The toughest challenge I’ve faced as a coach is taking a team that’s performing poorly and turning it around. I’ve done it three times now. In 1983, my first year as a head coach, I led the New York Giants through an abysmal season—we won only three games. In the next six seasons, we climbed to the top of the league, winning two Super Bowls. When I became coach of the New England Patriots in 1993, they were coming off two years in which they’d won a combined total of three games. In 1996, we were in the Super Bowl. In 1997, when I came to the New York Jets, the team had just suffered through a 1–15 season. Two years later, we made it to the conference championship.
The only way to change people is to tell them in the clearest possible terms what they’re doing wrong. And if they don’t want to listen, they don’t belong on the team.
Those turnarounds taught me a fundamental lesson about leadership: You have to be honest with people—brutally honest. You have to tell them the truth about their performance, you have to tell it to them face-to-face, and you have to tell it to them over and over again. Sometimes the truth will be painful, and sometimes saying it will lead to an uncomfortable confrontation. So be it. The only way to change people is to tell them in the clearest possible terms what they’re doing wrong. And if they don’t want to listen, they don’t belong on the team.
Taking Charge
To lead, you’ve got to be a leader. That may sound obvious, but it took me an entire year to learn—and it wasn’t a pleasant year. When I started as coach of the Giants, I lacked confidence. I was surrounded by star players with big names and big egos, and I was a little tentative in dealing with them. I didn’t confront them about how they needed to change to succeed. As a result, I didn’t get their respect and I wasn’t able to change their attitudes. So they just kept on with their habit of losing.
