What Bob Knight Got Wrong That Good Leaders Get Right
With Bobby Knight’s passing, interview clips are surfacing. In one he says that competitive players respond best to criticism. Guess it was “criticism” when he choked that kid during practice?
Moving on.
He won a LOT. But could he have won more?
Probably. And positively impacted more young athletes.
But Bob had a one-size-fits-all approach. If a kid’s performance didn’t improve after being harshly, even cruelly criticized, they’d either be off the team or on the bench.
The kids with raw talent to be developed, but didn’t respond well to his aggressive style, were out.
As I talked about this, I heard several stories about high school coaches with one coach approach — aggressively. Not being a universally effective style, a good percentage of excellent athletes, drop out of the sport. It’s a shame.
Bob was dead wrong about every competitive person responding well to harsh criticism. But coaching as if that were true prevented him from having to understand each player and what drove them to do their best. He took the easy route.
There’s no such thing as one-size-fits-all. Behaving like there is, is just lazy.
Leaders are called ‘leaders’ instead of ‘bosses’ because they know that. They invest time and show interest in knowing what will motivate a person to do their best work. Then leaders follow through on those motivators.
Does a person need regular access to their leader? Subtle encouragement? Public recognition? A hands-off approach? Projects that make them stretch? Can’t know what motivates them without asking them.
No matter how fast the pace of work gets, understanding people and leading effectively will always require time.
There are, however, ways to accelerate the understanding process, which I’d be pleased as punch to talk with you about. Just hit reply and we’ll set something up.
