By Guest commentary Monday, July 22nd, 2024

By Ritch K. Eich

Jim Harbaugh, the 2024 College Football Champion University of Michigan head football coach and now the head coach of the NFL Los Angeles Chargers, has fielded much criticism from opposing coaches, athletic directors, media pundits and others.

Media reports describe him as intense, quirky, brash, erratic, unorthodox, abrasive, eccentric, and as someone who rubs you the wrong way. Conversely, Harbaugh has also been lauded as exceptional, gifted, highly strategic, uber resilient, a team-builder, a revolutionary mind, a risk taker, and the “comeback kid.” 

Whether or not you’re a Harbaugh fan, it’s worth remembering that — to paraphrase the oft-called Father of Management Peter Drucker — “leaders get results.” 

And Harbaugh gets results. And, often as a result of sheer force of will.

Now he brings his talents to Los Angeles and the Chargers. 

Harbaugh is no stranger to Southern California, having played quarterback for the Chargers and having produced winning football programs at the University of San Diego, Stanford, and with the NFL 49ers, taking them to the Super Bowl. 

How he transforms the Chargers and energizes Los Angeles football fans remains to be seen.

In the first of my five books on leadership, Real Leaders Don’t Boss, I posited the question: What do real leaders do?

I believe leadership is an experiential art, learned mostly by doing. Real leaders learn from their mistakes and adjust their vision accordingly. 

The best among them adhere to their values, get results by lifting others up, admit their mistakes, inspire, read, listen, motivate, navigate, galvanize, cheerlead, analyze, adjust, and build. Equally important, they remove barriers for their teams, they don’t care who gets the credit for success, they recognize, celebrate, and reward. They highly value feedback from their followers. 

Finally, they never blame or criticize in public; they counsel in private.

One of the most noteworthy of Jim Harbaugh’s many attributes is his conceptual ability. 

His annual spring travel adventures are a real tribute to his ingenuity. With the exception of the years during the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2021), Harbaugh took the Michigan Wolverines football team, his coaches, and staff on trips to the following locations where many of the group had never been:

• Rome, Italy in 2017
• Paris, France in 2018
• Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa in 2019
• State of Michigan including the Upper Peninsula in 2022
• Eastern United States tour in 2023

Harbaugh says these trips built cohesiveness and bonding among the teammates and also are educational. 

In Italy, stops included the Colosseum, Pantheon, Roman Forum and the opera. In France, the group visited the Louvre in Paris and Versailles, as well as the D-Day beaches and cemetery in Normandy. Students also participated in a community service project. 

In South Africa, they toured the prison where Nelson Mandela spent nearly two decades imprisoned during apartheid and they participated in a rugby and football clinic. 

The 2022 and 2023 trips took students to many places nationally, including New York, where the group visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and Washington D.C., where they went to the Supreme Court, among many other important cultural and historical places. 

All in all, these trips offered the athletes a valuable education and as Harbaugh has said, helped to put the “college” back into college football. Student-athletes, coaches, and staff learned many valuable life lessons from their exposure to different cultures, countries, languages, history, diversity, customs and teamwork. 

So, did these trips pay off on the gridiron and make the team better? 

This notion is hard to quantify, but this year, Michigan won the NCAA National Championship after winning the Big Ten Football Championship three consecutive years and after making the “Final Four” of the so-called best four college football teams in the country. 

As business leaders throughout Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties, you would do well to consider Harbaugh’s success and apply some of the following 10 “takeaways” from his career to yours:

• Be original, real, authentic
• Get your staff to believe in themselves
• Be enthusiastic, inspiring, resolved
• Know your “playing field” better than your competitors
• Anticipate changes before they smack you in the face 
• Spend less time in meetings with more emphasis on execution
• Be innovative, imaginative, ingenious
• Don’t be afraid to try new approaches
• Be principled, faithful, honest
• Be passionate, never give up, keep moving ahead

And, remember to have fun along the way as you relentlessly pursue excellence.

Ritch K. Eich lives in Thousand Oaks and was the former chief of public affairs for Blue Shield of California and captain in the U. S. Naval Reserve. He is also the author of five books, the most recent is Leading with GRIT, GRACE & GRATITUDE: Timeless Lessons for Life.