The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership

The ultimate danger of being victorious is losing sight of how you got there. I have often said, “It is harder to stay a champion than it was to get there in the first place.” The greatest deterrent to not repeating is always internal.

The Super Bowl–winning coach Bill Walsh used to avoid this risk by scripting the beginning of his games. “If you want to sleep at night before the game,” he said in a lecture on game planning, “have your first 25 plays established in your own mind the night before that. You can walk into the stadium and you can start the game without that stress fa

I found this advice priceless. You might as well spend all your time on winning—nothing else matters. Of course, a good board wants you to do exactly that. It obviously doesn't mean you should blindly bat away all opinions coming at you, but just try them on for size and merit, and go from there. Keeping good council is strength; caving in on perce

I believe that the answer is yes, but it’s hard. Mastering both wartime and peacetime skill sets means understanding the many rules of management and knowing when to follow them and when to violate them. Be aware that management books tend to be written by management consultants who study successful companies during their times of peace. As a resul