Leadership Moment: Switching Leaders
The New England Patriots ended their season, and within hours had terminated their first-year head coach, Jerod Mayo. Days later, they’d hired Mike Vrabel, the former head coach of the Tennessee Titans. While there are a lot of nuances to this transition, today we’ll simply focus on the dangers of setting up leaders to fail by overpromoting them.
Jerod Mayo had been the defensive coordinator of the Patriots in 2023. Several teams had been expressing interest in hiring him away. The Patriots had several poor seasons in a row, and moved quickly fire Bill Belichick and promote Jerod Mayo, preempting any conversations about Mayo leaving. But was Mayo ready?
Certainly, the Patriots 2024 record (4-13) suggests he wasn’t, although how much of that lies at the feet of the front office (the offensive line was notably problematic) and how much was the head coach’s learning pains is certainly up for debate. But a rookie head coach will generally have a steep learning curve, and literally no one expected a successful season.
But if Mayo was being tossed into a one-year crucible–survive or be gone–that’s more a failure of the hiring decision. There’s often a desire when an employer sees a person with high potential to act quickly and decisively. But if someone isn’t quite ready to succeed at that new level, the poor outcome isn’t going to be entirely their fault.
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