How to Make Coach K’s Leadership Rules Work for Your Team

If I told you that one of the most successful and admired basketball coaches of all time was the son of an elevator operator and a maid with an eighth-grade education, you might not believe me.

Mike Krzyzewski’s incredible career and beloved persona suggest a supernatural upbringing with a basketball and clipboard in hand since birth, but in reality, his path was tethered to something much more meaningful.

Born on the north side of Chicago, Krzyzewski’s parents were Polish immigrants. His father, Bill, died when Mike was twenty-two years old, and his mother, Emily, passed when he was forty-nine. Both parents made the most of raising Mike and his brother—teaching a fierce work ethic, resilience, and strength of spirit. “They were the best people in my life,” says Krzyzewski.

From his foundation at home and his tenure at West Point to his early career as an assistant coach for Bobby Knight and later as head coach at Duke University, “Coach K” assembled learning moments that aspiring coaches only dream of.

Fast-forward twenty-plus years, and you will have passed thirteen Final Four appearances, five national titles, twelve Coach-of-the-Year awards, and several national and Olympic competitions. It’s clear that Coach K’s success on the court was really about his leadership training off the court.

Today, Coach K shares four rules of leadership that he believes were the keys to his success. As you might imagine, he shares some great analogies and stories that make them memorable. Here are the first two:

1. Agility

Coach K explains that a great quarterback knows that even when you call a play in the huddle, you should be ready to call an audible from the line if necessary. Similarly, when he was a point guard at West Point, he’d have a play in mind as he ran down the court, but if he saw an opportunity, he would signal his teammates and pursue it. Leaders in the workplace typically have a plan in place, but they need to be willing to call audibles if they see the need for adjustments or opportunities.

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2. Adaptability

Communication is the cornerstone of great leadership, so you have to test new ways to reach your team. “The guys I coach stay the same age, and I kept getting older. They were eighteen to twenty-two, and I coached until I was seventy-five, so I constantly had to adapt how I communicated with my team.” As a leader, you have to make sure you’re relevant.

What worked two years ago may not work anymore. Don’t blame your team; adapt your approach. Ask yourself what’s important to your team. What music do they like? What culture do they come from? What are their learning styles? Today’s generation is very visually oriented and they have shorter attention spans, so rather than being the only one who spoke during coaching sessions, he enlisted his assistants to vary the messenger. The coaching staff also used more visuals to convey plays and strategy.??

Another technique Coach K uses to adapt his communication style is what he calls “multiplier questions.” He’ll ask a player, “What do you think about what we’re doing?” or “How do you feel?” Coach K says that the player’s answers empower you to be a better coach. “If you tell me the answer to those questions, then I have more information to coach you, and it empowers me.” He explains that leaders never have all the information—especially about people. You have to actively pursue it. “It doesn’t cost anything to ask those two questions, and the answers always make me a better leader.”

If you have a work plan, are you agile enough to call audibles when they’re needed? More importantly, are you looking for the “audible opportunities”? As for adaptability, don’t expect your team to intuit what you need. Adapt to their mindset so your message is more readily received. Don’t know their mindset? Ask two free questions to empower your decision-making.

Join me for Coach K’s last two rules of great leadership when he’ll take us to the Beijing Olympics during “one of the toughest games he coached” and what his players taught him in the final-timeout huddle.