Made Not Born

 

Vince Lombardi started his coaching career at Green Bay the year I was born. As a boy growing up, my dad had only one team and admired only one coach, the Green Bay Packers and Coach Lombardi. Having won five NFL Championships, including Super Bowls I and II, it's not hard to understand why.

Lombardi once said, "Leaders aren't born, they are made. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal which is worthwhile."

When Lombardi took over the Packers, they weren't the winning team they would become. He instilled in his team the understanding that "Winning is not a sometime thing. You don't do things right once in a while... you do them right all the time."

I can't help but think that Coach Lombardi was also talking to us as project leaders. Although it might be true that some people are more naturally inclined to some of the skills that make a good leader, part of leadership is "Individual commitment to a group effort—that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work." Those traits described by Lombardi can be fostered and encouraged in anyone.

I once worked on a team where the regular project retrospective was focused not only on what "we" could do better as a team, but what "he" could do better as a project leader. I'm sure it wasn't always easy, but I came to respect his desire to improve his skills to better lead the team. Although some of those skills might come more naturally to some, he demonstrated to me that anyone can learn to become an effective leader.

Lombardi also said, "Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will all be judged on one thing: the result."

In a business climate where more and more is expected of project leaders and project teams, I don't think it's asking too much for all of us to refine our skills, to always be looking for ways to improve and recognize that "Man's finest hour is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle victorious."