Many of you know that I call on sports figures, especially coaches, as examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly of leadership. Many examples of effective leadership come from that world. Pete Carroll in the NFL, Buck Showalter and Joe Girardi in professional baseball, and Greg Popovich in the NBA are examples of guys who exemplify specific, identifiable elements of leadership effectiveness that are worth mentioning.

My new man with a crush on sports leadership is Steve Kerr, who is the head coach of the NBA champion Golden State Warriors. This is the story of him and why you should care.

The Steve Kerr Story

In college at the University of Arizona, Steve was an effective but unspectacular guard on the basketball team that won an NCAA championship. It wasn’t his physical abilities that people admired most about Steve. His college coach, Hall of Famer Lute Olson, said Steve was the smartest person and the best leader she had ever coached. Notice he didn’t say the smartest player, in basketball terms, he said the smartest PERSON. That intelligence was not just “IQ intelligence”; it was a combination of wisdom (my definition of that: Wisdom = experience x reflection x relentless honesty x responsibility x personal change) and intellectual curiosity. That curiosity started as a child. He was born in Lebanon, he went to kindergarten in France and to secondary school in Egypt. Living around the world gave Steve a cosmopolitan outlook. He also helped him dispel a myth that all of us operated under to one degree or another; that OUR truth is THE truth. His father, Malcolm, was a leading authority on the Middle East, and his mother still coordinates the Fulbright Scholarship Program at UCLA.

During his time at the University of Arizona, Steve took mental notes on the way Lute Olson trained. He (Olson) grouped the players into the bedrooms, invited them to his house for dinner and created a family atmosphere.

In 1984, Islamic terrorists assassinated Steve’s father, Malcolm, at the American University of Beirut, of which he was president. In a decision that started the legend of Kerr in Arizona, he suited up and played in a game against Arizona State just two days later, saying there was nothing he could do about the death of his father and that he (his father) ) would have wanted it. to honor his commitment to play his. From John Feinstein, who wrote about it in his book a season inside: “It’s hard to imagine the excitement of that night. Even with archrival Arizona in the building, few people at the McKale Center that night were really focused on basketball. The violence of the shooting that had taken place thousands of miles away it was tangible as everyone remained silent. Kerr broke down. So did many in the crowd.”

Steve ended up playing for a few NBA teams, including the Chicago Bulls, where he played key roles on three championship teams (having Michael Jordan as a teammate didn’t hurt him) and the San Antonio Spurs, where he was a team player. part of him won two championships. From Greg Popovich, San Antonio’s coach and a certain future Basketball Hall of Famer: “People gravitate toward him. On our show, we try to be direct: no Knute Rockne speeches, no smoke, no manipulations. This “It’s what you do right, this is what you do wrong, this is your role. And add humor. Always humor. Steve has a great sense of humor: refined, honest and self-deprecating when necessary.”

From Popovich and Phil Jackson, his other future Hall of Fame coach with the Bulls, Steve learned that 90% of coaching is creating an environment. The other 10% involves strategy. Steve calls that “the easy part.”

After his playing days, Steve became the president of the Phoenix Suns NBA team. During that time, he worked with David Griffin, who is now the General Manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers. According to Griffin: “Basketball was the sum total of my life. I threw myself into my work to such an extent that I had absolutely no balance. Steve made me understand that I had nothing to prove to him. He made me feel comfortable living in a way that was meaningful to me. It made me a radically better human being.” One afternoon when the Suns were on the road, Steve discovered that Griffin had watched the game from his house instead of traveling. “I’m proud of you,” he told her.

In his last game as Phoenix’s general manager, Steve witnessed a collision between a player and a photographer that resulted in the latter being strapped to a gurney and taken to the hospital. He jumped out of his chair to help and asked who he could personally call on the injured man’s behalf.

After his tenure as general manager, Steve teamed up with Marv Albert, broadcasting NBA games for TNT. He interviewed the coaches and made notes on the cartons of jerseys that came back from the cleaners on his jerseys. Many of those notes could not be used during broadcasts. He intended to use them at some point if (and more likely WHEN) he became an NBA coach.

When he left TNT after the 2013-2014 season, he received various suggestions and offers. He could have gone to the New York Knicks or the Cavaliers (before they knew if they were going to re-sign LaBron). He chose to go to the Golden State Warriors, a team on the cusp of competing for a championship.

During his first year as coach, Steve led the Warriors to the NBA championship, their first in 40 years. The last coach to win a title during his first year was Bill Russell, who was a player and coach for the Boston Celtics in 1969.

Some more anecdotes about Steve:

  • He is an avid reader with diverse taste. After a tough match on the road, he often defers the game video review and plunges into a novel on the flight home. After that and a glass of his favorite wine, he’ll review gameplay footage on his iPad.

  • He surfs and cooks.

  • Every summer he stays with a friend in a cheap motel or tent in Baja “chilling out.”

  • One of his favorite questions from friends and colleagues: “What is your ZFL level?” (ZFL = zest for life)

  • In one of his first acts as a coach, he stopped a boring team staff meeting and ordered his lieutenants into assistant Luke Walton’s truck. They drove to Muir Beach and jumped into a VERY cold Pacific Ocean.

  • Cancel some team practices in favor of bowling tournaments or soccer games.

  • On occasion, he will show videos of mistakes from his coaching career, as well as those of his assistant coaches.

  • When he was named head coach of the Warriors, he flew to the homes of each of his players to meet them individually and personally.

Steve Kerr Leadership Lessons

  • It is modest. It’s important for leaders to demonstrate vulnerability and an “we’re all in this together” attitude. Steve’s humility and sense of humor set an example of that for his team.

  • He is authentic. I’m not crazy about buzzwords or buzzphrases. The word “authentic” has become one of them. In Steve’s case, however, it is substantial. He is the same EVERYWHERE and with EVERYONE. His style is his substance. Too many leaders try to adopt the styles of others; they are different in different places or with different people. They seem to have a philosophy that “authenticity is everything; if you can fake that, you’ve got it done!”

  • It has a multicultural orientation. I know leaders of Fortune 500 companies who have never ventured beyond our borders. They suffer from cultural myopia.

  • You know how to relax and understand the priority of doing it. Psychological masochism is neither honorable nor wise for leaders. Many, however, revel in its sheer stress.

  • He is a student; he constantly reads and believes that all learning is relevant. He does dive into the technical aspects of the game, but does NOT limit his interest or learning to that. For him, deep experience in basketball strategy and tactics is NECESSARY, but INSUFFICIENT.

  • He is a “servant leader.” See the organizational pyramid upside down. He believes that his job exists to help the organization and team members succeed, not to provide himself a place to exercise power.

His first championship as a coach will not be his last.