Duke's Coach K and Leadership

If you are a college basketball fan like me then you were dazzled by the NCAA championship this past week. What a great game and even more impressive the accomplishment by Coach K of Duke who won his fifth NCAA tournament and has over 1000 game wins. Whether you love him or not his success is something to be considered. Just how is he able to be the winningest coach in basketball?

In one interview I heard him say that he stayed ADAPTABLE. I attribute his success to this one key trait. In this particular game with his two key players in foul trouble and only eight players on his team, he put in his two freshmen guards who truly shifted the entire game. He had a talented enough team overall to be able to do that. He was able to adapt his leadership style to players who may only stay on his team one or two years before getting drafted into the NBA. He also focuses on their strengths and builds the team's capacity around that.

He also adapts his strategy and leadership methods to the players needs. For example depending on how is team learns he adapts his communications style for the visual, audio, or kinesthetic learner. His players were able to stop the Wisconsin Badgers as a result.

All in all Coach K is a true success story and it all focuses on adapting his style to the needs of his players instead of vice versa which is often the case in leadership. How can you adapt your leadership methods to the employees that you lead?