Tony Dungy’s Leadership Wisdom & Insights

Retired head coach for the Indianapolis Colts

In this interview Tony Dungy provides a great perspective on life, parenting and your professional life. Tony is a great leader who invest his life in helping men become better husbands and fathers.

Take a look at some of his thoughts below.

Priorities:

I am the only husband to my wife and father to my children.
I want to leverage my influence for good in world.
As leaders we need to rise to our calling.
It starts with you!

What is the back story? the story behind the story what we see in public.

The impact people had on my life is part of the back story, my parents, my school teachers and coaches in my life along the way.
These people told us the right things to do, taught us the right way to treat people.
I am a product of coaches, mentors investing in me.

What do you do when people get stuck in their story?

I try to energize them, show them what they could do, what they truly are capable of, open their eyes to their potential of how good they can be.
You have got to have a mission and vision that matters in order for your team, people to be motivated and engaged.
Chuck Noll told me I have to be a great salesman, I have to know what I believe in and then I have to convince team to believe in my cause with me, to support the mission and vision I have for team.
Teamwork: I must have an ultimate goal that all of us can strive for, I have to sell that we are in this together, that we can pull together and accomplish this thing.
People struggle before they make progress, you have to teach perseverance, incremental progress, show team what they are improving. One year we lost 10 games and were not showing improvement on the scoreboard, but we were getting better each week. We had to focus team on the small incremental improvements. Had to persevere until results became more evident.
Often the Coach has to believe in team more than they believe in themselves.
If you do too much, help them too much, you can create dysfunction. The opposite is to be too commanding. It is a hard balance.

You must demand responsibility, but balance with the understanding that I am here to help you achieve our goals, I am here to help make you successful.

What did others do to positively shape your story?

Many people helped shape my story, high school coach, saw potential in me and helped me. Chuck Noll, my first NFL coach I worked played huge role in shaping my story. I also worked for 5-6 other coaches that impacting my story. My teams, the players impacted my story. Many, many people played a role and influenced my success.

He has a book coming out-The Mentor Leader
A Mentor/Leader is someone who helps people get to where they want to go.
There are different ways to win.
Coach Null-Be yourself, lead in your way, be a person who tries to help people, be a person who helps players be better.
It requires different approaches with different players, can’t approach all people the same, must get to know your people and know how to motivate and discipline each one according to their make up.

Drafting Standards

DNDC=Do Not Draft because of charactermay be talented but character was flawed and would not make good team member.
Recruiting talent: talent is a small part, ability to work with others, how are you at doing those things that aren’t as pleasant? We talked to coaches and team mates, we looked at academic records, how are you at doing the unpleasant things? This tells us a lot about one’s character.

Is character caught or taught?

Both to some degree, as leader try to bring best out of people.
Winning isn’t everything, it was our goal, but we need to be well-rounded people, have good lives outside football, our profession.

How do you avoid big head?

Talent is God-given be thankful, praise is man given be gracious, conceit is self-given be careful.

Focus on things you can control

There will be times when you have to mentor and times when you have to discipline a team member.
You have to work at figuring out how to use the right element at the right time, you must choose right tools for situation. A key is understanding the personality of the individual. This is really important to being successful in this area.
Have pull to want to do best you can, how do you balance that with home, family has to come first, that is who is going to be with you rest of your life

How do you know when to leave?

It took lots of prayer and deliberation with my wife to determine the Lord had other things for me to do right now.

When is the time the Lord has something else for me?

Remember that God has put you where you are for a reason.

Many times you must have perseverance, you must stay the course, even when you don’t think you are having an impact you will look back some day and realize how you impacted others, how much you influenced their lives in a good way.

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