Recently I was delighted to read a great USA Today article about Coach K of Duke leading the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team in the Olympics. Coach K has won four NCAA college basketball titles as the head coach of Duke, a gold medal as an assistant coach of the 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona and a gold medal as head coach of the U.S. mens team in the 1998 olympics in Beijing. He’s a servant leader who creates the “Connection Culture” where his players feel connected to him and to one another, a phenomenon we wrote about in Fired Up or Burned Out. Coach K cares about task excellence and relationship excellence. He cares about people and results.
To learn more about Coach K’s leadership style and the surprising story of how he evolved as a leader check out this fascinating New York Times Magazine article entitled “Follow Me.” In it you’ll learn why this extraordinary leader, a guy’s guy from an all boys Catholic high school, West Point and the U.S. Army, coaches, as the author Mike Sokolove says, “like a girl.”
