Jim Harbaugh's Leadership Style

Jim Harbaugh is a college football coach whose fame and visibility is unmatched by his peers. Just last month he brought his players to Rome to visit the Vatican and to possibly meet Pope Francis. Upon arrival, he presented the pope with a Michigan helmet and a pair of Jordan sneakers. Harbaugh recalls the experience of handing him his gift and looking in his eyes, “There’s pain there. There’s so much injustice in the world, there’s so much poverty and war and injustice and you can tell and feel he feels that. I think that especially made it feel to myself and to Sarah, ‘this is what it would be like to meet Jesus. The very closest thing.’” The Art of Leadership describes the religious personality as one of six types, “people are religious if they but seek to comprehend the cosmos as a whole and to relate themselves to its embracing totality. Religious people have as their goal the creation of the highest and most satisfying value experience…With zest and enthusiasm, they see something divine in every event.” Religious leadership might be the best and simplest explanation of Harbaugh’s success but hardly explains his whole personality. It’s a fact that he has done his homework on leadership and is willing to use anything he can find to improve himself. This essay will try to touch on his most important concepts and attempt to comprehend the disparate information on Harbaugh to give a fuller perspective than is usually given in opinion articles and interviews.

As a test of Harbaugh’s leadership I’ll start by summarizing a commencement speech he gave to Paramus Catholic High School in New Jersey a year ago. Being a self-proclaimed expert on people their age, Harbaugh outlines five universal truths about human beings to motivate his graduates and give them lasting advice about how to live life to calm the underlying fear of all parents that comes from the question, “will everything be all right for my child out there in the world?” These truths he calls five magnificent things about you. “You matter,” “you make a difference,” “you make mistakes,” “you make memories,” “you make choices.” He says, “there are great people out there but there’s only one you.” Human beings matter because we are all individuals who have different experiences and are trying our best to find our purpose in life. The one thing we can be most certain of in life is that we are living it and we will be the only true constant through the course of our lives. Harbaugh’s message here comes off as particularly powerful because of the landscape he places it in, graduation the “last childhood photo,” or “earning the respect of those around you,” and finally parents’ “underlying fear.”

Harbaugh’s genuine desire to see others express their uniqueness doesn’t come into conflict with his second truth, “you make a difference.” “Your actions, your attitudes, your decisions, your responses have a ripple effect. That’s powerful. You can encourage or discourage with a look, a word, or even the things you don’t say or you do say.” He’s calling on the students to question every action, every word, even every gesture to consider the message its sending to others. This serves as a constant reminder that the individual is interacting and relating with the external world and is an important concept in Harbaugh’s leadership style. The philosopher David Hume once said, “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” In my eyes, Harbaugh is stressing the importance of passionate engagement with the world to foster the highest reflective capacities and empower individuals. Harbaugh’s message here is particularly powerful because of the way people are in society today. Bosses in todays’ work world decide salaries and have unconscious discrimination as it relates to height, weight, hair color, and make-up. Blondes earn 7% more than women with other hair colors, an inch of height averages out to an extra $789 per year, obese women are paid $8,666 less per year, and wearing make-up can earn you more than 30% more than your co-workers. Part of what make Harbaugh great is that he would take the time and effort to look at individuals and instead of sizing them up based on perceived differences would take the time to examine their work habits in detail.

“Thirdly,” Harbaugh says, “you make mistakes. We all do. Yet we’re not the sum of our mistakes. We are what we have learned from those mistakes.” This is a positive message that appeals to the truth of who we are and sees value in all our experiences. Being committed to correcting problems means taking nothing for granted and looking at life as an opportunity to learn and progress throughout the aging process. The Philosopher Henri Bergson said, “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” Jim Harbaugh says, “Even if we get .01 percent better each day then that would be something that would be worthwhile. That would be worth pursuing, aspiring to...That mentality, simply put, is better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today.” Movement and slow development is at the heart of the evolutionary process itself. Harbaugh’s approach fits with a larger awareness of the world and its inhabitants than can be said of almost all leaders. It’s more personal and biological but fits with a much deeper and comprehensive process.

“You make memories, memories are mostly about how we do things and who we do them with. Memories, after all, are what are in our hearts and minds and in the end what we can hope to have.” He quotes Broadway musical Big Fish saying, “what if I told you I could change the world with just one thought? What if I told you, ‘you could be a king?’ Anything you desire and anything on the plate all within your power to create! Be the hero of your story if you can!” Having done research on memory I feel the need to say that memories, in the earliest and purest state, are about processes, sensory experiences, or people. One of my favorite authors, Thomas Wolfe, wrote a beautiful passage in which his mother recalls her earliest memories around the age of two. She describes the oil rising out of the ground in her yard and a lengthy description of the townsfolk coming home from the Civil War. What stands out is the clear development of a concept in the mind that develops into a crystalized form as the mind makes sense of the world around it. Coach Harbaugh is sometimes called a play-calling genius. This is because of the way he builds the momentum of a game and bends it to his will. His insight about what memories are gives me greater insight into how he views coaching: “it’s about how you do things and who you do them with.” To understand Harbaugh’s leadership is to understand his process. For this inspirational speech Harbaugh has taken universal truths and placed the highest value on them in accordance with his leadership personality type of religious.

Finally, number five, “make choices.” Every day we choose between being positive or negative. This sums up the five magnificent things about you and forms the foundation for his leadership approach in many ways. Ultimately, Harbaugh makes the best choices he can each day and is similar to the poet William Blake who said, “The worship of God is honoring his gifts in other men each according to his genius and loving the greatest men best.” Harbaugh told Bryant Gumbel, “football is the last bastion of hope for toughness in American men.” The hope for something greater and the memories of his past where he dreamed of being the head coach at Michigan drive Jim to give his players something similar. Harbaugh is a true believer in self-actualization and toughness.

The purpose of this essay is to do more than describe Harbaugh’s leadership style by comparing it to concepts taught in our book. This will help us assess his strengths and weaknesses. Harbaugh’s ethical outlook of constant scrutiny of the self comes with an unwavering commitment to learning about what makes people tick. He is willing to take any advice he can to better himself and help his team reach their goals. Harbaugh’s servant leadership stands out, as Robert Greenleaf’s definition, “servant leadership is a calling to serve. This calling begins with the feeling deep down inside that one cares about people and wants to help others” is uncanny in its accuracy. When I wrote about forming memories above it was because of the importance it has as a concept and the place memories hold in Jim’s own life. Coaching was always Harbaugh’s dream from the time he was ten years old he sat in Bo Schembechler’s seat in his office and had to explain himself when the legendary coach came in and found him there. Winston Churchill said, “we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. What is the use of living if not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?” Jim Harbaugh’s view is that toughness is a necessary part of making it in our tough world and football provides young men with the tools they need to succeed. The basic currency of life is resilience, resistance, and toughness: it is the state of being in the sixth stage of moral development, “what is right and good is viewed as a matter of individual conscience, free choice, and personal responsibility for the consequences. Morality is seen as superseding the majority view or the prescriptions of authority; rather, it is based on personal conviction.” Harbaugh’s affinity for Malcolm X, whom he partially attributed the style of his first pair of permanent glasses, fits with this view of moral development. X’s refusal of his birth name signifies his unwavering commitment to moral development and integrity by embracing a new you that is in control of your destiny.

Of the leaders discussed in our book as examples of leadership, there is one that deserves to be focused on for some very important reasons: Martin Luther King Jr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech fits Harbaugh’s perspective on life well but it’s the message that powerfully illuminates Harbaugh’s coaching strategy that I will focus on now. King says, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”

To see the true affinity between Harbaugh and King requires Harbaugh’s Leadership Case Studies book “The Turnaround Strategies of Jim Harbaugh.” If there was someone that should be asked to manage the project of flattening the mountains and making the rough places plain it would be Jim Harbaugh. His attentiveness during practice takes players by complete surprise on the field and in the weight room during bench reps and squats. His players can’t believe that he’s watching everything as closely as he is. In accordance with his hawkish persona is his patented white board with everyone’s reps on each drill ranked and numbered week-in, week-out. This creates a motivating environment from interpersonal competition and makes everyone accountable for their own progress. Quantifying performance to ensure progress is cutting edge in a world where we are seeing a shift toward big data and fair judgements of performance from personal judgements and values. When players know exactly where they stand the doubt that creeps into their minds with each action disappears. It’s doubt that creates a whirlpool of emotions and unfulfilled desires and it’s doubt that is often used as a motivating force for players. Harbaugh turns knowledge to his advantage instead and gives his players no doubt that he’s giving his best effort. It serves Harbaugh to ask for more from his guys each week because each week he is coming up with new ways to outsmart his opponents. Each player earns more conditioning by winning in practice and each player finds more opportunities for himself in the game plan in Harbaugh’s meritocracy. You could compare this to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s flow experience, Ghiselli’s six leadership traits, Bill Gates’ “develop your people to do their jobs better than you,” the participative leadership style, or effective delegation. One thing that is crystal clear is Harbaugh has studied a lot of leadership styles but there is only one at the top. Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company. Committing yourself to a decision and sticking by it will allow you to survive in a world of parody like the NFL and college football. The only way not to repeat yourself is to devise a new scheme each which, which I will discuss briefly now.

Bill Polian is an ESPN analyst and former Vice Chairman of the Indianapolis Colts from 1998 to 2011. He oversaw Jim’s run to the AFC Championship in 1995 with the Colts and has a unique perspective on Harbaugh because his son worked for him starting in 2010 to coordinate special teams. He cites his “energy, excitement, commitment, sincerity, and he motivates.” Polian says Harbaugh gives his team that extra motivation to push them over the edge on Sundays. He continues, “The X’s and O’s are a strong part of him and he’s got a great feel for calling a game. That comes from being a quarterback. As a football man, I almost see that as a given. You sort of take that for granted because he was a quarterback and he knows exactly how to call a game and has a feel for the game.” Polian’s words are understated but can’t be taken lightly. The truth is you have to take Harbaugh’s aptitude for game-calling at face value because we have no idea what he’s thinking when he creating his game plan each week, only that he’s taking his ideas from the right places. At this point in his career, Jim’s playbook is comprehensive and includes the large majority of plays he’s likely to run. What he chooses in the game planning stage of each week must be learned and executed by his team. The team remains motivated because they’re asked to do so much week to week. The problems most face becomes solutions in Harbaugh’s scheme because Jim presents the information as a challenge that can be accomplished each day. The players watch his genius play out and are constantly learning the secrets of the most interesting man in the world. His magnificence as a leader has helped him become known as the premiere clinician of football teams today. His sense of the flow of a game gives his team the opportunity to grasp victory each week and they often do. The perfect flow (to use Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s term) is produced by the momentum and sheer depth of knowledge of Harbaugh has acquired over the years. Keeping the game situations manageable makes him an interesting coach to watch and the fans go crazy for a team that proves itself by strength of will and toughness. Harbaugh is a likable person in my eyes because of his integrity and his willingness to learn from others and apply his knowledge.

It’s only fair that I offer criticisms of Harbaugh after all of the praise and lofty comparisons. The quality Harbaugh has that is problematic is his overzealous nature. It works out for him in many ways but there are obvious instances where it appears to have gotten the best of him. I’ve seen him describe Michael Crabtree as the “greatest catcher of all time” and lose the NFC Championship to Seattle on an interception by Sherman when Kaepernick was looking for Crabtree in the end zone. I’ve seen Vernon Davis get overlooked in the Super Bowl against the Ravens and Randy Moss waving his hands wide open in the back of the end zone in the same game. His meritocracy works, but in certain instances he really takes it too far. He has called Colin “an outstanding player” and claimed he, “has the ability to be not only an NFL starter but a great NFL player.” This is fine, but to a certain extent Harbaugh takes things too far. He backtracked his support of Kaepernick’s protests saying he respected the motivation but the action bothered him. Instead, his Michigan Wolverines raised their fists in a 7 man protest and Harbaugh said his reaction to his players’ decision was different than his reaction to Kaepernick. Some might argue that Kaepernick’s actions symbolize the ultimate act of resistance to perceived evil while others might not see it that way. Completely resisting the evil that happens around you is a quality that only the truly free man possesses. I certainly wish Harbaugh could’ve seen the symbolism and need for Kaepernick to choose his method of protest but I still think he’s cool for allowing the black power symbol on his sideline. Maybe Harbaugh needs to reconsider his attitude and adopt a method of non-violent protest like Martin Luther King Jr. The similarities may remain hidden in Harbaugh’s mind but the leadership traits are there. The behavior, on the other hand, might not fit perfectly hand in hand.

Harbaugh’s leadership style is a big reason why he’s as famous as he is today. People have criticized Jim for wanting the spotlight too much and beefing with other coaches like Nick Saban. To me, Harbaugh represents a renewed interest in leadership as it relates to football. He has studied leadership books, done things his own way, and is known as the coach who can turn things around in the blink of an eye. His assistant at Stanford and San Francisco, Greg Roman, recently said, “he can flip things really quick.” People see him as doing his job better than anyone because he can do it more efficiently than anyone. To me, it’s his attentiveness and focus and detailed thinking. He thinks about everything that goes on around him. In this essay I’ve tried to treat his leadership style in the same way and offering comparative insights that illuminate his character. Delanie Walker, who played Tight End for Harbaugh during his 49er days explained his success thusly, “he’s a player. He’s just like one of us. Jim Harbaugh is always in the locker room. He’s in the locker room playing basketball with us, he’s in there joking around. He eats with us. He doesn’t sit with the other coaches, he sits with the players. He just wants to be a player, he goes to practice and sometimes puts on the full gear, throws the ball, he conditions with us. I think that’s what makes everybody buy into his philosophy: he believes in it so much that he does it. On T.V., you see him yelling, jumping around, going crazy. I think that’s his game time self, but in general he’s always joking around, laughing, playing. You don’t see him at practice yelling and going crazy, he’s always kind, asks you how your day was.” I think this summarizes Harbaugh well. He can put himself right in the middle of everything like a Quarterback or Linebacker. He is knowledgeable to the point where the most important thing for him to do isn’t to study more but to understand his team and his players. Being this way as a coach is appealing to me personally. I feel like coaching is something I really want to do once all my studies are complete.

References:

Chengelis, A. (April 26, 2017) Harbaugh meets Pope Francis: “It was Beautiful”. Retrieved from The Detriot News Website<http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2017/04/26/harbaugh-presents-pope-francis-um-helmet/100921616/>

Manning, G. & Curtis, K. (2012). The Art of Leadership. Taata Mcgraw-Hill Education.

Harbaugh, J. (June 2016) Commencement Speech at Paramus Catholic. Retrived from Michigan Live Sports and Entertainment News Youtube Channel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aQYnEQ1_9Y>

Gouveia, A. (2016) 7 Ways your Looks Affect Your Pay. Retrieved from Salary.com Website<http://www.salary.com/7-ways-your-looks-affect-your-pay/slide/6/>

Bohnenkamp, J. (July 26, 2016) Nobody has it batter than Harbaugh. Retrieved from The Hawkeye News Website<http://www.thehawkeye.com/sports/college/bohnenkamp-nobody-has-it-better-than-harbaugh/article_9e5b26f4-719f-5773-abe2-2e39d8bf8f52.html>

Unknown (April 22, 2015) Jim Harbaugh Shocks Bryant Gumbel: Football Is the Last Bastion of Hope for Toughness in American Men. Retrieved from Rush Limbaugh’s Website<https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/04/22/jim_harbaugh_shocks_bryant_gumbel_football_is_the_last_bastion_of_hope_for_toughness_in_american_men/>

Harbaugh, J. (December 30, 2014) Jim Harbaugh Introductory Press Conference. Retrieved from WJBK FOX 2 News Detroit’s Youtube Channel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfa03pxYNP8&t=18s>

Kirshner, A. (October 22, 2016) http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/10/22/13368644/jim-harbaugh-glasses-malcolm-x

Various (2016) The Turnaround Strategies of Jim Harbaugh. Leadership Case Studies Coaches Series.

Price, T. (February 26, 2013) Jim Harbaugh Praised for Leadership. Retrieved from 49ers Website<http://m.49ers.com/news/article-2/Jim-Harbaugh-Praised-For-Leadership/fdbfd718-60a2-4b59-a2f8-792167e04481>Jim Harbaugh is a college football coach whose fame and visibility is unmatched by his peers. Just last month he brought his players to Rome to visit the Vatican and to possibly meet Pope Francis. Upon arrival, he presented the pope with a Michigan helmet and a pair of Jordan sneakers. Harbaugh recalls the experience of handing him his gift and looking in his eyes, “There’s pain there. There’s so much injustice in the world, there’s so much poverty and war and injustice and you can tell and feel he feels that. I think that especially made it feel to myself and to Sarah, ‘this is what it would be like to meet Jesus. The very closest thing.’” The Art of Leadership describes the religious personality as one of six types, “people are religious if they but seek to comprehend the cosmos as a whole and to relate themselves to its embracing totality. Religious people have as their goal the creation of the highest and most satisfying value experience…With zest and enthusiasm, they see something divine in every event.” Religious leadership might be the best and simplest explanation of Harbaugh’s success but hardly explains his whole personality. It’s a fact that he has done his homework on leadership and is willing to use anything he can find to improve himself. This essay will try to touch on his most important concepts and attempt to comprehend the disparate information on Harbaugh to give a fuller perspective than is usually given in opinion articles and interviews.As a test of Harbaugh’s leadership I’ll start by summarizing a commencement speech he gave to Paramus Catholic High School in New Jersey a year ago. Being a self-proclaimed expert on people their age, Harbaugh outlines five universal truths about human beings to motivate his graduates and give them lasting advice about how to live life to calm the underlying fear of all parents that comes from the question, “will everything be all right for my child out there in the world?” These truths he calls five magnificent things about you. “You matter,” “you make a difference,” “you make mistakes,” “you make memories,” “you make choices.” He says, “there are great people out there but there’s only one you.” Human beings matter because we are all individuals who have different experiences and are trying our best to find our purpose in life. The one thing we can be most certain of in life is that we are living it and we will be the only true constant through the course of our lives. Harbaugh’s message here comes off as particularly powerful because of the landscape he places it in, graduation the “last childhood photo,” or “earning the respect of those around you,” and finally parents’ “underlying fear.” Harbaugh’s genuine desire to see others express their uniqueness doesn’t come into conflict with his second truth, “you make a difference.” “Your actions, your attitudes, your decisions, your responses have a ripple effect. That’s powerful. You can encourage or discourage with a look, a word, or even the things you don’t say or you do say.” He’s calling on the students to question every action, every word, even every gesture to consider the message its sending to others. This serves as a constant reminder that the individual is interacting and relating with the external world and is an important concept in Harbaugh’s leadership style. The philosopher David Hume once said, “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” In my eyes, Harbaugh is stressing the importance of passionate engagement with the world to foster the highest reflective capacities and empower individuals. Harbaugh’s message here is particularly powerful because of the way people are in society today. Bosses in todays’ work world decide salaries and have unconscious discrimination as it relates to height, weight, hair color, and make-up. Blondes earn 7% more than women with other hair colors, an inch of height averages out to an extra $789 per year, obese women are paid $8,666 less per year, and wearing make-up can earn you more than 30% more than your co-workers. Part of what make Harbaugh great is that he would take the time and effort to look at individuals and instead of sizing them up based on perceived differences would take the time to examine their work habits in detail. “Thirdly,” Harbaugh says, “you make mistakes. We all do. Yet we’re not the sum of our mistakes. We are what we have learned from those mistakes.” This is a positive message that appeals to the truth of who we are and sees value in all our experiences. Being committed to correcting problems means taking nothing for granted and looking at life as an opportunity to learn and progress throughout the aging process. The Philosopher Henri Bergson said, “To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” Jim Harbaugh says, “Even if we get .01 percent better each day then that would be something that would be worthwhile. That would be worth pursuing, aspiring to...That mentality, simply put, is better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today.” Movement and slow development is at the heart of the evolutionary process itself. Harbaugh’s approach fits with a larger awareness of the world and its inhabitants than can be said of almost all leaders. It’s more personal and biological but fits with a much deeper and comprehensive process. “You make memories, memories are mostly about how we do things and who we do them with. Memories, after all, are what are in our hearts and minds and in the end what we can hope to have.” He quotes Broadway musical Big Fish saying, “what if I told you I could change the world with just one thought? What if I told you, ‘you could be a king?’ Anything you desire and anything on the plate all within your power to create! Be the hero of your story if you can!” Having done research on memory I feel the need to say that memories, in the earliest and purest state, are about processes, sensory experiences, or people. One of my favorite authors, Thomas Wolfe, wrote a beautiful passage in which his mother recalls her earliest memories around the age of two. She describes the oil rising out of the ground in her yard and a lengthy description of the townsfolk coming home from the Civil War. What stands out is the clear development of a concept in the mind that develops into a crystalized form as the mind makes sense of the world around it. Coach Harbaugh is sometimes called a play-calling genius. This is because of the way he builds the momentum of a game and bends it to his will. His insight about what memories are gives me greater insight into how he views coaching: “it’s about how you do things and who you do them with.” To understand Harbaugh’s leadership is to understand his process. For this inspirational speech Harbaugh has taken universal truths and placed the highest value on them in accordance with his leadership personality type of religious. Finally, number five, “make choices.” Every day we choose between being positive or negative. This sums up the five magnificent things about you and forms the foundation for his leadership approach in many ways. Ultimately, Harbaugh makes the best choices he can each day and is similar to the poet William Blake who said, “The worship of God is honoring his gifts in other men each according to his genius and loving the greatest men best.” Harbaugh told Bryant Gumbel, “football is the last bastion of hope for toughness in American men.” The hope for something greater and the memories of his past where he dreamed of being the head coach at Michigan drive Jim to give his players something similar. Harbaugh is a true believer in self-actualization and toughness. The purpose of this essay is to do more than describe Harbaugh’s leadership style by comparing it to concepts taught in our book. This will help us assess his strengths and weaknesses. Harbaugh’s ethical outlook of constant scrutiny of the self comes with an unwavering commitment to learning about what makes people tick. He is willing to take any advice he can to better himself and help his team reach their goals. Harbaugh’s servant leadership stands out, as Robert Greenleaf’s definition, “servant leadership is a calling to serve. This calling begins with the feeling deep down inside that one cares about people and wants to help others” is uncanny in its accuracy. When I wrote about forming memories above it was because of the importance it has as a concept and the place memories hold in Jim’s own life. Coaching was always Harbaugh’s dream from the time he was ten years old he sat in Bo Schembechler’s seat in his office and had to explain himself when the legendary coach came in and found him there. Winston Churchill said, “we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. What is the use of living if not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?” Jim Harbaugh’s view is that toughness is a necessary part of making it in our tough world and football provides young men with the tools they need to succeed. The basic currency of life is resilience, resistance, and toughness: it is the state of being in the sixth stage of moral development, “what is right and good is viewed as a matter of individual conscience, free choice, and personal responsibility for the consequences. Morality is seen as superseding the majority view or the prescriptions of authority; rather, it is based on personal conviction.” Harbaugh’s affinity for Malcolm X, whom he partially attributed the style of his first pair of permanent glasses, fits with this view of moral development. X’s refusal of his birth name signifies his unwavering commitment to moral development and integrity by embracing a new you that is in control of your destiny. Of the leaders discussed in our book as examples of leadership, there is one that deserves to be focused on for some very important reasons: Martin Luther King Jr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech fits Harbaugh’s perspective on life well but it’s the message that powerfully illuminates Harbaugh’s coaching strategy that I will focus on now. King says, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.” To see the true affinity between Harbaugh and King requires Harbaugh’s Leadership Case Studies book “The Turnaround Strategies of Jim Harbaugh.” If there was someone that should be asked to manage the project of flattening the mountains and making the rough places plain it would be Jim Harbaugh. His attentiveness during practice takes players by complete surprise on the field and in the weight room during bench reps and squats. His players can’t believe that he’s watching everything as closely as he is. In accordance with his hawkish persona is his patented white board with everyone’s reps on each drill ranked and numbered week-in, week-out. This creates a motivating environment from interpersonal competition and makes everyone accountable for their own progress. Quantifying performance to ensure progress is cutting edge in a world where we are seeing a shift toward big data and fair judgements of performance from personal judgements and values. When players know exactly where they stand the doubt that creeps into their minds with each action disappears. It’s doubt that creates a whirlpool of emotions and unfulfilled desires and it’s doubt that is often used as a motivating force for players. Harbaugh turns knowledge to his advantage instead and gives his players no doubt that he’s giving his best effort. It serves Harbaugh to ask for more from his guys each week because each week he is coming up with new ways to outsmart his opponents. Each player earns more conditioning by winning in practice and each player finds more opportunities for himself in the game plan in Harbaugh’s meritocracy. You could compare this to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s flow experience, Ghiselli’s six leadership traits, Bill Gates’ “develop your people to do their jobs better than you,” the participative leadership style, or effective delegation. One thing that is crystal clear is Harbaugh has studied a lot of leadership styles but there is only one at the top. Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company. Committing yourself to a decision and sticking by it will allow you to survive in a world of parody like the NFL and college football. The only way not to repeat yourself is to devise a new scheme each which, which I will discuss briefly now.Bill Polian is an ESPN analyst and former Vice Chairman of the Indianapolis Colts from 1998 to 2011. He oversaw Jim’s run to the AFC Championship in 1995 with the Colts and has a unique perspective on Harbaugh because his son worked for him starting in 2010 to coordinate special teams. He cites his “energy, excitement, commitment, sincerity, and he motivates.” Polian says Harbaugh gives his team that extra motivation to push them over the edge on Sundays. He continues, “The X’s and O’s are a strong part of him and he’s got a great feel for calling a game. That comes from being a quarterback. As a football man, I almost see that as a given. You sort of take that for granted because he was a quarterback and he knows exactly how to call a game and has a feel for the game.” Polian’s words are understated but can’t be taken lightly. The truth is you have to take Harbaugh’s aptitude for game-calling at face value because we have no idea what he’s thinking when he creating his game plan each week, only that he’s taking his ideas from the right places. At this point in his career, Jim’s playbook is comprehensive and includes the large majority of plays he’s likely to run. What he chooses in the game planning stage of each week must be learned and executed by his team. The team remains motivated because they’re asked to do so much week to week. The problems most face becomes solutions in Harbaugh’s scheme because Jim presents the information as a challenge that can be accomplished each day. The players watch his genius play out and are constantly learning the secrets of the most interesting man in the world. His magnificence as a leader has helped him become known as the premiere clinician of football teams today. His sense of the flow of a game gives his team the opportunity to grasp victory each week and they often do. The perfect flow (to use Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s term) is produced by the momentum and sheer depth of knowledge of Harbaugh has acquired over the years. Keeping the game situations manageable makes him an interesting coach to watch and the fans go crazy for a team that proves itself by strength of will and toughness. Harbaugh is a likable person in my eyes because of his integrity and his willingness to learn from others and apply his knowledge. It’s only fair that I offer criticisms of Harbaugh after all of the praise and lofty comparisons. The quality Harbaugh has that is problematic is his overzealous nature. It works out for him in many ways but there are obvious instances where it appears to have gotten the best of him. I’ve seen him describe Michael Crabtree as the “greatest catcher of all time” and lose the NFC Championship to Seattle on an interception by Sherman when Kaepernick was looking for Crabtree in the end zone. I’ve seen Vernon Davis get overlooked in the Super Bowl against the Ravens and Randy Moss waving his hands wide open in the back of the end zone in the same game. His meritocracy works, but in certain instances he really takes it too far. He has called Colin “an outstanding player” and claimed he, “has the ability to be not only an NFL starter but a great NFL player.” This is fine, but to a certain extent Harbaugh takes things too far. He backtracked his support of Kaepernick’s protests saying he respected the motivation but the action bothered him. Instead, his Michigan Wolverines raised their fists in a 7 man protest and Harbaugh said his reaction to his players’ decision was different than his reaction to Kaepernick. Some might argue that Kaepernick’s actions symbolize the ultimate act of resistance to perceived evil while others might not see it that way. Completely resisting the evil that happens around you is a quality that only the truly free man possesses. I certainly wish Harbaugh could’ve seen the symbolism and need for Kaepernick to choose his method of protest but I still think he’s cool for allowing the black power symbol on his sideline. Maybe Harbaugh needs to reconsider his attitude and adopt a method of non-violent protest like Martin Luther King Jr. The similarities may remain hidden in Harbaugh’s mind but the leadership traits are there. The behavior, on the other hand, might not fit perfectly hand in hand. Harbaugh’s leadership style is a big reason why he’s as famous as he is today. People have criticized Jim for wanting the spotlight too much and beefing with other coaches like Nick Saban. To me, Harbaugh represents a renewed interest in leadership as it relates to football. He has studied leadership books, done things his own way, and is known as the coach who can turn things around in the blink of an eye. His assistant at Stanford and San Francisco, Greg Roman, recently said, “he can flip things really quick.” People see him as doing his job better than anyone because he can do it more efficiently than anyone. To me, it’s his attentiveness and focus and detailed thinking. He thinks about everything that goes on around him. In this essay I’ve tried to treat his leadership style in the same way and offering comparative insights that illuminate his character. Delanie Walker, who played Tight End for Harbaugh during his 49er days explained his success thusly, “he’s a player. He’s just like one of us. Jim Harbaugh is always in the locker room. He’s in the locker room playing basketball with us, he’s in there joking around. He eats with us. He doesn’t sit with the other coaches, he sits with the players. He just wants to be a player, he goes to practice and sometimes puts on the full gear, throws the ball, he conditions with us. I think that’s what makes everybody buy into his philosophy: he believes in it so much that he does it. On T.V., you see him yelling, jumping around, going crazy. I think that’s his game time self, but in general he’s always joking around, laughing, playing. You don’t see him at practice yelling and going crazy, he’s always kind, asks you how your day was.” I think this summarizes Harbaugh well. He can put himself right in the middle of everything like a Quarterback or Linebacker. He is knowledgeable to the point where the most important thing for him to do isn’t to study more but to understand his team and his players. Being this way as a coach is appealing to me personally. I feel like coaching is something I really want to do once all my studies are complete. References:Chengelis, A. (April 26, 2017) Harbaugh meets Pope Francis: “It was Beautiful”. Retrieved from The Detriot News Website<http://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2017/04/26/harbaugh-presents-pope-francis-um-helmet/100921616/>Manning, G. & Curtis, K. (2012). The Art of Leadership. Taata Mcgraw-Hill Education.Harbaugh, J. (June 2016) Commencement Speech at Paramus Catholic. Retrived from Michigan Live Sports and Entertainment News Youtube Channel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aQYnEQ1_9Y>Gouveia, A. (2016) 7 Ways your Looks Affect Your Pay. Retrieved from Salary.com Website<http://www.salary.com/7-ways-your-looks-affect-your-pay/slide/6/>Bohnenkamp, J. (July 26, 2016) Nobody has it batter than Harbaugh. Retrieved from The Hawkeye News Website<http://www.thehawkeye.com/sports/college/bohnenkamp-nobody-has-it-better-than-harbaugh/article_9e5b26f4-719f-5773-abe2-2e39d8bf8f52.html>Unknown (April 22, 2015) Jim Harbaugh Shocks Bryant Gumbel: Football Is the Last Bastion of Hope for Toughness in American Men. Retrieved from Rush Limbaugh’s Website<https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/04/22/jim_harbaugh_shocks_bryant_gumbel_football_is_the_last_bastion_of_hope_for_toughness_in_american_men/>Harbaugh, J. (December 30, 2014) Jim Harbaugh Introductory Press Conference. Retrieved from WJBK FOX 2 News Detroit’s Youtube Channel <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfa03pxYNP8&t=18s>Kirshner, A. (October 22, 2016) http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2016/10/22/13368644/jim-harbaugh-glasses-malcolm-xVarious (2016) The Turnaround Strategies of Jim Harbaugh. Leadership Case Studies Coaches Series.Price, T. (February 26, 2013) Jim Harbaugh Praised for Leadership. Retrieved from 49ers Website<http://m.49ers.com/news/article-2/Jim-Harbaugh-Praised-For-Leadership/fdbfd718-60a2-4b59-a2f8-792167e04481>Detroit Free Press (March 30, 2017) Jim Harbaugh calls Colin Kaepernick ‘a hero’. Retrieved from Pro Sports Daily Website <http://www.prosportsdaily.com/articles/jim-harbaugh-calls-colin-kaepernick-a-hero-460630.html>DaSilva, C. (March 21, 2017) Jim Harbaugh says Colin Kaepernick will ‘win chapionships’ in the NFL.Retrieved from Fox Sports Website<http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/jim-harbaugh-says-colin-kaepernick-will-win-championships-in-the-nfl-032117>Goodbread, C. (September 24, 2016) Jim Harbaugh supports protesting Michigan players. Retrieved from NFL.com Website<http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000708466/article/jim-harbaugh-supports-protesting-michigan-players>McMurphy, B. (June 1,2016) Alabama’s Nick Saban says satellite camps are ‘bad for college football’. Retrieved from ESPN.com Website<http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/15857015/alabama-coach-nick-saban-says-satellite-camps-bad-college-football>Mink, R. & Roman, G. (May 16, 2017) Coaches in Cars Having Coffee: Greg Roman. Retrieved from Baltimore Ravens Website<http://www.baltimoreravens.com/videos/videos/Coaches-In-Cars-Having-Coffee-Greg-Roman/32105c5f-8cdd-4dd5-b17c-d3dc6763462a>

Detroit Free Press (March 30, 2017) Jim Harbaugh calls Colin Kaepernick ‘a hero’. Retrieved from Pro Sports Daily Website <http://www.prosportsdaily.com/articles/jim-harbaugh-calls-colin-kaepernick-a-hero-460630.html>

DaSilva, C. (March 21, 2017) Jim Harbaugh says Colin Kaepernick will ‘win chapionships’ in the NFL.Retrieved from Fox Sports Website<http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/jim-harbaugh-says-colin-kaepernick-will-win-championships-in-the-nfl-032117>

Goodbread, C. (September 24, 2016) Jim Harbaugh supports protesting Michigan players. Retrieved from NFL.com Website<http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000708466/article/jim-harbaugh-supports-protesting-michigan-players>

McMurphy, B. (June 1,2016) Alabama’s Nick Saban says satellite camps are ‘bad for college football’. Retrieved from ESPN.com Website<http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/15857015/alabama-coach-nick-saban-says-satellite-camps-bad-college-football>

Mink, R. & Roman, G. (May 16, 2017) Coaches in Cars Having Coffee: Greg Roman. Retrieved from Baltimore Ravens Website<http://www.baltimoreravens.com/videos/videos/Coaches-In-Cars-Having-Coffee-Greg-Roman/32105c5f-8cdd-4dd5-b17c-d3dc6763462a>