Leadership Lessons

Development as a Marathon, Piece 5: Boston Marathon, April 2015 This could sound, for a paragraph or two, like another Stop and Smell the Roses leadership story. It isn’t, quite. Most lessons focus on enjoying the work. Mine is about something harder: how the discipline that drives us to start can also blind us to the significance of the start line itself. I almost missed the Boston Marathon while I was running it. That’s what this week is about. How I got to the start line L

Part 3 (San Antonio Rock and Roll Marathon, November 2008) How I got to the start line Between Fulda in 2003 and San Antonio in 2008, my life got in the way of running. I deployed to Iraq. I came home. I damaged the meniscus in my knee running a half- marathon the year after I got back. The knee took its time getting diagnosed and worse, and by September 2007, I was on a table at Fort Polk getting it surgically repaired. The recovery from that surgery is what changed me as a

Part 2: Fulda Marathon, Germany, September 7, 2003 Two years after I ran the Marine Corps Marathon, I was stationed in Würzburg, Germany, working on the division staff. My friend Mike and I had become close in that job and had deployed together to Turkey. Somewhere before we left for that deployment we got to talking about distance running. He said he wanted to run a marathon someday. I said I’d run one already and would love to take another shot at it. By the time we came ho

Part 1 (Marine Corps Marathon, October 2001) We’ve talked a lot about leadership lately, about culture, vision, and the hard work it takes to build lasting programs. For the next few weeks, I want to take a different direction. Over the past twenty-four years, I’ve run seven marathons. Looking back, I learned more about myself, both as a person and a leader, through training and racing than I ever expected. Marathons often serve as a metaphor for anything in life that takes r

Leadership isn't tested when things are calm. It's tested when the pressure rises, the ego gets invited in, and someone has to decide whether the standards still apply — especially to themselves. Two of the most respected coaches in basketball just gave us a live demonstration. After a heated Final Four moment between Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley, Auriemma later apologized publicly and said he had "lost himself." The apology, however, didn't name Staley. It address

Leaders love to talk about motivation. How to create it, how to inspire it, and how to get more of it from their teams. But here is the reality many leaders miss: by the time performance is being tested, it is usually too late for motivation. Years ago, while commanding at Fort Lewis, I was out for morning PT when I came across a soldier taking his Army physical fitness test. He was on the two-mile run, grinding through the turnaround point at the one-mile mark. Running besid

Why the Idea of Balance Falls Short The phrase work-life balance is widely used, but rarely examined. It sounds appealing on the surface, yet it creates an expectation that is almost impossible to meet. Balance implies a scale, something evenly distributed and consistently maintained. It suggests that time and energy can be split equally between work and life, as if both operate in predictable and stable conditions. Leadership does not work that way. Life does not work that w

Every coach reaches a point where the skills that brought you success are no longer enough to move you forward. At first, coaching is all about mastering your craft. You earn your reputation through technical skill: breaking down film, designing smart plays, running smooth practices, and helping players grow. The results are easy to see. When practice goes well, performance gets better. When performance improves, you win. And when you win, you move up. This approach works bec

Soon, many tributes to Lou Holtz will appear. While most will provide more detail than this, they will cover his coaching career, the championships, memorable moments on the sidelines, and his decades-long influence in college football. This is not a complete account of Lou Holtz’s life. Instead, this is my personal reflection on someone I have admired and tried to follow. For much of my adult life, I have learned from his leadership ideas, his views on life and work, and the

Leadership accountability requires clarity, composure, and respect. The Jerome Tang situation offers a powerful lesson in holding standards without damaging culture.

The scoreboard doesn't lie. Neither does the film. Yet too many coaches fall into the trap of measuring success by the volume of drills run, hours logged, or plays installed rather than the quality of execution and actual game-day performance. Championship cultures aren't built on busyness—they're built on precision, purpose, and relentless focus on fundamentals that matter. Competitive greatness, as Coach John Wooden defined it, is "performing at your best when your best is

A full military career is full of different assignments, different locations, and different experiences. Even when you spend an entire career inside a single specialty (armor, infantry, aviation, logistics, intelligence) the range of units, leaders, missions, and cultures you encounter is wide. The uniforms look the same. The doctrine is the same. The standards are supposed to be the same. But the reality is not.