Leadership and Football: Don't let your team get Deflated; Peyton Manning's best Leadership wisdom

Don't let your team get Deflated

In a recent blog post, leadership expert Kevin Eikenberry shares four things that leaders often do (both intentionally and not) that "deflates the spirit, energy and engagement of their team members."

Parents/Educators: These are actions/habits that can have a 'deflating' effect at home or in the classroom as well.

The four common  things that leaders do to 'deflate' their team are:

1. Giving no Positive Feedback
2. Giving all Negative Feedback
3. Not Trusting your Team (or kids, students, friends, etc...)
4. Not Caring

Take three minutes and scroll through the article to learn how to avoid these leadership mistakes and maintain an inflated (inspired and motivated) team! 

Peyton Manning's Leadership Wisdom

In the midst of all that is happening in the NFL regarding deflated balls, other, more worthwhile news seems to have fallen somewhat between the cracks.

This article, for example, titled "7 Winning Leadership Ideas from Peyton Manning's Playbook."

The article outlines what, according to Peyton Manning, are 7 key skills that leaders in any field need to be obtain and work to develop. The article also does an awesome job of connecting the on-field examples that Peyton Manning gives to practical, real-life examples that are key to leaders.

Most notable skills (in my opinion)

• Learning to thrive on being uncomfortable. Needless to say, expanding your comfort zone is a must-do if you are seeking any significant growth, professional or personal.

• Finding a new way to do the old job. AKA: Innovation. Being adaptable and your ability to innovate is something that is of vital importance in today's exponential world. Things are moving fast and constantly changing with new tech disrupting so many industries. If you stop innovating, you fall behind. 

• Aligning your personal goals with team goals. In 2013, Peyton Manning didn't set out to break records. He set goals that he knew would help his team score more points and thus win more games. He focused on pass completion percentage and number of touchdown passes. As the old saying goes, there's no "i" in "team", but there is no "i" in "goal" either. 

Here's the link to the article: http://www.inc.com/ilan-mochari/peyton-manning-leadership.html 

Bonus Video

While looking for some funny photos criticizing deflategate, I found this hilarious video. Enjoy!

So what do you guys think of deflategate and the punishment handed out by the NFL? Leave your comments below!