Three Leadership Lessons from Lions GM Brad Holmes | The GM Journey

The newest episode of The GM Journey podcast features Detroit Lions General Manager Brad Holmes. I sat down with Brad in Dearborn, Michigan, for a fantastic hour-plus conversation on everything from Brad's transition from director of college scouting to general manager, to his thoughts on NFL Draft, to diversity and inclusion in the NFL and much more. You can listen to the full episode here.

Here are three leadership lessons from my chat with Brad that really resonated with me.

1. Being yourself can be your secret weapon as a leader.

Brad was named GM of the Lions in January 2021, and I wanted to get his perspective on what he thought set him apart from the other candidates for the job. What made him the guy at the end of the day? I loved his answer about being yourself and remembering who you are, where you come from, and what makes you unique. For Brad, that meant staying true to his unique passions like the psychology of decision making, merging analytics with qualitative and quantitative data, and his previous role as director of college scouting.

"You're asking all these GMs, current GMs, former GMs, mentors that I had, 'What is the best advice?' You're gathering all this information, and you keep hearing this reoccurring theme: be yourself. And I'm like, that sounds cliche, there's got to be something else, there's got to be some other magic sauce that you sprinkle, that you have to nail in the interview. And after I was offered the job and humbly, gladly accepted, that was what it all came back to. It was just being myself."

2. Decision making often boils down to a judgment call on best fit.

During our chat it became clear that Brad is extremely passionate about and interested in the science of decision making. He shared an interesting point on how the closest decisions should actually be easier - not tougher - and how that's something that Brad has thought about in relation to high-pressure decision making moments like NFL Draft.

"I've been reading this book, 'How to Decide,' by Annie Duke. She had a section about when you're trying to make a decision and you have two options that are very very close. And sometimes that makes you think that makes a decision hard and you kind of drag time out. She made a great point that if the options are so close, it should be a quicker decision. It should actually speed the process up. You just treat it as 'what fits best?' It's like, 'do you want to go to Turks and Caicos or do you want to go to Grand Cayman?' You're not going to be upset with either one, so what actually fits best for you?"

3. There's progress being made with diversity and inclusion among the NFL's leadership, but there's still so much more to be done.

I wanted to get Brad's take on the state of the league's diversity and inclusion efforts, how far the league has come, and what needs to be addressed moving forward. While Brad acknowledged that some progress has been made, he also shared a very thoughtful reflection on what still needs to change.

"From a league standpoint, we're obviously not where we should be yet. We're making progress, slowly but surely, but we still have to improve the process, we still have to improve the pipeline. Assistant GM, vice president, vice president of player personnel, whatever that number two job is, we need to have a better process to increase the diversity for those positions, then I think that will strengthen the pipeline for more diversity, at least at the GM level."

Brad also talked a bit about his dad's experiences as an NFL player in the 70s, and how his experiences have continued to stick with Brad throughout his own career.

"My dad was an offensive lineman back in the early 70s, played for the Pittsburgh Steelers for a little bit. And he taught me at a very, very young age, he said, 'You know what, Brad, it wasn't in vogue to have diversity on the offensive line. It wasn't in vogue to have Blacks on the opposite line, Blacks at quarterback.' So I take a lot of pride in what I can do on my part to see if I can increase that diversity. It's a shame that we're at the numbers that we're at, and I think back to what my dad was telling me back when I was a young kid playing Pop Warner football, saying what he went through in the 70s. But I do think that we're making steps. It's a little bit slow, but I do think there's progress being made."

What was your biggest takeaway from this episode?

Next on deck: San Francisco 49ers GM John Lynch! New episode drops this Friday, enjoy.

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