Watching Tony Dungy receive the Lombardi Trophy as coach of the Indianapolis Colts winning Super Bowl XLI in 2007, you could not help thinking that even most humble find glory. It is not only that Dungy is the first African American head coach to win the Super Bowl. It is not only that he is a coach who wins the right way by putting players in positions to win. It is that he wins by putting himself second and the team first.

Soft-spoken does not begin to describe Dungy’s style. As was heard over and over again on the CBS telecast, Dungy is a quiet man. He does not raise his voice; he does not swear. Nor does he rant and rave. To define Dungy by what he does not do, however, overshadows his greatness as a coach and as a man. Let’s explore a few of his attributes.

Persevere. So often Dungy’s teams have been bridesmaids to the big dance. He has guided two teams, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Colts to playoffs, only to lose in rounds prior to the Super Bowl. In fact he was fired by the Buccaneers, only to watch as that team won the Super Bowl the very next year. Not able to win the big one was a label that others stuck on him, but which Dungy seemed not to notice. Those defeats did not deter him; he believed in his players and he kept on trying.

Stay calm. Football is a game of emotion, so the saying goes. You would never know it watching Tony Dungy. Winning or losing, he radiates the same calm demeanor. Yes, you may see him dispute a ref’s call a time or two, but most often when a call goes against his team, he will simply shake his head or smile wanly. Such calmness centers his team and keeps players grounded and focused.

Defer unto others . As a coach with perhaps the best quarterback in football at the helm, Peyton Manning, Dungy gives Manning, and offensive coordinator, Tom Moore, free reign on the offense. Dungy is involved strategically, but not tactically. The same goes for defense. He plays to the strengths of his players; while Dungy teams are traditionally noted for tough defense, this Super Bowl winner was just the opposite. During the regular season, the Colts gave up points like gamblers in Las Vegas. Then came the playoffs and the defense bore down.

What enables Dungy to succeed is his faith. He is a deeply religious man, one who is open about his beliefs as well as what they mean to him. One story Dungy tells is that when he was interviewing for his first NFL coaching position, the owner asked him if he would make the job his number one priority. The owner expected a yes; after all, most men who aspire to become head coaches would make any sacrifice, often at the expense of family, for a crack at the spotlight. Not Dungy. For him faith and family came before football.

That’s something that the man who coached the first two Super Bowl winning teams and for which the trophy is now named -- Vince Lombardi -- preached. And so it was fitting that Dungy would hold that so-named trophy, humble in his leadership, yet proud of his players, and always rooted to his principles.

[Tony Dungy stepped down as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts in January 2009. This article first appeared on FastCompany.com on February 7, 2007.]

Negotiation is face to face with an individual or a staff. You need to be fair and equitable and strike the right balance in all that you do. Here are some helpful hints.

Establish common ground . Find out what each side wants. Say you have a big project that needs to be done by week’s end. Ask your people what they can do to get it done. Allow them to put aside small projects in favor of this big one.

Give a little, gain a lot . In every negotiation, there is give and take. If you demonstrate that you are willing to give up something, you demonstrate flexibility. For example, if you ask your employee to meet a tight deadline, make it known that she can come to you for extra assistance. You may even wish to assign someone to help her complete the project.

Look for the win win . When the project is complete, celebrate the results. Share the credit. And allow those who put aside their projects to return to them, assuming of course that they doing what they are supposed to be doing.

Management sometimes involves trade offs. Your priorities may not be your boss’s priorities, and the same holds for your people’s priorities. We all march to different drummers but within an organization we need to beat the same drum. And that’s where negotiation comes in. Strive for fairness and compromise when you can, and push hard for the priorities that add value to the enterprise. On that, there can be no negotiation.

Excerpted from John Baldoni's “Negotiate This” podcast on CIO.com

When Doris Kearns Godwin published Team of Rivals in 2005, her study President Lincoln’s bipartisan leadership during the Civil War, it seemed curiously out of step with presidential politics. That year may have been the apogee of the Bush Administration’s unilateral leadership style. Bush and his senior team, notably Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, prided themselves on doing things their way without airing alternate views and certainly without bridging internal dissent. Soon enough mismanagement of the Hurricane Katrina cleanup and the War in Iraq prompted a second look at the Bush team’s imperious style.

Today we watch how president-elect Barack Obama assemble his own team of rivals, notably Hillary Clinton who ran against him the Democratic primary. In political discourse, the term, “team of rivals,” used as a suggestion for building consensus. With our economy in wretched shape, struggling to cope with rising commodity, oil, and even food prices, partisanship rings hollow. And so what President Lincoln practiced during the Civil War seems a more apt model of management during crisis and one from which managers at every level can learn.

Assemble rivals . It is customary to form teams of people who support you. Lincoln, in managing a war that had torn the nation apart, realized that he would need to hold to the center therefore he peopled his cabinet with political opponents. This can be risky in corporate management, but if you at least hire for difference, that is, people who think differently you have a greater chance of surfacing ideas that may bridge the middle road.

Tolerate dissent. Group think is the enemy of enlightenment. Few leaders have been as castigated as Lincoln was about his war strategy. Lincoln invited disagreement and as a result cycled through commanders in chief with regularity until he found one that stood out, Ulysses S. Grant. Likewise managers need to make it safe for people to disagree; otherwise everyone hews to the same old ways of thinking and doing.

Hold to the mission . Preservation of the Union was all that mattered to Lincoln. That, too, was the unifier of his cabinet. And so it must be for any team. While people can disagree about tactics and even strategies, everyone must submit to the mission. Otherwise, there can be no consensus, and consequently little productivity.

Trust yourself . Abraham Lincoln was a president steeled by hard times. Death was often a close neighbor and he likely suffered from depression. But he knew himself and his strengths. He did not fear the egos or the machinations of his cabinet. Lincoln was comfortable in his own skin yet no so vain as to think more. As he said, “the question was not whether God is on our side but rather that we are on His.”

The style of management practiced by President Lincoln during the Civil War proved so successful that President Franklin Roosevelt emulated it during the management of Second World War. Prior to America’s entry into the war, Roosevelt publicly spoke of keeping America out of war; off stage, Roosevelt was doing all he could to prepare the nation for war. To achieve that balancing act, as well as to hold the nation together during wartime, he needed to have both Republicans and Democrats on his side and in his cabinet.

Source:
Doris Kearns Goodwin Team of Rivals New York: Simon & Schuster 2005

When Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s corporation, was asked the secret of his success, he quipped that all he did was look at how Dairy Queen of the 1950s and 1960s ran its operations and did the opposite. You can learn a great deal about leadership by studying an organization that fails miserably. And in the history of professional sports, there are few teams that have been as poorly coached, managed and owned than the Detroit Lions.

The Lions have not won a title since 1957, posting losing records in most of those years and winning one playoff game. Woeful does not begin to describe Lions miseries; they have found new ways to lose. In the second game of this season, the Lions found themselves down by three touchdowns but clawed back to be up by one point, only to surrender 24 points, including three TDs in 84 seconds. In game fifteen, the New Orleans Saints scored a TD the first SEVEN times they touched the ball. Their punter never even entered the game.

Losing becomes the Lions; this year the team has yet to win a game, becoming the first team in NFL history to post a 0-15 record. How Lionsesque! So what you can you learn about leadership from studying the Lions?

Hire the unproven. Matt Millen had never managed anything prior to becoming president and general manager of the Lions. True he was a star player and a very good announcer. His people skills left much to be desired and as a result, he ran roughshod over staffers and coaches, posting the worst record of any general manager in NFL history. In his first seven seasons, his teams posted 31 wins and 81 losses, 50 games under .500. [When the person in charge is incompetent, competence is a wish. Millen was fired mid-season in 2008 but the Lions kept on losing.]

Change systems with regularity . Under Millen, coaches came and went, four in seven years. Excluding the interim coach, each brought in new offensive and defensive schemes. Consistency was further complicated with a succession of coordinator coaches, each with his own ideas about how to run plays. Just as players get a feel for the system, a new coach comes in and changes everything. Without consistency, people lose focus and direction.

Waste talent . The Lions have drafted high and have landed a few good players. One reason such players have little impact is because they are put into coaching schemes ill-suited to their talents. Good coaches put their players into positions where they can succeed. Just the opposite occurs with the Lions. More painfully, discipline is missing. Talented players have been allowed to loaf in practice (even in games), break team rules, and even get in trouble with the law with little or no consequence. When little is asked of employees, little will be delivered, or gained.

Hovering above all of these issues is the ownership . William Clay Ford, grandson of Henry, has owned the team since the early Sixties. You will not find a more genial or more loyal owner than Mr. Ford. He has invested in top-quality facilities, including a state of the art stadium in downtown Detroit. [Taxpayers were not asked to spend a dime.] The problem is that Ford is too nice; his loyalty in his staff overrides common sense. The lack of accountability within the Lions organization is tangible, and until accountability is truly instilled nothing ever will change. And that may be the ultimate leadership lesson. When an owner does not hold his people accountable, he renders his authority meaningless and how power useless.

No one likes to be laid off. It is a sickening feeling. Emotions range from a sense of loss to a sense of betrayal. Even when people know the reason they are being laid is economic rather than individual it hurts. It is wholly appropriate to feel the emotion of the moment, but then it will be time to move on.

Finding a new job is seldom easy and it is twice as hard in hard times like now. The older you are the harder it is. The greater your experience and your skill level the tougher it can be to find the right match.

Critical to finding a new job is preparation. Sometimes personal finances will dictate that you find something ( anything ) fast. This is likely not a good idea but it is a reality. However, before you jump into the job of your dreams or the job of last resort, consider what you can do to prepare yourself. Often it is a matter of focus. While it may be one of the most used buzz words in the business lexicon, focus does matter. And here are some ways to apply it.

Focus on your purpose. Consider what motivates you. Ask yourself what you enjoy doing best and why you enjoy it. Perhaps you like working the details; or you may like operating as a big picture thinker. Consider what makes you happiest and then consider what you want to do next. It may be the same job for a different company or a totally new job in a totally new company. Developing a short purpose statement, (what want to do and how you will do it) may be helpful for you.

Focus on what you can do. Consider your skill set. Often these are your competencies, that is what you do best. Those new to the workplace will be relying on their technical skills; experienced managers want to focus on how they have leveraged their skills to lead others.

Focus on your presence . Anyone looking for a job in senior management must have presence, that is, a sense of leadership that inspires confidence in others. Doing this in a job interview is not easy, but you can work on it so that you present yourself with a strong sense of self awareness as well as a sense of optimism and confidence.

Focus on your messages . Think about how you will answer questions about yourself and your career. Develop short “elevator style” messages about what you have accomplished as well as what you have learned. Be candid when asked about failures and shortcomings. Demonstrate what you have learned from these mistakes. Be clear and concise. Writing such messages out prior to interviewing may be helpful. You don’t read them aloud, but you can rehearse and polish.

Focus on you. Consider where you want to be in six months or a year or even further out. What do you want to be doing once you get past the rough patch? Envisioning your future should stem from your purpose statement. Be specific about what you want to do. Also think about the impact that you want to have on your next organization and the people with whom you will be working.

Sharpening your focus may also be useful for exiting your current job, or reflecting on what happened during your tenure. No matter how talented you are, there are always opportunities for improvement. Consider what you did well as well as well as what you could to better. Ask yourself what you learned from the experience and how you will apply those lessons to the future.

Yup getting sacked sucks but so often, and for so many people, it can be a doorway to a new job, a new career and whole new life. Focusing on the possibilities will help you make the right decision for you.