The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership

by Bill Walsh

I have tried to describe my anguish, but the words come up short. Everything I had dreamed of professionally for a quarter of a century was in jeopardy just eighteen months after being realized. And yet there was something else going on inside me, a “voice” from down deeper than the emotions, something stirring that I had learned over many years in football and, before that, growing up; namely, I must stand and fight again, stand and fight or it was all over.

defeat comes crashing down on you—losing a big sale, being passed over for a career-making promotion, even getting fired—allow yourself the “grieving time,” but then recognize that the road to recovery and victory lies in having the strength to get up off the mat and start planning your next move. This is how you must think if you want to win. Otherwise you have lost.

A philosophy is the aggregate of your attitudes toward fundamental matters and is derived from a process of consciously thinking about critical issues and developing rational reasons for holding one particular belief or position rather than another.

For example, how the players dressed at practice and the appearance they gave to others when taking the field was very important to me. I wanted our football team to look truly professional—impeccable. Thus, shirttails tucked in, socks up tight, and more were requirements.

Jerry Rice was a professional and looked like a professional. And it all helped him in some way to think and perform like a professional. That “perfect” appearance—“appropriate appearance” is more accurate—applied to others in the organization as well, because it is part of the motif that directs thinking into a mode I view as conducive to high performance. That perfect appearance was a predicate of perfect performance.

Respect for the emblem was important because it represented something very significant, namely, respect within the organization for one another. I would tolerate no caste systems, no assumption of superiority by any coaches, players, or other personnel. Regardless of the size of an employee’s check or the requirements of his or her job, I made it clear that he or she was 100 percent a member of our team, whether he or she was a superstar or secretary, black or white, manager or maintenance man.

From the start, my prime directive, the fundamental goal, was the full and total implementation throughout the organization of the actions and attitudes of the Standard of Performance I described earlier. This was radical in the sense that winning is the usual prime directive in professional football and most businesses.

On the field (and elsewhere) the assistant coaches and I were conscientious about educating players so they appreciated that when Jerry Rice caught a touchdown pass he was not solely responsible, but an extension of others—including those who blocked the pass rushers, receivers who meticulously coordinated their routes to draw defenders away from him, and the quarterback who risked being knocked unconscious attempting to throw the perfect pass. Jerry was taught the same. Likewise, Joe Montana understood that he was not some independent operator, but an extension of the left tackle’s block and the efforts of many others.

Within our organization the Standard of Performance served as a compass that pointed to true north. It embraced the individual requirements and expectations—benchmarks—required of our personnel in all areas regardless of whether things were going well or badly. That’s the toughest thing—constancy amid chaos or presumed perfection.

The key to performing under pressure at the highest possible level, regardless of circumstance, is preparation in the context of your Standard of Performance and a thorough assimilation by your organization of the actions and attitudes contained within your philosophy of leadership.

When you’re thorough in your preparation—“scripting” is a part of it—you can almost go on automatic pilot and reduce the chance of making emotional and ill-considered decisions. Scripting allowed me to take randomness and stress out of the decision-making process. The result is a very adaptable but intelligent plan for the future.

When you’re forced to go to some version of a “Hail Mary pass” on a recurring basis, you haven’t done your job. Nevertheless, it’s a macho attitude to believe, “I’m at my best when all hell breaks loose.” But it’s usually not true; you cannot think as clearly or perform as well when engulfed by stress, anxiety, fear, tension, or turmoil. You are not at your best. Believing you are creates a false sense of confidence that can lead to slipshod preparation. You think, “Don’t worry, I’ll be able to put it all together when it counts. I can just turn it on.” When it counts is before all hell breaks loose.

The leader who will not be denied, who has expertise coupled with strength of will, is going to prevail.

The difference between offering an opinion and making a decision is the difference between working for the leader and being the leader.

You must persevere to achieve anything of import, but at what stage does perseverance become pigheadedness? When does your unswerving determination to do it your way—what you deem the “right way”—take you and your organization over the cliff?

A leader must be keen and alert to what drives a decision, a plan of action. If it was based on good logic, sound principles, and strong belief, I felt comfortable in being unswerving in moving toward my goal. Any other reason (or reasons) for persisting were examined carefully. Among the most common faulty reasons are (1) trying to prove you are right and (2) trying to prove someone else is wrong. Of course, they amount to about the same thing and often lead to the same place: defeat.

The trademark of a well-led organization in sports or business is that it’s virtually self-sustaining and self-directed—almost autonomous. To put it in a more personal way, if your staff doesn’t seem fully mobilized and energized until you enter the room, if they require your presence to carry on at the level of effort and excellence you have tried to install, your leadership has not percolated down.

If everything goes great when you’re around but slows or stops in its tracks when you’re not there, you are not fulfilling your responsibilities.

I wanted no separate divisions where people felt that the only thing that mattered was their specific area of responsibility, that somehow their welfare was separate from that of the rest of us.

Everyone understood the only welfare that mattered was the organization’s. If our ship sank, we all drowned.

“Be more concerned with finding the right way than in having it your way.”

Persistence is essential because knowledge is rarely imparted on the first attempt.

This response—being knocked off balance emotionally and mentally—is one of the fundamental reasons it is so difficult to continue winning; it’s true in business as in sports. Repeat winners at the high end of competition are rare, because when success of any magnitude occurs, there is a disorienting change that we are unprepared for.

The second-richest man in America, Warren Buffett, says one of his biggest challenges is to help his top people—all wealthy beyond belief—stay interested enough to jump out of bed in the morning and work with all the enthusiasm they did when they were poor and just getting started.

Mastery requires endless remastery. In fact, I don’t believe there is ever true mastery. It is a process, not a destination.

Whether they read it or not, flood your superiors with information that is documented—projections, evaluations, reports on progress, status updates. Then ask for periodic meetings. In a very professional way, force them to understand that you’re doing everything you possibly can and that it’s documented; in fact, they’re holding it in that large folder in their hands. Open and honest communication with your superiors, both written and verbal, is a valuable tool in keeping them from coming to the wrong conclusions.

Ralph Waldo Emerson described a great and creative person as one who “finds himself in the river of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities of his contemporaries. Thus all originality is relative. Every thinker is retrospective.”

Looking back on it, I concluded that there are times when you must stand up for yourself even if the consequences include being fired. That’s easier said than done, as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t do it.

you must derive satisfaction and gratification from winning without letting it define your self-worth, just as you cannot allow defeat to define you as a person.