{"id":664,"date":"2020-09-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/core-leadership-principles-at-the-anaheim-ducks-and-the-atlanta-falcons\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:12:11","slug":"core-leadership-principles-at-the-anaheim-ducks-and-the-atlanta-falcons","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/core-leadership-principles-at-the-anaheim-ducks-and-the-atlanta-falcons\/","title":{"rendered":"Core Leadership Principles at the Anaheim Ducks and the Atlanta Falcons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n\t
\n\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t
\n \n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n Sep 25, 2020 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Articles<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Core Leadership Principles at the Anaheim Ducks and the Atlanta Falcons<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
Category<\/div>\n Leadership & Culture<\/a> <\/div>\n
\n
Share<\/div>\n Facebook<\/a>\n Twitter<\/a>\n Email<\/a>\n Copy Link<\/a>\n
https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/articles\/core-leadership-principles-at-the-anaheim-ducks-and-the-atlanta-falcons\/<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Dallas Eakins and Dan Quinn rely on their guiding principles more than ever as the pandemic endures.<\/p>\n \n \n \n

\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s great is that my dad walked ten miles in the snow – and not eight!\u201d<\/h4>\n
\n

By John Portch<\/h6>\n

Dallas Eakins, the Head Coach of the NHL\u2019s Anaheim Ducks, is responding to Steve Gera at July\u2019s Virtual Leaders Meet: Total High Performance<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gera has just told Eakins, who was speaking alongside Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Dan Quinn, that his dad spoke of eight-mile walks in the snow.<\/p>\n

He is adorning a remark about the Boomer generation\u2019s fondness for telling its children of the hardships they had endured in their own childhoods. Their implication being that their Generation X offspring have it far easier by comparison.<\/p>\n

Several decades down the line and similar criticisms are often levelled at Millennials or, perhaps more pertinently by this stage, Generation Z<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not that Eakins, Quinn or Gera necessarily share such views. In July, we were almost five months into the pandemic and the first part of their session is laced with their observations of seeing athletes take on evermore autonomy in their own lives because of sport\u2019s shutdown.<\/p>\n

The next question was how the ongoing events of 2020 were likely to impact on both head coaches as leaders. Eakins had been given no fixed date for the start of the 2020-21 NHL season, while Quinn was just a few weeks out from training camp at the end of the truncated offseason.<\/p>\n

Former Edmonton Oilers Head Coach Eakins, who is back in the NHL after five seasons in the American Hockey League with the San Diego Gulls, finds himself in the middle of an Anaheim rebuild that requires a near total overhaul in coming seasons. Matters were not helped by the pandemic ensuring his maiden campaign was halted 11 games early.<\/p>\n

Quinn, by comparison, is now in his sixth year with the Falcons and is looking to guide the team back to the NFL playoffs for the first time since 2017.<\/p>\n

Neither man gives the impression that their experiences nor the pandemic have shifted their guiding principles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s two things for me,\u201d says Eakins. \u201cNo1 competition; and when I say that people often think it\u2019s competition between teammates or competition between and competition against the other team. In the end, the competition against the other team is the most important; amongst your teammates is important too, but I think the one we miss out on is the competition with yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

He illustrates his point with a training-based metaphor: \u201cI equate it to this: if you\u2019re out on a run and you say, \u2018I\u2019m going to run five miles today\u2019 and you\u2019re clipping along after three miles what usually happens is that you say \u2018I\u2019ve run these three miles pretty quickly, maybe I\u2019ll just run four today, I\u2019ve done a pretty good job\u2019.<\/p>\n

Eakins, who himself played professional hockey for 16 years, leaves no one in any doubt of his disapproval for such a dereliction of duty. \u201cIt\u2019s that constant competition in your head of how much you\u2019re going to do, how much you\u2019re going to give and what you\u2019re going to be committed to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players, he points out, tend to share his mindset. \u201cIn the end, these young men and the coaches: that\u2019s all we\u2019ve done our whole lives. We\u2019ve competed, we\u2019ve competed, and we\u2019ve competed.\u201d Eakins will look to harness these traits in practice. \u201cThat\u2019s where we start, that competition with yourself and then we try to set up so many things within our dressing room, our training facility, our competition with each other, which goes right out on the ice with competition with others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing that we talk about, and it kind of rides off that competition with yourself, is to expect your best. It\u2019s something that I really believe in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was brought up to think, \u2018hey, you\u2019ve got to expect the most of that guy next to you\u2019 and that never quite made sense to me. That\u2019s important and I do want the best out of the guy sitting next to me in the dressing room or as a coach and I want these players to be at their best, but I truly know one thing: I can\u2019t expect the best out of anybody unless I expect the best out of myself. I think that\u2019s important whether you\u2019re a player, coach, a CEO.<\/p>\n

Quinn, who has listened approvingly throughout, is keen to share his own principles with the virtual audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a cool topic and to create what we would consider an excellent environment you do know that you have to work at it and sustain it every day. As Dallas was saying, when you\u2019re on a run and you\u2019re three miles in and [there\u2019s a risk in thinking] \u2018ah, maybe I\u2019ll tap out\u2019. One thing [players have] learned, stepping back to Covid for a minute, is that you have to train by yourself and there is some mental toughness that comes with that because you can have the moral reasoning. You\u2019ve got to push it and there is some toughness that comes with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Falcons under Quinn base their environment on three pillars that begin with B: ball, battle and brotherhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cBall is just for your full potential, all the things that encompass our football side; it\u2019s the learning, you\u2019re not leaving that to chance; it\u2019s the tests, the rehearsals, the deliberate practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe battle part for us, that\u2019s what Dallas was referring to as competing and creating an environment that embraces competing, whether that\u2019s shooting baskets just before the team meeting just to create some stress or on the practice field just to create as many pressure situations so that it feels like a natural thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the last one for us is our brotherhood and our connection to one another and knowing that we\u2019re all an extension of each other. As team sport goes, the quarterback or the receiver might get the credit for the touchdown pass but it\u2019s the offensive lineman who\u2019s putting out to get the block, sustain it longer, or the running back who\u2019s given the \u2018play fake\u2019 to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for a team to reach its full potential, you want to make sure that the player has clarity about what you stand for and what\u2019s really important because if it\u2019s uncertain it\u2019s not going to go well. Players want certainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best teams I\u2019ve been on have been really good in the dressing room or locker room first to make sure that that connection is really strong to one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a great topic and not a one-word answer. Leadership: it\u2019s not one size fits all for a team to reach its potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eakins comes back in with another slither of insight from the Ducks\u2019 enforced offseason: \u201cThat mental toughness is hard [to find] when you\u2019re out on your own because that negotiation will start and that\u2019s the one thing we\u2019ve tried to do here with our players – I think our strength and conditioning staff has done a hell of a job with it – whether it was \u2018this player needs this in their training\u2019 they\u2019ve tried to put something in there weekly that really sucks and has maybe very little to do with the fitness part but that workout is really going to suck and just to keep that mental toughness part up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quinn nods in approval. \u201cI love it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Looking for more performance insight?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Performance<\/em> 21<\/em> is available for download now and leads with a selection of insights lifted from our At Home With Leaders podcast series, which has featured the likes of England Rugby\u2019s Eddie Jones<\/strong>, the Toronto Blue Jays\u2019 Mark Shapiro<\/strong>, and Chelsea\u2019s Emma Hayes<\/strong> speaking directly from their home offices.<\/p>\n