Leaders Find aWay for the Team to Win
Have you ever thought about what separates the leaders who achieve victory from those who suffer defeat? What does it take to make a team a winner? It’s hard to identify the quality that separates winners from losers. Every leadership situation is different. Every crisis has its own challenges. But I think that victorious leaders have one thing in common: they share an unwillingness to accept defeat. The alternative to winning is totally unacceptable to them. As a result, they figure out what must be done to achieve victory.
THIS WAS HIS FINEST HOUR
Crisis seems to bring out the best—and the worst—in leaders because at such times the pressure is intense and the stakes are high. That was certainly true during World War II when Adolf Hitler was threatening to crush Europe and remake it according to his vision. But against the power of Hitler and his Nazi hordes stood a leader determined to win, a practitioner of the Law of Victory: Winston Churchill, the British prime minister. He inspired the British people to resist Hitler and ultimately win the war.
Long before he became prime minister in 1940, Churchill spoke out against the Nazis. He seemed like the lone critic in 1932 when he warned, “Do not delude yourselves . . . Do not believe that all Germany is asking for is equal status . . . They are looking for weapons and when they have them believe me they will ask for the return of lost territories or colonies.” As a leader, Churchill could see what was coming, and he was trying to prepare the people of England for what he saw as an inevitable fight.
Victorious leaders possess an unwillingness to accept defeat.The alternative to winning is totally unacceptable to them.
In successive years, Churchill continued to speak out against the Nazis. And when Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, Churchill said to members of the House of Commons:
For five years I have talked to the House on these matters—not with very great success. I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to a dark gulf . . . Now is the time at last to rouse the nation. Perhaps it is the last time it can be roused with a chance of preventing war, or with a chance of coming through with victory should our effort to prevent war fail.1
Unfortunately, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the other leaders of Great Britain did not make a stand against Hitler. They were not prepared to do what it took to achieve victory. And more of Europe fell to the Nazis.
By mid-1940, most of Europe was under Germany’s thumb. But then something happened that probably changed the course of history for the free world. The leadership of England fell to the sixty-five-year-old Winston Churchill, a courageous leader who had practiced the Law of Victory throughout his life. He refused to buckle under the Nazis’ threats. For more than a year, Great Britain stood alone facing the threat of German invasion. When Hitler indicated that he wanted to make a deal with England, Churchill defied him. When Germany began bombing England, the British stood strong. And all the while, Churchill looked for a way to gain victory.
CHURCHILL WOULD ACCEPT NOTHING LESS
Time after time, Churchill rallied the British people. It began with his first speech after becoming prime minister:
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.2
Meanwhile, Churchill did everything in his power to prevail. He deployed troops in the Mediterranean against Mussolini’s forces. Although he hated communism, he allied himself with Stalin and the Soviets, sending them aid even when Great Britain’s supplies were threatened and its survival hung in the balance. And he developed his personal relationship with another powerful leader: Franklin Roosevelt. Though the president of the United States was reluctant to enter the war, Churchill worked to build a relation-ship with him, hoping to change it from one of friendship and mutual respect to a full-fledged war alliance. In time his efforts paid off. On the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, ushering the United States into the war, Churchill is said to have remarked to himself, “So we have won after all.”
“What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road my be; for without victory, there is no survival.”
—WINSTON CHURCHILL
ANOTHER LEADER DEDICATED TO VICTORY
When Churchill sought the aid of Franklin Roosevelt, he was enlisting a leader who had practiced the Law of Victory for decades. It was a hallmark of Roosevelt’s entire life. He had found a way to achieve political victory while winning over polio. When he was elected president and became responsible for pulling the American people out of the Great Depression, it was just another impossible situation that he learned how to fight through. And fight he did. Through the 1930s, the country was slowly recovering due in large part to his leadership.
The stakes during the war were undoubtedly high. Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. noted, “The Second World War found democracy fighting for its life. By 1941, there were only a dozen or so democratic states left on earth. But great leadership emerged in time to rally the democratic cause.” The team of Roosevelt and Churchill provided that leadership like a one-two punch. Just as the prime minister had rallied England, the president brought together the American people and united them in a common cause as no one ever had before or has since.
To Churchill and Roosevelt, victory was the only option. If they had accepted anything less, the world would be a very different place today. Schlesinger stated, “Take a look at our present world. It is manifestly not Adolf Hitler’s world. His Thousand-Year Reich turned out to have a brief and bloody run of a dozen years. It is manifestly not Joseph Stalin’s world. That ghastly world self-destructed before our eyes.”3Without Churchill and England, all of Europe would have fallen. Without Roosevelt and the United States, it might never have been reclaimed for freedom. But not even an Adolf Hitler and the army of the Third Reich could stand against two leaders dedicated to the Law of Victory.
GREAT LEADERS FIND A WAY TO WIN
When the pressure is on, great leaders are at their best. Whatever is inside them comes to the surface. In 1994, Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa following that country’s first full elections at the end of its apartheid government. It was a huge victory for the people of that country, and it was a long time coming.
When the pressure is on, great leaders are at their best. Whatever is inside them comes to the surface.
The road to that victory was paved with twenty-seven years of Mandela’s life spent in prison. Along the way, he did whatever it took to bring victory one step closer. He joined the African National Congress, which became an outlawed organization. He staged peaceful protests. He went underground and traveled overseas to try to enlist support. When he needed to, he stood trial and accepted a prison sentence, with dignity and courage. And when the time was right, he negotiated changes in the government with F. W. de Klerk. Mandela describes himself as “an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.”4 I say he is a leader made extraordinary because of the strength of his character and his dedication to victory for his people. Mandela found a way to win, and that’s what leaders do for their people.
YOU CAN SEE IT EVERY DAY
The best leaders feel compelled to rise to a challenge and do everything in their power to achieve victory for their people. In their view . . .
Leadership is responsible.
Losing is unacceptable.
Passion is unquenchable.
Creativity is essential.
Quitting is unthinkable.
Commitment is unquestionable.
Victory is inevitable.
With that mind-set, they embrace the vision and approach the challenges with the resolve to take their people to victory.
We can often see the Law of Victory in action at sporting events. In other areas of life, leaders do most of their work behind the scenes, and you never get to see it. But at a ball game, you can actually watch a leader as he works to achieve victory. And when the game ends, you know exactly who won and why. Games have immediate and measurable outcomes.
One of the greatest sports leaders when it came to the Law of Victory was basketball’s Michael Jordan. He was an awesome athlete, but he was also an exceptional leader. He lived and breathed the Law of Victory every day that he played. When the game was on the line, Jordan found a way for the team to win. His biographer, Mitchell Krugel, says that Jordan’s tenacity and passion for victory were evident in every part of his life. He even showed both in practice when his team, the Chicago Bulls, would scrimmage. Krugel explains:
At Bulls’ practices, the starters were known as the white team. The second five wore red. [Former Bulls’ coach] Loughery had Jordan playing with the white team from his first day. With Jordan and [teammate] Woolridge, the white team easily rolled up leads of 8–1 or 7–4 in games to 11. The loser of these games always had to run extra wind sprints after practice. It was about that time of the scrimmage that Loughery would switch Jordan to the red team. And the red team would wind up winning more often than not.5
Jordan showed the same kind of tenacity every time he took the court. Early in his career, Jordan relied heavily on his personal talent and efforts to win games. But as he matured, he turned his attention more to being a leader and making the whole team play better. Jordan thinks that many people have overlooked that. He once said, “That’s what everybody looks at when I miss a game. Can they win without me? . . . Why doesn’t any-body ask why or what it is I contribute that makes a difference? I bet nobody would ever say they miss my leadership or my ability to make my teammates better.” Yet that is exactly what he provides. Leaders always find a way for the team to win.
Finding a way to help their team win has been the mark of many out-standing basketball players of the past. A player such as Boston center Bill Russell measured his play by whether it helped the whole team play better. And the result was a remarkable eleven NBA titles. Lakers guard Magic Johnson, who was named NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) three times and won five championships, was an outstanding scorer, but his greatest contribution was his ability to run the team and get the ball into the hands of his teammates. And Larry Bird, who made things happen for the Celtics in the 1980s, showed that he was a team leader not only as a player (he was named Rookie of the Year, became the MVP three times, and led his team to three NBA championships) but also as a coach. In his first year as head coach of the Indiana Pacers, he was named NBA Coach of the Year after leading his team to a 58–24 record, the best winning percentage in the franchise’s history.
Good leaders find a way for their teams to win. That’s the Law of Victory. Their particular sport is irrelevant. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird did it in the NBA. John Elway and Joe Montana did it in the NFL. (Elway led his team to more fourth-quarter victories than any other quarterback in NFL history.) Pelé did it in soccer, winning an unprecedented three World Cups for Brazil. Leaders find a way for the team to succeed.
THREE COMPONENTS OF VICTORY
Whether it’s a sports team, an army, a business, or a nonprofit organization, victory is possible as long as you have three components that contribute to a team’s dedication to victory.
1. UNITY OF VISION
Teams succeed only when the players have a unified vision, no matter how much talent or potential there is. A team doesn’t win the championship if its players are working from different agendas. That’s true in professional sports. That’s true in business. That’s true in nonprofits.
I learned this lesson in high school when I was a junior on the varsity basketball team. We had a very talented group of kids, and many people had picked us to win the state championship. But we had a problem. The juniors and seniors on the team refused to work together. It got so bad that the coach eventually gave up trying to get us to play together and divided us into two different squads for our games: one comprised of seniors, the other comprised of juniors. In the end the team had miserable results. Why? We didn’t share a common vision. People played for their fellow classmen, not the team.
2. DIVERSITY OF SKILLS
It almost goes without saying that a team needs diversity in skills. Can you imagine a whole hockey team of goalies? Or a football team of quarter-backs? How about a business where there are only salespeople or nothing but accountants? Or a nonprofit organization with just fund-raisers? Or only strategists? It doesn’t make sense. Every organization requires diverse talents to succeed.
A team doesn’t win the championship if its players are working from different agendas.
Some leaders have blind spots in this area. In fact, I used to be one of them. I’m embarrassed to say there was a time in my life when I thought that if people would just be more like me, they would be successful. I’m wiser now and understand that every person has something to contribute. We’re all like parts of the human body. For that body to do its best, it needs all of its parts, each doing its own job.
I recognize how each person on my team contributes using his or her unique skills, and I express my appreciation for them. The newer you are to leadership and the stronger your natural leadership ability, the more likely you will be to overlook the importance of others on the team. Don’t fall into that trap.
3. A LEADER DEDICATED TO VICTORY AND RAISING PLAYERS TO THEIR POTENTIAL
It’s true that having good players with diverse skills is important. As former Notre Dame head football coach Lou Holtz says, “You’ve got to have great athletes to win, I don’t care who the coach is. You can’t win without good athletes, but you can lose with them. This is where coaching makes the difference.” In other words, you also require leadership to achieve victory.
Unity of vision doesn’t happen spontaneously. The right players with the proper diversity of talent don’t come together on their own. It takes a leader to make those things happen. It takes a leader to provide the motivation, empowerment, and direction required to win.
THE LAW OF VICTORY IS HIS BUSINESS
One of the most noteworthy success stories I’ve come across is that of Southwest Airlines and Herb Kelleher, whom I mentioned in the chapter on the Law of Connection. The company’s story is an admirable example of the Law of Victory in action. Today Southwest looks like a powerhouse that has everything going for it. In the routes where it flies, it dominates the market. The company is on a steady growth curve, and its stock performs extremely well. It is the only U.S. airline that has earned a profit every year since 1973—even as other airlines have gone bankrupt and dis-appeared. It is the only airline that has thrived in the wake of 9/11.
“You’ve got to have great athletes to win, I don’t care who the coach is. You can’t win without good athletes, but you can lose with them. This is where coaching makes the difference.”
—LOU HOLTZ
Employees love working there. Turnover is extremely low, and the company is considered to have the most productive workforce in the industry. And it’s extremely popular with customers; Southwest gets consistently superior customer service ratings. It has maintained the fewest overall customer service complaints in the industry since 1987.6
Given Southwest’s current position, you might think it has always been a powerhouse. That’s not the case. In fact, it’s a testament to the Law of Victory that the company even exists today. The airline was begun in 1967 by Rollin King, owner of a small commuter air service in Texas; John Parker, a banker; and Herb Kelleher, an attorney. But it took them four years to get their first plane off the ground. As soon as the company incorporated, Braniff, Trans Texas, and Continental Airlines all tried to put it out of business. And they almost succeeded. One court battle followed another, and one man, more than any other, made the fight his own: Herb Kelleher. When their start-up capital was gone and they seemed to be defeated, the board wanted to give up. However, Kelleher said, “Let’s go one more round with them. I will continue to represent the company in court, and I’ll postpone any legal fees and pay every cent of the court costs out of my own pocket.” Finally when their case made it to the Texas Supreme Court, the trio won, and they were at last able to put their planes in the air.
Once it got going, Southwest hired experienced airline leader Lamar Muse as its new CEO. He, in turn, hired the best executives available. And as other airlines kept trying to put them out of business, Kelleher and Muse kept fighting—in court and in the marketplace. When they had trouble filling their planes going to and from Houston, Southwest began flying into Houston’s Hobby Airport, which was more accessible to commuters because of its proximity to downtown. When all the major carriers moved to the newly created Dallas–Fort Worth Airport, Southwest kept flying into convenient Love Field. When the airline had to sell one of its four planes to survive, the executives figured out a way for their remaining planes to be on the ground no longer than an amazingly short ten minutes between flights. That way Southwest could maintain routes and schedules. And when they couldn’t figure out any other way to fill their planes, they pioneered peak and off-peak pricing, giving leisure travelers a huge break in the cost of fares.
Through it all, Kelleher kept fighting and helped keep Southwest alive. In 1978, seven years after he helped put the company’s first small fleet of planes into the air, he became chairman of the company. In 1982, he was made president and CEO. Today he serves as executive chairman of the board. He and his colleagues continue to fight and find ways for the company to win. And look at the success:
SOUTHWEST AIRLINES YESTERDAY AND TODAY
| 19717 | 20068 | |
| Size of fleet | 4 | 468 |
| Employees at year-end | 195 | 30,000+ |
| Customers carried | 108,000 | 88.4 million |
| Cities served | 3 | 51 |
| Average trips flown daily | 17 | 3,100+ |
| Stockholders’ equity | $3.3 million | $6.68 billion9 |
| Total assets | $22 million | $14.2 billion |
Southwest’s President Colleen Barrett sums it up: “The warrior mentality, the very fight to survive is truly what created our culture.”10 What Kelleher, Barrett, and the rest of the Southwest leadership team have is not just a will to survive but a will to win. Leaders who practice the Law of Victory believe that anything less than success is unacceptable. And they have no Plan B. That is why they keep fighting. And it’s why they continue to win!
What is your level of expectation when it comes to succeeding for your organization? How dedicated are you to winning your “game”? Are you going to have the Law of Victory in your corner as you fight? Or when times get difficult, are you going to throw in the towel? Your answer to that question may determine whether you succeed or fail as a leader and whether your team wins or loses.
Leaders who practice the Law of Victory have no Plan B.That is why they keep fighting.
Applying
THE LAW OF VICTORY
To Your Life
1. The first step in practicing the Law of Victory is taking responsibility for the success of the team, department, or organization you lead. It must become personal. Your commitment must be higher than that of your team members. Your passion should be high. Your dedication must be unquestioned.
Do you currently demonstrate that kind of commitment? If not, you need to examine yourself to determine if it is in you. If you search yourself and are unable to convince yourself to bring that kind of commitment, then one of three things is probably true:
You are pursing the wrong vision.
You are in the wrong organization.
You are not the right leader for the job.
You will have to make adjustments accordingly.
2. If you are dedicated to leading your team to victory, you will be able to achieve it only if you have the right people on the team. Think about all the skills necessary to achieve your goals. Write them down. Now compare that list with the names of the people on your team. If there are functions or tasks for which no one on the team is suited, you need to add members to the team or train the ones you have.
3. The other crucial component for leading your team to victory is unity of vision. Do a little informal research to find out what’s important to your team members. Ask them what they want to achieve personally. And ask them to describe the purpose or mission of the team, department, or organization. If you get a diversity of answers, you need to work on communicating a single vision clearly, creatively, and continually until everyone is on the same page. You should also work with each team member to show how personal goals can align with the team’s overall goals.