Faith And Patience In Leadership
It Takes Both By Many To Win
After hearing my pastor preach many years ago about the importance of having faith and patience, those attributes became a part of my leadership philosophy. I also ask those I lead to embody them. Faith and patience can be applied anywhere and everywhere in leadership, and as I often write about, that includes sports.
The head coach position in college football is difficult, especially in NCAA Division 1’s Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), which represents its highest level of competition. With frequent changes to its landscape since the 1980s, the position has become an increasingly complex responsibility system. The recent advent of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) has likely made these positions more complicated, and if media reporting is any indication, some of the best who’ve led within it have departed early from their leadership roles because of it. However, NIL and associated complexities are not the most challenging part of leading a D1 college football program. Yes, it likely creates an extra degree of difficulty, but in my opinion, that’s not the challenge that a head football coach would say is the most difficult. What is? It’s the totality of their leadership responsibility. Period. And what does it take to endure it? In my opinion, it’s a massive degree of faith and patience.
Several years ago, I bumped into Coach Kevin Sumlin in the Delta Sky Lounge in Salt Lake City. I just happened to be walking past him wearing a USC hoodie (Fight On!), and as I approached him, I leaned over to say to him, “You inspired me.” He chuckled and said, “I thought you were going to harass me.” At that time, Coach Sumlin was the Head Coach of the University of Arizona’s Wildcats, an in-conference rival of my USC Trojans, before, ironically, poor leadership led to the destruction of our conference.
After the laughter, I told him the head coach position in college football was very similar in leadership responsibility to that of a commanding officer in the military; he was intrigued. I further told him that his leadership style helped inspire my leadership model, which I had built into an acronym. I explained that I’d operationalized it on a military deployment where I led hundreds of troops overseas. When he asked about the acronym, I rattled it off quickly, and he was taken aback. He knew I was serious and could tell it meant something to me. We exchanged contact information and went on about our days. He was sent an advanced read of this short article because he’d exhibited faith and patience during his years leading football programs at the University of Houston, Texas A&M University, and Arizona.
But when I think about faith and patience today, especially as they are exhibited in sports, I think about a different head coach in D1 football. This head coach was given the shot of a lifetime to lead a program with as strong of a fan base as you’ll find that plays in a conference with competition considered the sport’s pinnacle. Before I go any further, let me be clear that I am not talking about USC; I’ll save that for a different article at another time.
The head coach I’m describing worked his way up the ranks and has experienced public adversity. Years prior, he was fired while serving as the top assistant at one of the sport’s most notable programs. From there, he found his way to Coach Nick Saban’s staff at the University of Alabama — arguably the most successful staff in the sport’s history and a place where many of the sport’s brightest would find themselves to reset and, from an outsider’s perspective, potentially also a place to rekindle their love for the game.
Serving on Coach Saban’s staff was a catalyst for him. After rolling up his sleeves there, with one quick stop in between, he was hired as the head coach at a smaller D1 school in Louisiana, where he was wildly successful. A few seasons later, he was given the shot of a lifetime at his current employer, a major university in the southeast.
Before I name the coach, let me also describe the university that gave him the opportunity of a lifetime. This university had been a carousel for other head coaches. Expecting extreme success on day one, which seems to be par for all major programs, they appeared to have no faith and patience with previous hires. To the naked eye, they’d quickly give up on their coaches. However, as a doctor of this discipline, I believe there’s always more to the story.
Here’s why: it’s the same for Fortune 500 CEOs. When I coach these kinds of executives, they all have one thing in common: minimal margins for error and an expectation of deliverance of performance-based results. In other words, their runways are not infinite, and their windows of opportunity are narrow because the stakes are high; it’s a pressure cooker.
Corporate boards place these executives in their positions, and when they decide whether to continue employing them, they will consider current and past results and much more. There’s an assessment aspect, and it matters. And other things happen, too. Such as coaching. Do you think the executives themselves reach out to hire coaches? Sometimes, they do if they’re really self-aware and have a growth mindset, but in my experience, it’s more common for their board to reach out to hire the coach. True professionals don’t want to see other professionals fail, so the boards will do everything possible to equip the executive with the tools and resources to succeed. So, in essence, the boards display a degree of faith and patience that they can drive desired outcomes.
Back to college football: just because a head coach is publicly well-respected and sounds good on camera doesn’t mean they’re not exhibiting red flags to their versions of corporate boards, which could look drastically different from one university to another. Hiring decisions must be made quickly in D1 college football for myriad reasons. Consequently, it can be challenging to spot red flags during that process, even with a track record of success and relatively thorough due diligence. Simply put, you don’t know what you don’t know. Yet, barring an isolated crisis, firing decisions are made over lengthier periods as pictures become more explicit and red flags become apparent, likely through an assessment process. As a result of this nuance, I honestly don’t believe that the firings of head coaches are all about the wins and losses. Not at the surface level, at least. Maybe I thought that at one time, but not today. Not now. Not with my own experiences in leadership and my education. There’s way more to it.
After a few seasons with Coach Billy Napier at the University of Florida, a number of decision-makers have exhibited faith and patience. Why? Because of what they know and see to be true. After two tumultuous seasons and a third that had many pundits predicting his eventual exit just a few games into it, remarkably, the faith and patience appeared to kick in, and the Florida Gators began winning. And I don’t think the attributes of faith and patience are best exemplified just by examining Coach Napier’s surroundings (his version of a board). I believe they are best explored by looking at him directly. He’s the epitome of those attributes in spades. And it appears to have spilled over to the entire organization and fan base.
When I ask my people to have faith, I ask them to have faith in me, my team, the organization, and its processes. I am asking them to believe that everything will be ok and to trust that we, the leaders, believe that, too. When I ask them to have patience, it is to support that faith. It’s to demonstrate a willingness to understand that greatness does not happen overnight. It’s also important to realize that patience encompasses a desire to overcome adversity. Because, of course, greatness does not come without challenge.
Neither will greatness occur in a vacuum; it doesn’t just happen alone. It requires persistent effort by many. Even in individual sports such as boxing, tennis, and track and field, greatness is not achieved by itself; it takes a village. Therefore, when I ask for faith and patience, I’m not just asking those I lead; I’m also asking my peers and leaders. It’s a 360º ask because it has to be to be effective. Think of the corporate boards here. Is it starting to make sense?
And concerning Head Coach Billy Napier and the University of Florida Gators Football Team, I believe, on some level, they’ve done the same; their greatness appears to be within reach. Because while the world seemed to collapse on them, something tells me that the tenets of faith and patience they exemplified in 2024 never wavered. I don’t know what the future holds for Coach Napier, but I do know this: he can lead. If he couldn’t, wise leaders would’ve made a decision that indicated otherwise. How do I know this? Because no matter what the “cost” of replacement is for a head coach, the opportunity cost of not doing something is always more significant. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not being truthful. It will always cost more not to act.
Wise leaders know leaders, and there is power in groupthink. The groupthink stemming from Gainesville, Florida, speaks volumes about a leader who, at minimum, demonstrated that faith and patience are prevailing aspects of his ethos and winning strategy. I thank him for exemplifying the attributes that mean so much to many other leaders who also value them.