7 Leadership Lessons From Phil Jackson’s Coaching Career

Posted by Scott Williams
17 Comments
May 8, 2011
Leadership | Life Application | Next-Level Leader

I have always been a fan of Phil Jackson as a coach.  I have always admired his style and cool, calm collected nature as a coach.  He seems to know exactly when to sit, stand, call a timeout and maximize the productivity of his team.  Phil will go down as one of the best coaches of all-time in any sport.  It appears as though he just coached his last game,  according to Phil Jackson, ”All my hopes and aspirations are, this is the final game that I’ll coach.”  He will exit with 11 Championships and not other professional coach will come close to that.

There is a lot to be learned about leadership from Phil Jackson’s coaching career and coaching style. 7 Leadership Lessons From Phil Jackson’s Coaching Career:

  • 1. Willingness To Coach The Best: Phil was willing to coach the best and show the best how to sin championships with a supporting cast.  He was able to win championships with Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal & Kobe Bryant.  He’s not scared of leading the best and great leaders want the best on their team.
  • 2. Win Without The Coach: Phil was able to prepare his teams in a manner that allowed them to believe in themselves and get it done without his direct supervision.  He taught his team how to play through long stretches without timeouts or his direct interaction.   He taught his players how to be great leaders and confident thinkers rather than just executors. Great leaders prepare teams to perform at a high-level, even in their absence.
  • 3. Mastered The 3-Peat: Phil was able to 3-Peat several times with several teams.  He not only won championships, but he did it again and again and again.  He 3-peated 3 times and the one time he didn’t 3-Peat he repeated.  He even said it in his closing press conference today that the thrill of chasing the “3-Peat” is always a great challenge.  Great leaders don’t want their teams to win, but rather win again and again.
  • 4. Masterful At Creating A Culture Of Winning: Creating a culture of winning comes with extreme give-and-take, strategy, encouragement and believing in those that you lead.  It requires taking the best basketball players on the globe and meshing them role players and players with quirky personalities like Dennis Rodman and Ron Artest.  He created cultures that made all players valuable and maximized potential in everyone.  He creates a culture of focused chemistry.  The number one priority in coaching and leading is to create a strong culture by developing leadership, empowerment, communication, authentic care for others, relationships, trust, and motivation.
  • 5. Cool, Calm and Collected: Phil Jackson was one of the most cool, calm and collected coaches in the game.  He would sit on the sidelines as cool as the other side of the pillow.  He always remained cool under pressure, which translated to his team taking on that same persona. Teams feed off of their leader, if their leader demonstrates a “we got this” mentality, it’s destined to rub off on the players.
  • 6. He Knows When It’s His Time: Phil is going to retire into the sunset of Montana and relax.  He stated that he has had a good 20 year run of coaching and now it’s time to give some of the younger coaches an opportunity.  Some leaders don’t know when their time has passed and they make it rough on an entire organization.
  • 7. Great At Selling His Leadership Style To Players: Phil’s style and triangle offense was not an easy sell.  He was able to elevate the importance of his unique style of coaching and offense to a place of relevance that the best players to ever play the game such as Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant bought into it.  If a leader has a style worth buying, team members will gladly buy it.  Phil Jackson never tried to be someone else, take it or leave it the “Zen Master” was the “Zen Master.”

Great leaders are more focussed with making those around them great.  Phil Jackson was a great coach and a great leader.  Kobe Bryant says it best in this quote, “He’s absolutely brilliant in bringing a group together to accomplish one common goal.”

Share your thoughts on any of these leadership lessons or things that you may have learned from Phil Jackson’s leadership/coaching style.

  • http://gregoryheadycoleman.blogspot.com heady

    I love “Win Without The Coach”. That should be the goal for all leaders.

    • Scott Williams

      It’s a big one…

  • http://RIchardBurkey.wordpress.com Richard Burkey

    Jackson developed a culture of individual sacrifice and playing to a team’s strengths to accomplish team goals — championships. In today’s fantasy league culture, that looks to one player dominating scoring and stats, Jackson n convinced Jordan and Bryant to sacrifice for the common good. Jordan needed Pipppen, Grant, Kerr and the rest. Bryant needed Gasol, Fisher (especially Fisher) and even O’ Neal who needed Bryant. Championship teams keep their eye on the target — Championship and sacrifice to make that happen.

    • Scott Williams

      Well said, sacrifice is key. It’s about the win and not the individual player. If you are are about the team individual accolades will come.

  • http://www.marcmillan.com @MarcMillan

    Just a great idea to write a post on Phil, why didn’t I think of this? :-)
    Love all seven points, outstanding characteristics not only in him but leaderships goals we could aim for and actually use today in ministry and the workplace.
    For me “able to prepare his teams in a manner that allowed them to believe in themselves and get it done without his direct supervision.” was the Biggie…he would just sit things out, when things got tough, he sat, you guys figure it out, your leaders, you have talent, THINK.
    I just love that.
    M_

    • Scott Williams

      It works great for SEO for the next few weeks :) and I’ve always been amazed by his style. Leaders must be willing to let their people dream BIG and fail.

  • http://www.derwinlgray.com Derwin L. Gray

    Really enjoyed your insight Scott. As a former NFL player, at the professional level, coaching and the players “buy in” into the coach and his philosohy is what seperates the best from the rest. Phil was the best. And he made the best (Jordan, Pippen, Shaq, Kobe) better.

    Pastor Derwin

    • Scott Williams

      Yep… It’s crazy that I left Pippen off of the list in my post, but you are exactly right.

  • http://www.twitter.com/jbledsoejr Jackie Bledsoe, Jr.

    Great post. #7 is huge…I think that is the single most important quality in any leader/coach/teacher…your ability to get those following you to buy in. Many coaches have had great players on their teams, but they never reached the pinnacle or achieved the greatness that Phil did because they were unable to get all their people to buy in. From the #1 guy to the #12 guy they all believed in what Phil was teaching them.

    • Scott Williams

      Thanks, I totally agree.

  • http://themosaiclife.wordpress.com/ Cheryl Luke

    It’s important and very difficult to create a culture where different personalities have the freedom to come together, feel valued and empowered to work towards a common goal. Phil Jackson was a master at this.

    • Scott Williams

      I’m generally a Kobe hater but that quote and his post game press conf. is making me change my mind a bit.

  • Alberto Flores

    Pastor Scott, sorry for use this space but I need your help. I have a simple question.

    What is the diference between a Multi-Cultural Church and Multi-Ethnic Church? Thanks! From Miami, FL

  • Robert Calixto

    Spot on analysis. It’s amazing how close are the leadership qualities and style that both PJ and John Wooden possessed. All the most necessary coaching occurred away from game days, and the teams almost always coached themselves. I always laughed when people criticized Phil for not coaching enough during games. He coached is Biblical proportions, teaching everyone to Fish, no pun intended.

  • http://about.me/lorencklein Loren C. Klein

    With all due respect Scott, Phil Jackson isn’t exactly what I would call a great leader for folks to pattern their leadership and organization by. For all of his championships, Phil Jackson never won anything without at least two of the absolute best players of all time in his starting lineup. He always inherited a championship calibre-squad when he took over a team, and in the case of his last two championships, the core of the team was the same as when he took over almost a decade ago.

    He never took a collection of role players and forged them into a championship team like Larry Brown did with the Pistons in the mid-2000s, Brad Stevens is doing at Butler, or what Billy Donovan did at Florida.

    In addition, for all of his “cool, calm, and collected” demeanour, when he and his team did not win there were always excuses and accusations of agendas and conspiracies that were the reason for their demise and not that they were simply beaten.

    It does indeed take a special leader to lead the highly talented (Take it from me–I teach gifted middle/high school students), and for those of us who deal with the highly talented Jackson is at times a good example to follow by (Though with all due respect the European soccer coaches Carlo Ancelotti, Arsene Wenger, and Sir Alex Ferguson are better examples overall than Jackson could ever hope to be), but for the rest of us who have to lead with what God has placed in front of us, there’s better places to look.

  • http://www.eliteacademy.in/ md/ms entrance preparation

    Wow, it looks great! I love their illustrations. I’ll add to the list now, thanks for sharing

  • http://delightinggrace.wordpress.com nitoy gonzales

    thanks for the post…ive shared it on FB

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