Leading with the heart book report - C.J Davis November...

C.J. Davis
November 14th, 2018
Coach Daniels
Leading With The Heart
Coach K’s book writes his book “Leading with the heart” by drawing on
experiences, and reflecting on his past to provide 200 plus pages of his leadership
philosophy. The book is broken down into four sections of a season of basketball. The
first section includes the Pre-season, this where organization, building the team,
establishing discipline and the beginning of leadership is taught. The next section is the
Regular-season, this is where teamwork, training/development, turning negatives into
positives are taught and games are played. Post-season is the next section the lessons
taught in here include, refresh/renew, handling crisis, focus, and celebrate tradition.
Blueprint basics, character, friendship and life are all taught in the final section of the
book All-season. Each section provides a piece to Coach K’s leadership philosophy, this
paper will discuss each section in order to demonstrate what makes Coach K so
successful.
Coach K states, ““My goal in preseason is to get to know my players and what
they can do. My total focus is finding out who we are and developing a personality on
our team” (Krzyzewski p.2). Coach K begins each season with a team meeting, so that
he can lay out the season ahead and express his goals for the team. He allows the the
players to express their goals as a way to start a stream of great communication.
Communication is one of the most important factors of Coach K’s leadership and an
item that will continue to come up throughout this essay. Coach K discusses rules with

his team during this meeting, he says at the end, “not do anything detrimental to
yourself” (p. 10). Furthermore he goes on to say not to do anything that is detrimental to
the team. He finishes his organizational meeting with his handshake technique. He
shakes each players hand and tells them he will give them his best and in return he
expects them to do the same. This leads into building the team. Coach K knows when a
team comes together they are a group of individuals, but in order to win they must
become a team. Coach K puts it on himself and the leaders on his team to motivate the
guys to play as a team. His goal is for each individual to learn and grow. One strength of
Coach K is his ability to create trusting and strong relationships. He does this through
great communication and reaching out to his players. These great relationships is what
makes it easy for the individuals to come together as a team. Coach K also believes
people on the team have to be given the opportunity to show the heart they possess
and to display what type of emotion they will show for their family. The family is the team
and he wants each player to play for their family. The one constant is the ability to do
your best and be the best you can be. The role of the leader is crucial in determining the
quality of the team, and setting the standard of excellence. Coach k discusses discipline