Houston Cougars men’s basketball coach Kelvin Sampson isn’t one to shy away from an argument.
Sampson, 69, has helmed the University of Houston men’s basketball program since 2014, leading the team to six Sweet Sixteen berths, three Elite Eight appearances, and two Final Four placements at the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament — heights unseen for Houston since the early 1980s.
The Cougars will play the Florida Gators on Monday night for the chance to win their first basketball national championship in school history.
Sampson built his team’s culture of winning around four leadership tenets, he said in a lecture in July 2022: consistency, competence, confidence and confrontation.
“I think the coaches that fail at every level are the coaches that are passive-aggressive. Passive-aggressive coaches are usually afraid to hold kids accountable. You rationalize,” Sampson said. “If you’re going to build a culture, the first thing you have to come to grips with is: You’re going to have confrontation … There are certain things that can be done democratic, but most things that are difficult [have] to be your way.”
If you’re running a drill and a player doesn’t quite put their full effort into it, be strict and make the player repeat the drill, Sampson suggested — otherwise, they may never do it correctly again.
It’s “a metaphor for life,” he noted.
Sampson’s approach to culture-building applies to the workplace, some experts say. If you’re struggling to work well with a passive-aggressive colleague, for example, you should approach them about it quickly and directly, leadership consultant Stefan Falk told.
Even if you feel awkward confronting them, remember that they need to be held accountable, or their behavior may never change. “If they said they agreed to do something but did not do it, call them out immediately,” said Falk. “You must make it painful for them [to] not live by their words.”
Try asking them this question, suggests public-speaking expert John Bowe: Can you tell me what’s bothering you?”
“In just seven words, that last question often solves the problem instantly,” Bowe wrote in December 2023. If not, “you’ve done what you can by being direct … for now, let the cards fall where they may.”
Being direct — while projecting consistency, competence and confidence — can make you the kind of leader that other people want to follow. Houston basketball star J’Wan Roberts credited his growth as a player to Sampson’s coaching style, he said during a recent press conference.
“I wanted a coach that would get on me, [that would] take me to a place that I probably wouldn’t go [by myself],” said Roberts. “You want to have a coach that is going to push you until the last mile.”
