Leadership Lessons with New England Patriots Head Coach Jerod Mayo

Leadership Lessons I've always believed that leaders are not anointed by titles or responsibilities or tenure— but instead are those who bring energy, focus, and compassion to everything they do. So, I have decided to put a spotlight on those who are using their unique leadership style to inspire change and drive meaningful action. Join me for a series of powerful conversations that will leave us all thinking about what it means to truly lead. Jerod Mayo Our next guest is a current head football coach and former linebacker known for his leadership both on and off the field. Jerod Mayo began his career in 2008. He quickly made a name for himself as one of the best in the league— a complete powerhouse who led the team in total tackles season after season. In his eight years with the franchise, Jerod racked up countless accolades as Defensive Rookie of the Year and a two-time Pro Bowler. But it's his natural ability to motivate and inspire his teammates that set him apart, and led to an impressive seven-season run as team captain. Those same qualities as a leader led him to join the Patriots coaching staff in 2019, and he now serves as the 15th head coach in their history and their very first Black head coach. Join me as I sit down with Jerod to learn about his journey toward leading one of the greatest dynasties of all time. Coach Mayo, great to meet you. Thank you for being here, and it's my pleasure having you on the show today. So, I noticed—and I think all the listeners out there are going to really appreciate this— but every stage of your career you've exhibited leadership. So, all the advice you're going to give, anything you can offer, is going to be great for our audience. So, thank you again. I appreciate you having me. Mindset & shifting culture For a lot of us, including myself, who have come in throughout our career— we take over new positions. We take over- we're asked to take over a new business, a new organization. It comes with a new team, and they have done things a certain way in the past, and you're in that position now. What's your mindset walking in when you come into an organization, and you try to move them along and follow your vision and get followership? It's a little different for me because I was pretty much raised here. I was drafted here in 2008, and then I left for three years when I retired, and I came back into this coaching role. I would say, the difficult part— it's easy to sit here and say like, “The culture is broken.” I would say, sometimes when people talk about culture, it's almost like a retrospective way of validating success or failure. Right. “This team wins a lot— they must have a great culture,” which is not always necessarily true. Or, “This team loses a lot— they must have a terrible culture,” which is not necessarily true. We always talk about a shared vision. It's one thing for me to get up there and say, “We want to be a tough, smart, dependable football team,” but I want the players, the guys who cross the white lines, to also have some input in the vision. And I think that's important because now they have stock in the team, and when things get hard, they remember the things that we talked about on day one. And so, going back to your original question, “How do you change culture?” I think the first thing is getting the right people there. Right? And so, we brought in 17 new coaches, and just through that- the culture has started to shift. When you talk about shifting culture as well— I'm just telling you, it’s like trying to turn the Titanic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you have people here—“This is how we used to do it.” And those people, either they get on board or not. And I think as a leader, you have to really set the north star. And then also, going back to the vision piece of it: most people can't see the vision. That's why it's a vision, right? It's like right here in your head and being able to clearly articulate your vision and get buy-in from the coaches, and then the coaches get buy-in from the players, then you're kind of- you're on the right track. So, that's how I kind of look at culture and establishing the vision for our team. Yeah. How being a player impacted Jerod’s coaching And you mentioned there that you grew up here and you were a player here and you had tremendous success here and were captain for the team. So, when you were a player, what are two or the three things you learned from that experience that made you a better coach and made you a great coach later on? As a player, coach used to always talk about, “Players win games and coaches lose games.” And I truly believe that. And you try to empower the players as much as possible. So, the tool belt that we talked about when I was a player, I still use now for the coaches and also the players. I tell them, “Here's a canvas. I don't care what picture you paint on the canvas, just stay on the canvas.” And that's just a couple of things that I've learned from being a player where Matt Patricia, and Bill will give me the freedom out there on the field— I'm trying to do the same thing with our coaches. Give them the freedom. They are experts in their space, and I always tell them, “It's your expertise. If you're the receivers’ coach, that's your- you should know that group inside and out— even better than myself.” So, when I think about leadership— I know you didn't ask about this— but when I think about leadership, it's more bottom-up leadership. It's more servant leadership. And even this morning with the coaches, we had a 20-minute discussion on like, “I'm here to support you guys, and if I understand what you're trying to get out of this job and out of life, I can help you get there.” And so, my job as a head coach is to develop and help my coaches get to the point where they want to be. And hopefully you have enough employees that are trying to develop at the same time. So, if you lose coaches when they get promoted, you just slide another guy right in. And that's pretty much been my- Yeah. And you literally cannot do everything, and you cannot run every position. You got to rely on your team as you develop them, to excel and to do well in their particular job as a team. And I talk about collaboration all the time. It's all about getting in a room— and you won't always agree— but when we get out of that room, let's make sure we're all going in the same direction. All right, so just a little bit of a follow-up question Advice to younger self as a player to that—and kind of an interesting one— because I always look back at when I was younger. So, you as a coach, what advice would you give your younger self as a player, knowing what you know now, and just- how would you adapt, and do things differently? The only thing I would say is to enjoy the moment and to be present. Sometimes when you're a player, you're just all over the place. You're looking in the past, You're looking in the future, and you don't really enjoy the journey. You enjoy the championships and you enjoy the winning, but you don't really appreciate the process. So, that's what I would tell my younger self. Yeah, yeah. Good advice. Developing leadership qualities In your second year, your teammates voted you a captain— which is just a little scary for me to walk in. But how did you win over- some of these people who are voting for you have been in the league five, ten years, and how did they see— obviously you were a great player—but, how did they see the leadership qualities where they say, “Look, we're going to- we're going to vote him in as a captain.” When I was drafted to New England the year prior, they won every game but one— and that was the Super Bowl. Yeah. So, I knew I was going into an organization where the best thing for me would be to be a sponge and try to learn from Tom Brady, Randy Moss, Vince Wilfork, Richard Seymour—all those guys. And that's what I did. Also as a rookie—look, when Bill was here, he was a hard-nosed kind of guy. And the veterans— this is back when two-a-days were still going on— and the veterans would come up to me as the first-round draft pick and say, “Hey, rookie, go in there and ask Bill, “Can we get out of pads—out of full pads?” And so for me, I got grew up where my mom—she would always say, “If the worst thing a person can say is ‘no,’ then go ask.” I would walk in his office, and he'd be sitting there—he's a one-finger typer; pencil in the ear. And I'd say, “Coach, the guys are kind of worn down, and they're tired.” And 70% of the time, he'd be like, ”I don't care. Go back in the locker room.” But the 30% of the time that he would say, “You know what, Jerod, you're right.” And I would go back and deliver the news to the rest of the guys. The guys—they would literally like, pick me up, put me on their shoulders—just so excited. But for me, it was more about thinking about the guys. Right. I was going into the lion's den for them. As a representative. As a representative, and I think that carried over into my second year when I was voted captain. Yeah, that's great. I don't know if I would have walked in there, but good for you. Diversity You've talked- and I've seen other interviews where you've talked what it means to serve as the first Black head coach in Patriots’ history. In fact, you're one of the most diverse classes of coaches here in the league, and we have to keep progressing at that. I know that, for sure. But how do you think that group, you included, can really change the league? Or what will you bring to- what would you guys bring to the league? For me, I just want to be recognized as a great coach before anything else. I'm a man. I would say oftentimes when—whether we're talking corporate America or even here in football, in sports— when they talk about diversity, it's usually just Black and white. Yeah. And to me, as we put the staff together, it was important for me to hire good coaches that are competent, but I also wanted to bring in people who thought differently. So, diversity of thought, diversity of age, diversity of experience— there are so many different ways- so many different ways to really categorize diversity, and that's how I look at it. In saying that, I do understand my role here as being the first Black head coach. But once again, we've had a coach here for a very long time, and the turnover. But it's an exciting opportunity, and I don't take that lightly. Yeah. Adapting to new generations So, this one— I'm speaking from a little bit of experience here because we just had 2,000 people join our company this week. Okay. Yep. I notice every generation that comes in— they're shaped by their surroundings, they're shaped by what's going around. How do you relate to that? How do you sort of adapt as a coach to that? I mean, you talked a lot about communication and development. Is that- how do you reach out and make sure you're getting them, as you said before, to buy into your vision and connect? You have to be agile in your thinking as a leader. I would say most of the time—you have mental agility. Everyone always talks about empathy and all that stuff, but really I look at it as mental agility, and that's just being able to adapt and change. And when you think about it, the opposite of agility is what? It’s rigidity. Right. And oftentimes, older coaches—older people in general— they're so rigid in their thinking because that's the way they've always done it, and I think that could get you in a lot of trouble- Sure. doing that. You're bringing in thousands of men and women who- they're ambitious, they have goals, they have dreams, and you just have to figure out, “What lever do I pull to get this group going the right way?” And we talked about the vision and north star— you absolutely have to do that. But as you work your way down or work your way up— you know, bottom-up leadership— you just have to make sure that you empower that next level and then really show that you care about those people as individuals. Now, going back to the motivators— everyone- you have intrinsic motivators and you have extrinsic motivators. All you wanted to do back then was for Bill to say, “Good job.” Yeah. Right? That was the intrinsic motivator. Once a month, maybe. Yeah. Exactly! And he was so- he wouldn't- we call them “attaboys.” He wouldn't pat you on the back unless you went above and beyond. He wouldn't pat you on your back for doing your job. I mean, you're just doing your job. But if you went above and beyond, he’d be like, “Hey, that's a good play, Mayo.” And it would just- it would bring a feeling of just- Yeah, motivated. Let's go. And then other people, they're motivated extrinsically. And so, that's money, that's the stock options, like all those things. And so, I think it's important especially with your- let’s call them emerging leaders, some people say second-tier— but let's call them emerging leaders, it's important that they understand that as they start to onboard this younger generation. Yeah, and let's follow up on that, because there's no two people that are the same, right? People management They're all different— different backgrounds, come from different places, you know you have to reach somebody in a different way, and how do you manage that type of conflict? Yeah. I think Jimmy Johnson said this. He said, “You can't treat everyone the same, but you want to treat everyone fair.” Right. If Tom Brady is 20 minutes late to a meeting, you're not going to say, “Tom, get out of here. You're done.” Right? And at the same time, if you have a rookie that's late to a meeting, you may try to send a message to him early on. And I just think if we operate in a fair sense, then everything will kind of work itself out. Yeah. Yeah, right. Let me switch gears for a second, Preparation and I'm going to think this one is right up your alley. I always say preparation for me is key. I've got to prepare, prepare, prepare. And then when I get in the market with customers, we can perform as a business. And I think in your profession, more than ever, people don't see the preparation that goes into it every single week. And you've mentioned before you've got that detailed kind of mindset. Just give a little sense— how much do you prepare for a week and then how do you do it and how do you look at that? Yeah, it's interesting you bring that up because my thought process around that has kind of changed a little bit. I think it is important to prepare, and you can probably pull out a couple of business examples from the example I'm going to give you on the football field now. So, every team, every offense, for the most part— they script their first 15 plays. And so, when I say that—they have their first 15 plays, how they're going to call it: beginning of the game and beginning of the second half. And so you can watch all the film you want to on the last, let's say four games, or how they played you before and try to predict. But at the same time, we have to realize that we are predicting. And so for me, when I talk to the players, it's about awareness because once you're on the field, I can't help you. And so, where's the quarterback? Is he in the shotgun? Is he under center? Where's the tight end? Where is their best receiver located? You have to know that. Exactly. What's the down and distance? And so, really over the last couple of years, I've been preaching just overall awareness. When I worked in business—alright, here's a perfect example— I worked at UnitedHealth Group. And so, my first year, I was like an executive in residence, really just kind of bounced around the organization trying to learn about healthcare. And then when I finally got to sales— I started in strategy, went to financial services, all that stuff—and I finally got to sales, I remember very vividly walking into a meeting. I was leading this meeting, the first time I'm going to lead this sales meeting, and I had been studying all week—bam, bam, bam. And so, my mentor— he was my boss at the time, too, Mike Matteo— we went to this company, to sell total population health management. I thought I knew everything. And so I'm in there. Everything's flowing. Everything's going smooth, and it was like 30 minutes into my presentation and one of the guys asked me a question that I did not prepare for. Just like derailed you a little bit. Right. Derailed my presentation. And I just remember looking over at my manager who was with me, my mentor, and he came in, and he was just- he was so prepared, but at the same time, he understood the full picture. Right. And so, we can sit here and give people rules like, “Here you go. Here are all these rules.” But when you're in the game or when you're at that sales meeting, there could be something that's going to come out of left field, right field. And this is why I always talk about being aware and having a heavy tool belt. You need to be able to pull these different tools out. You can walk into a meeting and something come out of left field and you have to be able to handle that. Yeah, you've got to think on your feet. That’s right. You got to think on your feet. With all that information- That's right. -to get the best possible answer. That's right. But, even with that information at your hands, you can't just pull your phone out, right? Same thing on the field. You have all this information. And oftentimes, I would say coaches in general— they would have you watch so many hours of film. This is how I grew up. They would have you watched so many hours of film, and it was almost—as the employee or the player— it was almost like the coach was just making me watch film so he can say, “Hey! I showed you that clip on Wednesday,” even though I watched 5,000 clips. Yeah. I can do training all day long. Until I get into the situation and apply it- That’s right. it just never sinks in. That's right. I have to do before—I'm assuming it’s sort of some of the same way. You got to do the prep on the film, but you got to get on the field and practice it at some point— see what it looks like. I agree. There's always this sort of pressure, of course, to succeed in the short term. But you know you're trying to build for the long term and do the right things. But how, when it doesn't, Goals how do you manage that conflict and shut out the noise? It's like, “Look, yeah I know I get to perform in the short term, but I've also got this long-term goal. I'm building something. I've got to- going back to that vision thing, and I want to put those in place.” And how do you shut out all the outside forces so you can get that done? Yeah, to me, you're running in a race, but you don't know where the finish line is. You always have short-term goals. In our profession, just know you're going to be evaluated or critiqued on all of of those short-term goals. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But- as we build this team, my main focus, my north star, is the long term. And of course, you have things along- like, look at this football field out here. We have our touchdowns, right? We have our touchdowns here, but we've got to gain ten yards before we can get a hundred yards. Right, right, right, right. What steps do we have to take? What short-term goals do we have to meet to get us to the end? To get us to the touchdown? So, it is a balance. And look, as a leader, everyone's not going to like you. Yeah. And, that's okay. Everyone's not going to like you in the building, and everyone's not going to like you outside of the building. Yeah, I pretend they like me, but I know they don't. Yeah. Yeah. But at the same time, through relationships, we still need to- It's an honest- It’s an honest exchange. We still need to make sure that we're going in the same direction. We both can win. Yeah. Once you start to get teams thinking like that, that we all can win, that's where now— going back to the long-term goals— you'll have that sustained success. Right, right, right. Excellent. Going into business And you mentioned- I know after you retired as a player, and you went into the business world and were very successful. But what were some of the things you as a player brought into the business world you thought helped you? Right? And then, maybe vice versa— what are some of the things you learned in the business world that came out and you sort of still keep as a mindset as a coach? I just think that competitiveness— and I would always hire athletes, honestly— athletes that played at a high level. It's about competitive- like, you have to be a competitor. You have to be a competitor in the boardroom. You have to be a competitor out here on the field. Right? And, I would say one thing I took from working in the business world— look, it's no secret, football is a male-dominated sport, whether we're talking about, well, obviously the players, but staffs and coaches and things like that. And so, what I did learn was just how to effectively communicate with a person who has 30 years of experience in healthcare. How to properly communicate with this 30-year-old white woman or this— because you don't have that here in football. And so, just being able to have these different conversations with different people and different backgrounds, that definitely has helped me. Now, here at New England, I'm trying- I'm bringing in people like that. I'm going to bring in the older person. I'm going to bring in a person that may not be a football person. Right. And it's truly helped me. That’s awesome. Advice for aspiring leaders Aspiring leaders, people that are growing up or people that are moving through the ranks— what is sort of the best advice you can give them as they try to make that progression? Yeah, I would say- I'm stealing this from General McChrystal. I love their read on leaders. Yeah, yeah. It doesn’t always have to be football or on the battlefield. It could be an elementary teacher. I always trying to take little things. One thing I would say that General McChrystal talks about, like historically, people always thought about leadership as, “All right, we're playing chess and I'm just moving chess pieces on a board.” And I talked about this at my presser as well. To me, leadership is really like a gardener. Gardeners really don't grow anything. They put the seeds on good soil, right? They water it, they take the weeds out, and whatever grows, grows. It's more of a, “Let them go through experiences. Let them go through the struggles because that's where you're going to learn the most.” I would also say, like even now, our coaches out there on the field— like I said, we brought in 17 new coaches— they're trying to make an impression too. So, at the same— so the guys that are on the field— someone's messed up, and the coaches are yelling from the sideline, “Hey, widen out! Widen out!” It's like, “No, let this guy fail right now.” Right, and he'll learn. That’s right. Because the only time that ever was effective was during the Covid season where there were no fans in the stands. Right? I'm like, “Back up!” You can't do that. You can't do that out there on the field. I would also say, give people- if you want your muscles to grow, you're going to have to get in a weight room. You're going to have to strain, and it's going to hurt. You already know that delayed onset soreness. Right, right. And so, the next couple days you're going to be sore. But if you stay in this comfortable place: “I'm always just going to curl 20 pounds,” you're not going to get better for the long term. And so those are just a couple of things that I would say that leaders really need to focus on. Outro Well, I love it. Thank you. And thanks so much for joining us, and I know your time’s tight. Good luck. Best of luck in the year— all the luck in the world and love hearing your thoughts. So, thank you. I appreciate you. All right. Thank you to Jerod for taking us through his career journey and for giving us insight into what it's like to be part of and lead one of the greatest franchises in history.