Super Bowl Leadership Lessons
Ken Blanchard has posted some Leadership Lessons from Super Bowl XLIV. He believes the underdog New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts 31-17, in large part, to the power of their purpose.
After the game Brees was quoted as saying, “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.”
Blanchard states, “Teams of all kinds, whether in the sports world, corporate America, or the non-profit sector, can take a lesson from the Saints and the power of purpose. When chartering a team, one of the first priorities is to establish a clear purpose. ‘Why do we exist?’ and ‘What are we trying to achieve?’ are key questions that need to be answered.”
Super Bowl XLIV was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New Orleans Saints and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Indianapolis Colts to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 2009 season. The Saints defeated the Colts by a score of 31–17, earning their first Super Bowl win. The game was played at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida for the fifth time (and in South Florida for the tenth time), on February 7, 2010, the latest calendar date for a Super Bowl yet.
This was the Saints’ first Super Bowl appearance and the fourth for the Colts franchise, their second appearance in four seasons. The Saints entered the game with a 13–3 record for the 2009 regular season, compared to the Colts’ 14–2 record. In the playoff games, both teams placed first in their respective conferences, marking the first time since Super Bowl XXVIII (16 years previously) that both number one seeds have reached the Super Bowl.