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In retrospect, it wasn't really a fair fight. The Indianapolis Colts were only allowed 11 men on the field while the New Orleans Saints had 12 throughout the Super Bowl. 

It's rare when a team and its fans bond in the way that the Saints did with the people of the Gulf Coast. The result seemed truly magical. Sure, when the Saints won 31 - 17, there were the inevitable shots of Bourbon Street being flooded with celebrants. What put a lump in my throat and gave me a chill was when Rachel Nichols, a reporter for ESPN based in New Orleans for the Super Bowl, said that during the game the streets were absolutely deserted because everyone was inside watching the game. She said the only sound was when the Saints made a big play like recovering their onside kick at the beginning of the second half or when Saints cornerback Tracy Porter ran an interception 74 yards for a closing minutes touchdown that sealed the game. Nichols said at times like that she could literally feel and hear the cheers echoing throughout the city of New Orleans.

Like I said, it gave me chills.

When I woke up this morning, I was thinking about the game and the question that kept turning in my head was, "Who are you playing for?" In his post game press conference, Saints quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees answered that question:

"We played for so much more than just ourselves; we played for our city. We played for the entire Gulf Coast region. We played for the entire Who Dat nation that has been behind us every step of the way. What can I say? We've been blessed with so much. It's unbelievable... Four years ago, whoever thought this would be happening. 85 percent of the city was under water. People were evacuating to places all over the country. Most people left not knowing if New Orleans would ever come back, or if the organization would ever come back. Not only did the organization come back, the city came back and so many players, our core group of players that came in that year as free agents, we just all looked at one other and said, 'We are going to rebuild together. We are going to lean on each other.' That's what we've done the last four years and this is the culmination in all that belief."

So, hats off to Drew Brees and his Saints teammates who became a part of the city they won a championship for. Hats off to Saints head coach Sean Payton, who made the right calls in the game, but laid the foundation four years ago when he brought his team to the field of the Super Dome, showed them scenes of a Katrina-devastated New Orleans on the Jumbrotron and told them that they were playing for a community that needed healing and redemption. 

When you can define a purpose that's bigger than yourself or something as narrow and ephemeral as winning a championship, you create the conditions for something lasting to happen. The cliché in sports is that when you win a championship, they can't take that away from you. As the final seconds ticked away last night and Drew Brees took a knee to close the win, the people of New Orleans, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast got something that can never be taken away.

And now, as Mardi Gras starts early this year, to Saints fans everywhere, "Laissez les bon temps roulez!"  You've earned it.

Here's the latest installment of interviews I did with leaders on my recent visit to the USS Harry S Truman.  The featured officer this week is Captain John Meier, the XO of the Truman. As the number two leader on the ship, Meier is looking for three things in his leaders and they may not be what you'd expect.

From the flag bridge of the Truman, here's Captain Meier:

Lately, I've been working on a second edition of my book, The Next Level, to be released this Fall. It will still focus on what you need to pick up and let go of as you move into or up in executive leadership. The new edition will include situation-specific coaching tips, additional perspective from global business executives and advice targeted toward younger professionals who are in significant leadership roles. I've been conducting a lot of great interviews with leaders lately and had a particularly fun lunch with one of the younger ones last week, Frances Reimers, the communications and program manager for Sister Cities International.

In her Linked In profile, Frances describes herself as Dynamic Connector of People and Ideas. That is what you call truth in advertising. She is a woman who comes up with new ideas and makes them happen. As an example, check out this article from the Washington Post on her nonprofit, the Greater Washington Clothing Swap. I first met Frances last year when she was a manager at the ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership and I was a speaker there. She told me then that she had read my book and found a lot in it that applies to young professionals. I wanted to hear more so we had lunch last week to talk about it.

She had a lot of great observations and advice for young professionals moving into leadership positions.  I wanted to get some of them to you sooner rather than later, so here are a few of her tips. (By the way, I think these apply to leaders in any age cohort. Wisdom for all ages. Thank you Frances!)

Emotional intelligence is key.  As Frances told me, "You might think you're awesome, but if everyone else thinks you're obnoxious, that's a problem."

Practice two way communications.  Know what to say and what to leave up to the other person to ask.  Build those skills early in your leadership career.

Build your conflict resolution skills.  Frances points out that e-mail and texting technology has allowed a lot of people to avoid dealing with tough issues on a face to face basis. Conflict needs to be resolved through talking, not texting.

Look for mentors.  Frances says, "A lot of young professionals think a mentor is just going to land in their laps. It rarely happens that way.  You have mentors all around you. Look for role models and observe what they're doing."

Volunteer for leadership.  Seize whatever comes your way. Fill leadership roles outside of your 9 to 5 job. As Frances notes, "It expands your organization's reputation when you're out there involved in the community and it makes you feel great."

Manage up.  Frances speaks the truth when she says, "You're not going to get an awesome manager in every job. Sometimes you're going to get managers who absolutely stink and don't deserve to be there."  Her advice for when you do? Step back and observe what motivates them and how they want to be communicated with. You have to adapt to them. If that doesn't work, you have to know when to leave.

Embrace failure.  Everybody fails from time to time. Frances has this advice for when you do. "When you accept it, she says, you get over it much faster. People don't judge you when you fail. They judge you on how fast you get up and back into the race."

Which of the leadership tips from Frances hit home with you? What would you add to the list?  Are there other key things that younger leaders need to keep in mind? Anything that applies solely to younger leaders?

Early last week, my 10th grade son asked my wife and me for ideas on a speech he has to write for his composition class. The assignment is to write a speech that fills in the blank on, "I have a dream that..."  After thinking about it for a few moments, my suggestion was "I have a dream that our political leaders will actually work together for the good of the country rather than always positioning themselves for their next election."  He liked that idea and is writing the speech. (Every so often, you come up with an idea that your teenager thinks is a good one. Savor those moments.)

>So, I have to say that I saw a glimmer of my dream late last week when I watched the highlights of President Obama and House Republicans having a spirited, substantive and civil conversation about the issues of the day on live television. The setting was a House Republican conference in Baltimore. For the most part, both the President and the Members of Congress were impressive. The Republicans asked tough questions in a firm but civil tone. The President listened and usually answered multi-part questions point by point. 

The following 3:00 minute clip from C-SPAN via You Tube is pretty representative of the entire 82 minute meeting.

I don't know about you, but I'd like to see more of this in the future. You may say I'm a dreamer, but more televised sessions like this in which everyone feels compelled to act like grown-ups because they're on live TV might be what we need to raise the level of discourse and problem solving.

In the meantime, I think there are a few specific things that leaders can learn from how both the President and the Members handled themselves. It's a fairly common occurrence for leaders in organizations to have the need to address a skeptical audience. To get some good ideas on how to handle it, watch some excerpts from the entire event and look for the following:

Setting the tone:  Because of the role they're in, senior leaders almost always have the opportunity to set the tone for the meeting.  If the leader shows up as calm and thoughtful, the audience is more likely to show up as calm and thoughtful.

Doing your homework:  If you're going to take questions from a skeptical audience, you need to be ready with your take on the facts and know what points you want to get across.  An open meeting on important issues is not the time to wing it.

Listening with your whole body:  Your facial expressions, your head nods, your focus on the speaker and how you position your body toward the speaker all work together to convey how much you're listening.  If you show the right mix, you don't just hear the question, you convey respect for the speaker.

Being tough on the issues, soft on the people:  You can make your points and hold firm to your conviction without taking tough questions personally or making the questioner into a "bad guy."  The old line about we can disagree without being disagreeable matters a lot. When, like the President and the Congress are, you're going to be working together for a long period of time, it's important to treat each other well if you actually want to get anything done.

Showing up: You can't have the conversation if you don't show up. Kudos to the Republican leadership for inviting the President and kudos to him for showing up.  Kudos to both for engaging in the way that they did.  It's nice to have our leaders show up as role models for the rest of us.  Please do more of that!

If you had a chance to watch some or all of the President's conversations with the House Republicans, what were your takeaways?  Any leadership lessons for you in the exchange?

Leaders have to walk a fine line. On the one hand, it's important to leverage the footprint of the role that you're in. As I said in a webinar on leading at the next level for Government Executive magazine yesterday, there are certain things that only you can do given the leadership role that you're in. That brings us to "on the other hand."  On the other hand, as you leverage that leadership footprint, it's really important to remember that much of your capacity to get things done flows from the role and not because you're God's gift to leadership.

This lesson was powerfully brought home to me about 10 years ago when I announced I was leaving my corporate vice president's job in a month to start my coaching business. I was amazed at how quickly my calendar went from being jammed to being able to drive a truck through the white space. Same thing with my e-mail inbox and my voice mail. Empty and empty. Once people knew I was leaving, they moved on to life after Scott.

I read a funny story that illustrates the same dynamic in Al Kamen's In the Loop column in the Washington Post this morning. As a follow up to the State of the Union address this week, Kamen was writing about the tradition of one cabinet member leaving Washington to ensure continuity of government in case disaster strikes during the speech. He shared this story about former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman who was the designated out of towner during the 1997 State of the Union:

For the 1997 speech, then-Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman headed up to New York for dinner with his daughter in Manhattan. He flew on a small Air Force jet with a security detail, the "suitcase," and a doctor, he recalled Thursday. He was taken in a small motorcade to his daughter's apartment building.

The detail stayed downstairs while Glickman watched the speech. As soon as it was over, they called up and told him, "The mission is terminated." They took off and left Glickman and his daughter, unable to hail a cab, to walk 12 blocks to dinner in the pouring rain. "Ah, the fleeting limits of power," he observed.

Great story, huh? Leaders need to protect themselves and the people they lead by keeping their egos in check. Sometimes, like I did or Dan Glickman did, you'll get a cosmic reminder to do so. A lot of the time you won't. So, as a public service to leaders walking that fine line between leveraging the footprint of their role and not letting their ego run away with them, I offer three mantras to regularly repeat to oneself:

• It's not about me, it's about the role. It's not about me, it's about the role.
• The fun stuff that comes with my job doesn't belong to me. The fun stuff that comes with my job doesn't belong to me.
• This, too, shall pass. This, too, shall pass.

For best effect, spend at least five minutes a day with your eyes closed repeating one of the mantras over and over again to yourself. It's probably best that you do this in private. People get nervous when they see leaders talking to themselves.

What mantras do you use to keep yourself grounded?

As promised, over the next several Thursdays I'll be sharing interviews with some of the commissioned and enlisted personnel I met on my recent trip to the aircraft carrier, USS Harry S Truman. The basic question I asked everyone was, "What are you looking for in a leader?"  First up with his answer to that question is the commanding officer of the Truman, Captain Joe Clarkson. If you're looking for insights into how the top leader of a complex operation approaches his job, listen to what Captain Clarkson has to say.

(By the way, the plane launching from the deck in the opening segment is an E-2 Hawkeye.)

Over my ten years as an executive coach, I've come across situations where one of my clients feels like they're between a rock and a hard place because they have someone on their team who produces great results but alienates everyone around them. You know the type. It's what we've come to call the prima donna. According to Wikipedia, the term comes from the world of Italian opera where the prima donna is the "first lady" - usually the leading soprano in the company with a reputation for arrogance, ego and irritability that makes them a real pain to deal with. These days the term has become gender neutral. Males can be prima donnas too. (American Idol's Simon Cowell is the first male example that comes to mind.)

The prima donna dilemma has been on my radar screen a few times in the last year.  These situations usually have some common characteristics. The prima donna is talented in his domain and selectively builds relationships with a few key people who can help him accomplish what he's trying to do. Meanwhile, he treats his teammates poorly and, as he puts more and more points on the board, starts making demands of the boss that have the whiff of extortion. You probably have seen how this plays out.  "If I don't get the promotion, the raise, the big account, the glamorous assignment or whatever, I'll take my services elsewhere and you'll be left high and dry."  He'll usually make this move a few weeks or days before a critical meeting with a customer or in the midst of an important project where he's  a player. Every time he gets what he wants it becomes fuel for a cycle of escalating demands down the road.

So, if you're a leader with a prima donna on your team who keeps playing this game, what do you do?  It's simple. Bite the bullet and fire them. Here are three reasons why you should:

1.    You'll get more from the rest of your team. Prima donnas are productivity and morale killers.  When they're playing their game, everyone around them is miserable, resentful and spending most of their energy griping about the prima donna. Take the diva (or divo as the case may be) out of the picture and everyone else is able to get on with the real work. As a leader, you'll likely be pleasantly surprised by how much more creative the rest of your team is when they get to breathe some of the oxygen the prima donna was sucking out of the room.

2.    You'll send the right message.  While it feels a little strange to quote Karl Marx in a leadership blog, curing a prima donna situation is one in which the good of the many outweigh the good of the few.  By getting rid of the prima donna, you send the message that the health and welfare of the team is more important than the ego needs of any one individual. Most people are motivated by being a part of something that's bigger than themselves. You can't create the conditions for that to happen when one person is demanding all of the spotlight.

3.    You'll save yourself headaches in the future.  If you've had a prima donna on your team, you know that once the pattern of "give me more" is established, it rarely ends. As tough as it can be to let go of someone who is getting results at a critical time, you've got to do it and look at it as an investment in the long term success of your team. The analogy I make is to removing a band aid from your arm. You know that the adhesive backing on the band aid is going to pull some hairs out of your arm when you remove it.  You can just rip it off or peel it off bit by bit. Either way, it's going to hurt. You might as well rip it off and get it over with. It's the same thing with firing someone who's established a history of being a long term source of heartburn and headaches. Get it over with.

OK, all of you leaders out there, let's hear your stories on how you've handled the prima donna situations in your career.  What have you learned that the rest of us can benefit from?  What have I overlooked with my advice here?

Last October, I had the opportunity to speak on leadership to newly promoted admirals and senior executives of the US Navy in their annual symposium. That led to an invitation to join a group of civilians to visit the aircraft carrier, USS Harry S Truman, on a training cruise off the coast of North Carolina last week. As you can see from the photo to the left, I made the trip. (That's your faithful correspondent, front row, fifth from the left.)

I'm not going to lie to you. I was pretty excited to go on the trip since we'd be making an arrested landing on arrival (in a C-2 Greyhound transport plane) and leaving the ship a day later via a catapult assisted launch. As much as I love Disneyworld, they've got a ways to go before they come up with a ride that's as exciting as going from 150 knots to 0 in three seconds on landing or from 0 to 150 when you take off. It was a very cool experience, but I have to say was not even close to being the best part of the trip. The best part was the opportunity to see several thousand men and women of an average age of 24 working together to do amazing things on a round the clock basis. Over the years, I've watched hours and  hours of film on the Navy and thought I had some appreciation for what they do. Last week I learned that there is no substitute for seeing it in real life.

I shot about three hours of video on the Truman and have a lot of great interviews from the sailors about what they look for in a leader that I'll share with you on Thursdays over the next several weeks. In the meantime, I've put together this 3:00 minute highlight video to give you a taste of life on the ship.

Also,  I wanted to share some of the big leadership lessons I learned while aboard the Truman.

People Can Handle More Than You Think:  If you ever have the opportunity to hire someone who worked in an operations role on a carrier, hire them. They probably had more responsibility for life and death situations at age 19 or 20 than most of us will ever have in our lives. In spite of great systems design, an aircraft carrier is an extremely dangerous operating environment. What makes it safe are the people working there.  Most of them are really young. In talking with them and watching them, I was consistently impressed with their knowledge, pride and capability in their work. I kept asking myself, "How does someone learn and take on this much by the time they are 20?"  I would hire anyone I met on the Truman.

Systems and Processes Matter:  It takes a synchronized effort among hundreds of people on at least four different decks and eight locations to land or launch a jet or plane every 45 seconds in a 4.5 acre space for hours at a time. The only way it can work is if the roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and the systems and processes are set up for the different components to work seamlessly together. Watching the crew of the Truman in action really brought home the value of clear operating protocols for me. Just about any organization could benefit from investing time in defining roles and processes and making the effort to follow through on them.

Motivation is Adrenaline: The people on the Truman work long hours (12 to 18 hour shifts) in arduous conditions (noisy, confined and sometimes smelly spaces that require a constant focus on safety). And yet everyone we met or encountered (which was well into the hundreds of people) was motivated, energetic, courteous and, for the most part, seemed to be having fun. I think the leadership and the systems on the ship encourage motivation in much the way that Dan Pink outlines in his new book, Drive. Each crew member of the Truman has varying degrees of three factors that add up to motivation: Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more from my trip to the Truman. There are some great leadership lessons coming up.

As I'm writing this a few days before publication, by the time you read this Conan O'Brien will have probably left The Tonight Show on NBC with a hefty severance package in the neighborhood of $30 million. (See this article from the Financial Times for details.)  I'd leave for that amount and I'm guessing you would too. While it's unlikely that any of us are going to have the opportunity to negotiate for such a lovely parting gift, there is a lot you can learn from how Conan handled his exit. 

As I said in my video book club post on Bargaining for Advantage, life is essentially a series of one negotiation after another. Some are high stakes, some are low but anytime you're trying to reach an agreement with a co-worker, your boss, your spouse or your kids, you're negotiating. (Why do I hear the voice of William Shatner in my head right now?)  In setting up the deal he's getting from NBC, Conan demonstrated three basic approaches that all negotiators should keep in mind:

Know your strategy:  Are you most concerned with getting a particular result, maintaining a relationship or somewhere between the two? Your answer will determine your strategy. Depending on where you are in the process, your strategy can shift. For years, Conan was concerned with maintaining his relationship with NBC so he could eventually get his dream job of Tonight Show host. In those years, he had a strategy of accommodating NBC's desires so he could be positioned to win the grand prize. When NBC wanted him to move the start time of his show to 12:05 am to accommodate the return of Jay Leno to the 11:35 slot, he'd had enough. At that point, he quit caring about his relationship with NBC and shifted to a competitive strategy to get the result of the biggest possible severance (and plenty of publicity to set him up for his next job).

Create leverage:  Once he switched to a competitive strategy, O'Brien created a lot of leverage over NBC by releasing a public statement outlining why he would not move the Show to 12:05 am and making a lot of jokes at the expense of network execs. He moved to seize the high ground and create a groundswell of public support. Fueled by social media, NBC was quickly behind the eight ball with a lot of fans who were angry at the way Conan was being treated. The leverage O'Brien created compelled NBC to make a lucrative deal to make the whole problem go away.

Know your BATNA:  BATNA stands for best alternative to a negotiated agreement. In other words, you need to know your walk away point and what you want to walk away. O'Brien's BATNA point was a shift out of the 11:35 pm slot. Since he was clear on that with himself, he knew when it was time to change his strategy and create the leverage.

What else do leaders need to keep in mind when they're negotiating? If you've been paying attention to the Conan/Jay drama, what's your take on how they've handled their negotiations? Any lessons to be learned that apply to those of us who don't have TV shows?

One of the most fun aspects of my work as an executive coach is the opportunity to work in a lot of different organizations. I enjoy observing what's different and similar in the various cultures. One thing that's more or less the same everywhere is that most people profess a distaste for "politics."  The only problem with that is that there is always politics and if you're going to make a difference, you have to successfully deal with it. When you get down to it, politics is about influencing people to do something. If you're a leader, you're doing that every day, all day long.

Another thing I like is elections. One of the reasons I like elections is that on a given day the outcome of all the politics becomes crystal clear. Someone wins and someone loses. There's usually a lot more ambiguity in organizational politics.

So, this week in Massachusetts, we had a crystal clear political outcome when Republican state senator Scott Brown roared out of nowhere to beat the Democrat state attorney general Martha Coakley to win the US Senate seat that had been held for 46 years by the late Ted Kennedy. Just a month ago, Coakley was the overwhelming favorite to win the race.  In the last ten days, Brown closed the gap and ended up with a decisive win of 52% to 47% of the votes. 

Brown influenced more people to vote for him than Coakley did for her. How did he pull victory from the jaws of defeat? How did she do the opposite? What can leaders who need to influence people day in and day out learn from these two?  Here are three lessons from each:

How to Pull Defeat from the Jaws of Victory -

Assume Entitlement: Coakley's approach to the campaign suggested that, as the Democratic candidate, she viewed herself as the heir apparent to Ted Kennedy.  Far from answering the question, "What have you done for me lately?," she didn't really answer a more basic question, "What are you going to do?"  Leaders who want to influence people have to consistently do the work that matters to people.  Memories are short.  You have to work and keep working.

Phone It In: Coakley literally went on a vacation during the campaign. As Kathleen Parker notes in her latest column, Coakley asked if she was really expected to stand outside Fenway Park in the freezing cold to shake hands with voters. If you want to influence people, you have to demonstrate that you're a leader who doesn't just do the basics. You need to show that you enjoy doing the basics.

Disconnect: If you're campaigning in Massachusetts, you don't, as Coakley did, suggest that former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling is secretly a Yankees fan. Effective leaders establish a genuine connection with the people they lead. That includes striking the right notes on seemingly inconsequential things like what they're passionate about outside of their work life.

How to Pull Victory from the Jaws of Defeat -

Pay Attention: Brown tapped into the independent voters' concern and discontent with what they view as a continuation of the same old, same old in Washington. He said he was running for the people's seat, not Ted Kennedy's seat. Leaders who influence pay attention to and work with what people are most concerned about.

"Work the Room": You could argue that it was optics, but Brown "worked the room," very effectively.  He drove himself around the state to campaign in an old pickup truck with 200,000 miles on it.  He wore a work jacket.  He spoke in plain language. By doing all of that, he established an emotional connection with the people he was trying to influence. Whatever your "room" is as a leader, if you want to influence people to your position, you have to work it in a way that connects with them.

Have a Message: Brown tapped into the majority's opposition to the health care reform bill by referring to himself as 41. His point was that he would be the 41st vote in the Senate against the bill thereby breaking the 60 vote supermajority the Democrats needed to push it through. That is some simple, memorable and highly effective messaging. If you want to influence people as a leader, you have to have a message that resonates and is easy for people to get their mind around.

What's your take? How do you navigate the political environment of your organization? What do you do to influence others while staying true to your values?