Robert Glazer said in his book Elevate:
Remember, great leaders don’t create followers. They create more leaders.
A great example of this is Nick Saban, head football coach at the University of Alabama. In his time at Alabama, 33 of his players have gone to the NFL in the first round. That’s incredible! Many of these players are now leaders on their respective teams, and much of it comes from Saban.
That’s the normal part, though. If you’re a good coach, your players will go to the NFL; there’s not really another avenue for success like that. In Saban’s case, though, you can look at the assistant coaches he’s had that he’s trained up and have now taken head coaching positions at other schools.
As far as I can tell, nine of his assistant coaches have gone to have head coaching positions at other schools. This includes big names like Kirby Smart (Georgia), Jeremy Pruitt (Tennessee), Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss) and Jimbo Fisher (Texas A&M).
Followers come with it
Having followers isn’t a bad thing, and Saban certainly has his share of followers in terms of students and fans. It’s more about what your goals are and how you treat the people around you, especially those on lower ladders at your job.
I hear people worry that if they invest too much training into their employees, those employees might leave for other jobs and that training would be “wasted”. That may be true, but the opposite would be to not train your employees and then they don’t leave — that would be even worse.
Work to build leaders from those around you, and everyone will benefit from the results.
