“I believe in the basics: attention to, and perfection of, tiny details that might be commonly overlooked.” – John Wooden
Fundamentals.
Spend any time studying the greatest coaches in sports history and you’ll find someone almost wholly focused on the fundamentals of the game. For Vince Lombardi, they were hard work, sacrifice, perseverance, competitive drive, selflessness, and respect for authority. He demanded nothing less than absolute commitment to those fundamentals and translated their mastery into championships.
John Wooden famously started his first day of freshman practice with a lesson on how to properly lace and tie a pair of basketball shoes. “Pull up your socks, leaving no loose flaps inside your sneakers.” That prevents blisters. “Pull the laces tight and even, and time them tightly.” No sprained ankles, either. Ten championships in 12 years speak volumes to the necessity of fundamentals.
Wayne Gretzky’s MasterClass, “Dad’s DIY Guide to Learning Hockey,” is a testament to the methods his father used to instill the fundamentals of the sport, which in turn fueled his son’s love of the game. Instead of coaching clinics and summer camps, the elder Gretzky relied on human ingenuity and an absolute commitment to fundamentals. The result was a career no player will likely ever again approach.
The 3 Fundamentals of Leadership
When it comes to leadership, the fundamentals are no less vital to success. In fact, United States Army doctrine defines leadership in terms of fundamentals: “Leadership is the activity of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.” This definition holds true on the battlefield as well as the boardroom. For everything else that contributes to successful leadership, it’s all underpinned by those three fundamentals: purpose, direction, and motivation.
1. Purpose
For leaders, purpose starts with a vision, a mental image of the future—the promise it holds, the opportunities it presents. Where do you want to go and how do you see the path to get there? What are the obstacles that stand between you and your vision of the future?
That vision is what drives you. It fuels a desire to grow and improve, to push to a better version of yourself and the organization you lead. It embodies an ideal of “what right looks like” and the hopes invested in that ideal. The clearer a leader can articulate that vision the better others can forge shared understanding and cement a necessary sense of purpose.
Purpose also answers the “why” behind any action the reasoning behind it. It sets the context for that action. Leaders who excel at establishing purpose usually foster strong, independent teams that excel in the face of uncertainty. Leaders who struggle with purpose tend to micromanage their subordinates and build teams incapable of independent decision-making or consistent performance.
2. Direction
Just as purpose is rooted in a leader’s vision, direction is underpinned by their intent. If purpose answers the “what” and “why,” direction—the leader’s intent—provides the “who,” “when,” and “where.” Through direction, leaders assign responsibilities, delineate tasks, establish priorities, align resources, and define the desired end state. Clear direction is essential—it allows subordinates to exercise initiative, make decisions in the moment, and adapt to dynamic, ever-changing circumstances.
What direction does not—and should not—answer is the “how.” If a leader’s intent is sufficiently clear and unambiguous, subordinates should be able to act on their own initiative to solve problems. Empowering your subordinates to demonstrate initiative not only strengthens their own ability to lead, it enables them to make the independent decisions necessary to succeed when time is constrained, which is the case more often than not. Take away that independence—either by providing muddled direction or dictating the “how”—teams inevitably struggle to find success and often fail in the process.
3. Motivation
Motivation is a little more complicated. It’s not enough to simply provide purpose and direction, and it’s no coincidence that the same doctrine that defines leadership commits several paragraphs to its discussion of motivation. But one sentence stands out in particular: “While motivation comes from within, other’s actions and words affect it.” Everyone is motivated differently, and our understanding of those individual differences have a profound effect on how subordinates perform.
Motivation isn’t rocket science, but if you don’t understand people it might seem like it. First, there’s a stark difference between leading and cheerleading. A good leader understands that simple fact. While there are times when a good “rah-rah” speech will spur people to action, actual leadership requires a much more nuanced, strategic approach. The volume of literature on the subject is at times mind-boggling, but few books address motivation quite as well as Daniel Pink’s Drive, which commits to a thorough exploration of the human behavior that drives motivation. In doing so, Pink draws a firm linkage between purpose, direction, and motivation: “the main motivator is freedom, challenge, and purpose of the undertaking itself.”
Second, motivation requires leaders willing to put in the effort. That means getting up, getting out, and getting involved with your people. Good motivators naturally practice “leadership by walking around” and the performance of their teams are a reflection of that effort. On the other end of the spectrum, a leader who doesn’t make any effort to rally their teams is like an organizational energy vampire who sucks the motivation from the workplace. Where Pink focuses on freedom, challenge, and purpose, there are still many leaders who withhold all three and blame others when progress suffers.
Success Has a Common Beginning
Ultimately, effective leadership—like just about everything else in life—comes down to the fundamentals. Whether you’re running Lombardi’s power sweep across the frozen tundra or learning to tie your Chuck Taylors with Coach Wooden, success starts with the fundamentals. Leading a battalion isn’t that much different from leading a board of directors as long as you stick to the fundamentals: purpose, direction, and motivation.
