Leadership – Celtic-style

Business seemingly is running faster than ever and for much of your staff, this year may have been a grind.

Consider:

• Increasing customer expectations
• Your expectations have increased
• Technology implementations, “digital transformation” (aka digital anxiety), AI
• Hearing about layoffs
• Concerns about consolidation
• A slowing market

And potentially more, depending upon your company.

Winners, or should I say “winning teams” have a different “fabric” within their company. It emanates from their leader, which can be at any management level of a company. It’s someone who crafts strategy, motivates their team, and gets the most from everyone.

In a word, it is exhibiting leadership.

So, what got me thinking about this?

Many know I grew up in Boston. If you’re from Boston, you don’t think of the Patriots as “your team”. The team for the ages has been the Celtics. They’ve consistently been good and, if they weren’t, it was short-lived. They’ve also had legendary coaches. Coaches who got the most from their players.

In fact, 21 of the NBA’s top 100 players of all-time played for the Boston Celtics at some point during their career!

Nowadays with players making “god-awful money” it is probably difficult to tell them what to do. The key is targeting something within them (remember, the minimum player salary in the NBA is about $1.2 million!)

The Celtic’s current coach is Joe Mazzulla. He was thrust into the job after the prior coach had “challenges.” Mazzulla had little experience. In his second year as head coach he led the Celtics to the NBA World Championship.

But here’s the leadership part.

According to an article this past weekend on www.boston.com, at the end of last season Mazzulla went to each person in the organization to thank them for their role in helping the team achieve its goal.

In his words “If everybody’s not trying to be the head coach in their role, we can’t achieve a high, high level of a successful organization.”

He further stated “when you have everybody in the right seat on the bus heading in the right direction, great things can happen. I also see it’s easy for parts of the organization to feel less than or not as valued as others.”

He felt everyone “deserved a special ‘thank you’ and added ““If you walk through a player’s perspective of our building, they usually see Nate (Eckley, manager of the Celtics) first, and then they see the kitchen staff, and then they may see some of the front office … and then they see the sports science. [The coaches are] the last people that they see. And so every interaction that is had is super important to them getting on the floor, ready to feel valued, but also ready to, like, we gotta be at our best.”

Which then gets you thinking about your customer’s perspective. Consider all of the people that touch the customer … whether you are a distributor, a rep / lighting agent, or a manufacturer. And the higher up the channel your company is, the more people your staff touches, as they are touching multiple types of customers.

What is your leadership style? Each of your management team’s leadership style?

For companies to win, it takes everyone. Too frequently only a few get recognized or are even appreciated. As companies get bigger it seemingly is harder to recognize many, but it is feasible if there is a culture to thank people and genuinely recognize and appreciate people for being part of your team … whether you are a branch / department manager or a company president.

It’s been a challenging year.

As the year comes to an end and people strive to close the year strong while also planning for 2025, perhaps take a moment and thank each person on your team for their support, effort, and contributions to making 2024 a success. Your team will appreciate it.

Every person within your company is crucial to delivering for your customers and making the company a success.