Former Kansas City Chiefs GM Scott Pioli admitted one of his biggest shortcomings during his tenure during a recent appearance on NFL Network.
The Chiefs Kingdom had plenty of gripes with Pioli during his time as general manager from 2009-2012, ranging from drafting to free agency and more. Pioli appeared as an NFL Front Office analyst on "Good Morning Football" on Tuesday, and a big topic of discussion centered around Travis Kelce.
GMFB host Jamie Erdahl asked Pioli whether he thought the Chiefs needed to be having any "hard" conversations with Kelce about "staying on the right track" as it relates to his personal and very public relationship with pop sensation Taylor Swift. Pioli didn't just have the perfect answer, but he also owned up to one of his biggest shortcomings in Kansas City.
Scott Pioli was a micromanager
When you're put into a position of power there is often a desire to control every single aspect of everything. However, great leaders are the ones who choose to delegate and set expectations for how things need to be done. They create a culture that leads to success.
Pioli's latest admission tells that he wasn't good at letting go of that control aspect of his leadership in Kansas City. It appears he often tried to manage too much himself.
"I want to go back to one of the shortcomings I had as a leader when I ascended to the general manager role - at times micromanaging things and players - when I thought they were putting themselves in too much peril," Pioli said. "It's kind of like being a parent when you don't want to see someone make too big of a mistake. I made that mistake in trying to overmanage or micromanage certain things and it worked the other way. I think they did the right thing, as long as there was clear communication between (Andy Reid, Brett Veach, and Travis Kelce)."
It takes a lot of self-awareness from Pioli to look back now, a decade after his tenure as general manager, and recognize that this was a weakness in his method of leadership. Knowing how things turned out, he probably regrets not doing things differently.
On the absurd Kelce-Swift question
It's the bye week, so I'm not sure what Travis Kelce is expected to be doing other than enjoying his free time with his loved ones. Still, Pioli had a great answer, no matter how bad the question was or wasn't. He said that "getting away with it" isn't about Kelce's greatness or anything like that, but about the culture that has been built in Kansas City. Hear and see it for yourself:
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