“I love leadership,” renowned basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski told attendees of the Global Leadership Summit (GLS) on Thursday (Aug. 8). “I’ve studied leadership my whole life.”
During his address, Krzyzewski shared leadership insights from his experiences as a coach, including his time leading a U.S. Olympic team whose roster included Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
Affectionately known as Coach K, Krzyzewski was head coach of Duke University’s men’s basketball team from 1980 to 2022 and led the team to five NCAA tournament championships. His overall college coaching record is 1,202–368.
In 2008, Krzyzewski coached the U.S.A. men’s team to a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics. In 2012, he repeated the team’s gold medal success at the London Olympics.
While Krzyzewski retired from his role as coach of the men’s basketball team in 2022, he remains a Professor of the Practice of Leadership at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke. He is also the co-founder of the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics, which is aimed at sharing “ideas that empower your leadership.”
Krzyzewski is a devout Catholic.
“I’m retired from coaching, but I’m not retired from learning about leadership,” Krzyzewski said. He went on to share what he called “the three As of leadership.”
“The first A is ‘agility,’” Krzyzewski said, “the agility to make a read when you’re a leader.”
He added, “A lot of leaders, they’re not agile. They stay only in their lane.”
“But agility in leadership is huge. You have more agility if you have the second A,” Krzyzewski said. “The second A is ‘adaptability.’”
RELATED: Ohio State Football Players Praised by Michigan Fans for Wearing Jesus Shirts to Fall Camp
Emphasizing that adaptability extends beyond leaders adopting the latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence, Krzyzewski said, “I think it’s being adaptable in communication.”
. “I’ve studied leadership my whole life.”){kind=link}