily swayed from this self-belief. But it happens.

Here are twelve habits I have identified over the years that will make you be a better leader:

Be yourself. I am not Vince Lombardi; Vince Lombardi was not Bill Walsh. My style was my style, and it worked for me. Your style will work for you when you take advantage of your strengths and strive to overcome your weaknesses. You must be the best version of yourself that you can be; stay within the framework of your own personality and be authentic. If you’re faking it, you’ll be found out.

Be committed to excellence. I developed my Standard of Performance over three decades. My commitment to excellence preceded my commitment to winning football games. At all times, in all ways, your focus must be on doing things at the highest possible level.
Be positive. I spent far more time teaching what to do than what not to do; far more time teaching and encouraging individuals than criticizing them; more time building up than tearing down. There is a constructive place for censure and highlighting negative aspects of a situation, but too often it is done simply to vent and creates a barrier between you and others.
4. Be prepared. (Good luck is a product of good planning.) Work hard to get ready for expected situations—events you know will happen. Equally important, plan and prepare for the unexpected. “What happens when what’s supposed to happen doesn’t happen?” is the question that you must always be asking and solving.
Be detail-oriented. Organizational excellence evolves from the perfection of details relevant to performance and production. What are they for you? High performance is achieved small step by small step through painstaking dedication to pertinent details. (Caution: Do not make the mistake of burying yourself alive in those details.) Address all aspects of your team’s efforts to prepare.
Be organized. A symphony will sound like a mess without a musical score that organizes each and every note so that the musicians know precisely what to play and when to play it. Great organization is the trademark of a great organization. You must think clearly with a disciplined mind.
Be accountable. Excuse making is contagious. Answerability starts with you. If you make excuses—which is first cousin to “alibiing”—so will those around you.
Be near-sighted and far-sighted. Keep everything in perspective while simultaneously concentrating fully on the task at hand. All decisions should be made with an eye toward how they affect the organization’s performance—not how they affect you or your feelings. All efforts and plans should be considered not only in terms of short-run effect, but also in terms of how they impact the organization long term. This is very difficult.
Be fair. The 49ers treated people right. I believe your value system is as important to success as your expertise. Ethically sound values engender respect from those you lead and give your team strength and resilience.
Be firm. I would not budge one inch on my core values, standards and principles.
Be flexible. I was agile in adapting to changing circumstances. Consistency is crucial, but you must be quick to adjust to new challenges that defy old situations.
Believe in yourself. To a large degree, a leader must “sell” himself to the team. This is impossible unless you exhibit self-confidence. While I was rarely accused of cockiness, it was apparent to most observers that I had significant belief- self- confidence- in what I was doing. Of course, belief derives from expertise.
Be a leader. Whether you are a head coach, CEO, or sales manager, you must know where you’re going and how you intend to get there, keeping in mind that it may be necessary to modify your tactics as circumstances dictate. You must be able to inspire and motivate through teaching people how to execute their jobs at the highest level. You must care about people and help those people care about one another and the team’s goals. And you must never second-guess yourself on decisions you make with integrity, intelligence, and a team-first attitude.

Sweat the Right Small Stuff

While it is critically important to concentrate on the smallest relevant aspects of your job without losing sight of the big picture, it is easy to become so completely overwhelmed by ongoing setbacks that you start focusing on issues completely extraneous to improvement in an attempt to keep from having to look at intractable problems.
Of course, it’s an easy trap to fall into, because the trivialities I noted are typical of what a desperate leader can grab onto and control when everything seems out of control. It creates a false and fatal sense of accomplishment, a trap with serious consequences because it keeps you from addressing the key thoughts and solutions, the tough decisions that are at the core of accomplishing a very difficult task; that is, the task of turning things around.
Sharpening pencils in lieu of sharpening your organization’s performance is one way to lose your job.

Here are ten additional nails you can pound into your professional coffin:

Exhibit patience, paralyzing patience.
Engage in delegating—massive delegating—or conversely, engage in too little delegating.
Act in a tedious, overly cautious manner.
Become best buddies with certain employees.
Spend excessive amounts of time socializing with superiors or subordinates.
Fail to continue hard-nosed performance evaluations of longtime—“tenured”—staff members, the ones most likely to go on cruise control, to relax.
Fail to actively participate in efforts to appraise and acquire new hires.
Trust others to carry out your fundamental duties.
Find ways to get out from under the responsibilities of your position, to move accountability from yourself to others—the blame game.
Promote an organizational environment that is comfortable and laid-back in the misbelief that the workplace should be fun, lighthearted, and free from appropriate levels of tension and urgency.

Good Leadership Percolates Down

If your staff doesn’t seem fully mobilized and energized until you enter the room, if they require your presence to carry on at the level of effort and excellence you have tried to install, your leadership has not percolated down.
Ideally, you want your Standard of Performance, your philosophy and methodology, to be so strong and solidly ingrained that in your absence the team performs as if you were present, on site. They’ve become so proficient, highly mobilized, and well prepared that in a sense you’re extraneous; everything you’ve preached and personified has been integrated and absorbed; roles have been established and people are able to function at a high level because they understand and believe in what you’ve taught them, that is, the most effective and productive way of doing things accompanied by the most productive attitude while doing them. Fundamentally sound actions and attitudes are the keys.
My logic was that I wanted our focus directed at one thing only: going about our business in an intensely efficient and professional manner—first on the practice field, later on the playing field. I felt that moving attention away from that goal to create artificial and manufactured “demons” was artificial and usually nonproductive, especially when done repeatedly

You Must Have a Hard Edge

Having said that, I also recognized that a leader needs a very hard edge inside; it has to lurk in there somewhere and come out on occasion. You must be able to make and carry out harsh and, at times, ruthless decisions in a manner that is fast, firm, and fair.
Applied correctly, this hard edge will not only solve the immediate difficulty, but also prevent future problems by sending out this important message: Cross my line and you can expect severe consequences.

The Inner Voice vs. the Outer Voice

The true inspiration, expertise, and ability to execute that employees take with them into their work is most often the result of their inner voice talking, not some outer voice shouting, and not some leader giving a pep talk.
For members of your team, you determine what their inner voice says. The leader, at least a good one, teaches the team how to talk to themselves. An effective leader has a profound influence on what that inner voice will say.

Joe Montana’s kind of leadership is a great starting point, in my view, for what any good leader strives to do, namely, bring out the best in people.

Treat people like people. Every player on our team wore a number; no player on our team was “just a number.” Treat each member of your organization as a unique person. I was never pals with players, but I never viewed any of them as an anonymous member of an organizational herd.
Seek positive relationships through encouragement, support, and critical evaluation. Maintain an uplifting atmosphere at work with your ongoing positive, enthusiastic, energizing behavior.
Afford everyone equal dignity, respect, and treatment.
Blend honesty and “diplomacy.” At times, it is both humane and practical to soften the heavy blow of a demotion or termination with compassion and empathy. It will also help prevent or reduce a toxic response that can ripple through the organization when word spreads that someone feels he or she has been treated roughly without cause. Nevertheless, “rough treatment” serves a purpose occasionally.
Allow for a wide range of moods, from serious to very relaxed, in the workplace depending on the circumstances. Set the acceptable tone by your own demeanor, and develop the fine art of knowing when to crack the whip or crack a joke.
Avoid pleading with players to “get going” or trying to relate to them by adopting their vernacular. Strong leaders don’t plead with individuals to perform. 7. Make each person in your employ very aware that his or her well-being has a high priority with the organization and that the well-being of the organization must be his or her highest professional priority.
Give no VIP treatment. Except on a very short-term “reward” basis that is understood as such—for example, a special parking spot for the employee of the month. 9. Speak in positive terms about former members of your organization. This creates a very positive impression and signals that respect and loyalty extend beyond an individual’s time on your payroll.
Demonstrate interest in and support for the extended families of members of the organization.
Communicate on a first-name basis without allowing relationships to become buddy-buddy. Deep resentments can develop when others see you playing favorites by exhibiting a special bond with select members of the group.
Don’t let differences or animosity linger. Cleanse the wound before it gets infected.

General Patton offered six key

Remember that praise is more valuable than blame. Remember, too, that your primary mission as a leader is to see with your own eyes and be seen by your own troops while engaged in personal reconnaissance.
Use every means before and after combat to tell troops what they are going to do and what they have done.
Discipline is based on pride in the profession [my italics] of arms, on meticulous attention to details, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of battle or the fear of death.
Officers must assert themselves by example and by voice. They must be preeminent in courage, deportment and dress.
General officers must be seen in the front line during action.
There is a tendency for the chain of command to overload junior officers by excessive requirements in the way of training and reports. You will alleviate this burden by eliminating non-essential demands.

The Leverage of Language

You demonstrate a lack of assuredness when you talk constantly in negatives. When attempting to help someone attain that next level of performance, a supportive approach works better than a constantly negative or downside-focused approach.
I could be very cutting, very sharp in criticizing a player or coach, but I always made an effort to counter it by following up the barbs with more upbeat input immediately afterward. I avoided creating a chain of negatives.
If you’re growing a garden, you need to pull out the weeds, but flowers will die if all you do is pick weeds. They need sunshine and water. People are the same. They need criticism, but they also require positive and substantive language and information and true support to really blossom.
- Very Tao of Leadership

When it comes to telling people what you expect from them, don’t be subtle, don’t be coy, don’t be vague. What is your version of, “Gentlemen, this is a football”?
If you are uncomfortable walking around your team’s workplace, awkward and out of place, you are a disconnected leader—not really part of the team. Sitting in your office with the door closed and issuing edicts from on high is not communication, and is certainly not collaborative leadership.

Patience

- The Fujian Province of China is known as the Venice of Asia because of the superb stone sculptures created there over the centuries. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago, near the city of Sichuan, artists—stone sculptors—worked in a time-honored and time-consuming way. Legend has it that when their sculpture was completed, the artist immersed it in the shallows of a nearby stream, where it remained for many years as the waters constantly flowed over it.
- During this period, the finishing touch was applied by Mother Nature (or perhaps Father Time). The gentle but constant flow of water over the stone changed it in subtle but profound ways. Only after this occurred would the sculptor consider it complete—only when time had done its work was the sculpture perfect.

I believe it’s much the same in one’s profession; at least it was in mine. Superb, reliable results take time. The little improvements that lead to impressive achievements come not from a week’s work or a month’s practice, but from a series of months and years until your organization knows what you are teaching inside and out and everyone is able to execute their responsibilities in all ways at the highest level.

It takes time to develop this Standard of Performance; it is not just a seminar or a practice or a season’s worth of seminars and practices, but thoughtful and intense attention over years and years. Then, when you’ve got to score on the last play of the game to win, you know it can happen. This is a powerful force to have within you.
From my first day at 49er headquarters, I had begun imbuing individuals with a sense that a higher standard was being taught and learned, executed and expected in all of our actions and attitudes.
My Standard of Performance and the hard work all of us put into achieving it had created a deep sense of organizational character, commitment, and ability—a sense that every individual was connected to the entire team, and that this group fighting its way to the summit
There was almost a sense of inevitability. We seemed certain, almost destined, to drive the length of the field against a ferocious Cincinnati Bengals defense. At least, that’s how I remember feeling—no panic, no anxiety, no uncertainty. All we had to do was exactly what we had been doing for years and years: adhere to the Standard of Performance we had been sculpting for a decade.

Your own Standard of Performance becomes who and what you are.

For me, the road had been rocky at times, triumphant too, but along the way I had never wavered in my dedication to installing—teaching—those actions and attitudes I believed would create a great team, a superior organization. I knew that if I achieved that, the score would take care of itself.

About Bill Walsh from his son Craig

I’ve come to understand that, in some ways, my father’s life was almost Shakespearean, because what got him to the top professionally was his downfall personally; in spite of his incomparable achievements, he had trouble ever feeling fulfilled on a continuing basis. While he learned from each loss and every win, my dad increasingly took something away from a defeat that he couldn’t shake.
Driven by a desire to gain the stamp of approval from his peers (but not necessarily the public), he was consumed by work and winning, increasingly haunted by losing. When you achieve what he achieved, the inability or unwillingness to grant yourself happiness and satisfaction is perhaps tragic.
- Greatness has a price

Bill Walsh loved military history, including the Civil War. He had read all of the books he could find about it. He used his knowledge of military history to motivate teams and often invoked battles when, against all odds, the troops—i.e., his team—had overcome the enemy.
He was a PhD-level motivator with a powerful ability to get people’s attention and point them in the right direction.
Bill Walsh would not degrade individuals. While he was very careful in handing out compliments (that is, he was a master of withholding praise), he constantly focused attention on the next level of commitment and sacrifice and performance.
He would tell them where he had made mistakes: “I should have done this instead of what I called,” he’d say. There was no culture of seeking scapegoats, no failure and finger pointing. It was very matter-of-fact: We did this wrong; here’s how we do it right. He would critique himself equally hard in winning and losing, always leaving room for improvement. Improvement was his obsession—always looking for ways to improve his coaching, his team, his organization.
My father was a complex man, but he had a simple goal. Although the price was high, he achieved his goal, and as the years rolled by following his retirement, he gained peace and pride, great satisfaction and contentment, within himself.
No longer an outsider in his mind, he saw that his philosophy and methodology were held in the highest esteem; his radical system the norm; his approach to team building commonplace. And that many considered him the greatest football coach of all time. At the end, he was lecturing about his ideas on leadership for graduate students at Stanford University.