Leadership Styles of the SEC: Mark Richt

Last week, we learned about leadership lessons from Steve Jobs and this week we’ll look at UGA Head Football Coach Mark Richt.  (For those who are in college football withdrawal, I can’t promise this will help but we can always try).  Much attention was given to the outcomes his team produces but do you ever wonder about the leadership style that lead to those outcomes? 

Profiles of any coach demonstrate that they all have the same goal – winning – and each has a multi-faceted approach to getting there, but for Mark Richt, what’s important is how his actions match his values.  Coach Richt wants to win and works hard to achieve that, but he believes he’s failed if he gets the journey to that goal wrong.  As he told Dan Wetzel, “’Do I want to win a national championship…Sure I do. I want to win. Everybody who has ever won a national championship wanted to win the national championship…But it is about a process. Doing things right, fundamentally, schematically and football-wise. But hopefully [it's also about doing it] morally, within the rules of the game, educating young men, educating them academically, educating them about life, helping them understand right and wrong, how to be a good husband, how to be a good father, how to function in this society properly. I'm in the business of doing that. And you do that well for long enough maybe you have a chance to win a national championship. I want to win,’ he reiterated, ‘but it's all important to me.’"

Wetzel asked him: “Does that balance help…when Georgia has fallen short?” and Richt replied: "’Fallen short of what? If we're doing the best we can every day and we're doing it in a first-class manner so that when I go home at night I can lay my head on the pillow and God would be pleased with the decisions I made, how I treated players and the coaches, the media, my wife and kids, I'm OK with that.’"

It’s easy to see that Coach Richt’s focus is on his values, which determine his priorities.  Although he clearly understands the need to win, his values define his priorities and how he measures success. That was reiterated last fall in this press conference.  He was largely applauded for pushing back against an insulting question but a close listen reveals he was making his thoughts clear when a reporter asked about things that weren’t important.  Like Steve Jobs, he is focused on what’s important and doesn’t waste time addressing every single detractor or distraction. 

As a leader, you have goals but how important is the process for achieving those goals?  What values or priorities guide you?  What do you do when your professional priorities don’t match those of other key stakeholders?  How have your priorities altered how you define success and failure?