By Dr. Jack Welch
After only four games of the college football season, the words “hot seat” are already being used around the country. Having spent much of my life around college athletics, as a player, coach and administrator, I have learned that one of the hardest decisions a leader can make is determining when patience has run its course.
How long should you wait before making a change? There is no magic number of games, seasons or years. I have seen programs that needed time to rebuild. Recruiting takes time. Culture takes time. Developing young people takes time. Building a staff and earning trust takes time. Sometimes the right decision is to stay patient and allow a coach to finish the work they started.
However, patience can also become an excuse for avoiding a difficult decision.
I have watched situations where an administration genuinely likes its coach. The coach represents the institution well. The players like the coach. Academics may be strong. Discipline may be good. The relationship with the administration may be excellent.
Those things matter. However, winning matters, too. The question should not simply be, “Do we like our coach?” The better questions are: Is the program improving? Are players developing? Is recruiting getting better? Is the culture moving forward? Is there a clear plan? And most importantly, is there measurable evidence that the program is moving toward where it needs to be?
A coach can be a great person and still not be the right coach for a particular program at a particular time. I believe administrators should also ask themselves a difficult question:
If we were hiring for this position today, knowing what we know now, would we make the same decision?
That question forces us to evaluate the present rather than becoming attached to the past.
A four-game losing streak is not necessarily a crisis. Seasons of decline may be something entirely different. Leadership requires patience when patience is warranted and accountability when accountability is warranted.
In athletics, we tell our student-athletes that adversity reveals character. We tell them to evaluate, adjust and keep moving forward. Administrators have to do the same thing. Leadership is not about making the easiest decision. Sometimes it is about having the courage to make the difficult decision when the evidence tells you it is time.
Thought for the Week: “Patience is a virtue, but leadership also requires the courage to recognize when patience has become an excuse for inaction.” — Doc Shelby, Hall of Fame Running back at McMurry University.
Dr. Jack Welch serves as President of Fort Scott Community College. With a career spanning professional sports, public education, and rural community development, he brings a servant-leader mindset and a passion for building trust-driven cultures that empower people to thrive in the classroom, on the field, and in life. He is also the author of Foundations of Coaching: The Total Coaching Manual.