As a University of Alabama alum, I begin each fall by writing a date on the calendar: the National Championship game. I’m not joking… the university literally prints out football schedules that include the SEC Championship and the National Championship. And as an alum, I have to turn in my degrees if I don’t watch the National Championship game (okay, fine, I’m joking about that).

I’ve seen a lot of amazing moments in National Championships (remember the 2nd and 26, Georgia fans?), but this year, my favorite moment from the National Championship game came after the game. In the post-game press conference, head coach Nick Saban paused the conference to speak about a visibly disheartened Bryce Young and Will Anderson:

This moment flooded social media, for obvious reasons. An oft-unhappy, oft-frustrated, oft-stern coach showing his soft side. If you’ve been around Alabama football long, you’ve seen this side on occasion: Coach Saban leaping into AJ McCarron’s arms, choking up talking about Jalen Hurts, and any of the (many) times he’s danced.

But beyond simply a heart-warming video, there are lessons that can be learned from Coach Saban’s press conferences. I went back and watch several of the post-game press conferences after a Saban-coached Alabama loss (thankfully, there weren’t many to choose from) and found commonalities from the GOAT of college football. (And yes, I’ll refrain from the Alabama hubris hereafter.)

1. Praise in public, criticize in private.

I worked under a senior leader once who had a habit of criticizing publicly. In a meeting with a coworker, an individual outside the organization, and myself, she began to criticize the ministry I was overseeing. Not only was this the first time I was hearing these complaints, but it instilled within me a resentment and broke trust in a way that I was never willing to give back to her. Thankfully, there were times when she would praise the ministry I oversaw publicly, but each time she did that, I knew that the next time she was speaking about that ministry publicly, she was just as likely to criticize it.

Coach Saban strives for perfection in everything he does. There’s a reason that the SEC and National Championships are on our schedule: not only does the football team have an annual goal to win both of those championships, but they strive to win every other game prior to them. Perfection is the goal for every Coach Saban team.

When perfection’s the goal, there are innumerable reasons for critique after a loss. But in every post-game press conference after a loss I watched, Saban expresses the disappointment, points out what the mistakes were, but never publicly criticizes one individual. Instead, he often takes the chance to praise individuals.

Of course, we don’t know what Saban says to individuals in the locker room and after practices. There’s a funny story of Coach Saban pulling Tua Tagovailoa aside after winning the National Championship and correcting him, so we can reasonably assume that he criticizes them in private.

But, going beyond this press conference, I think there’s also something to be said for praising in private, not just in public.

As I was reflecting on my time in ministry under the aforementioned leader, I realized that, though I or the ministry I oversaw was occasionally praised in public, I was never praised in private. A failure to do so led me to feel like the only reason I and the ministry were being praise publicly by the leader was for self-aggrandizement, which only exacerbated the lack of trust.

When you praise in public and criticize in private, people feel honored by you and your willingness to not cause opportunity for embarrassment. But there is also need to praise people in private (and, even rare times when people need to be criticized in public, as this Harvard Business Review article expresses well). In fact, I’d say that people need your private praise more than your public praise. Otherwise, it’s likely that they’ll see ulterior motives for your public praise.

2. Reassure that failure isn’t an identity.

As I went back and watched the past press conferences, Coach Saban frequently said something along the lines of, “One game doesn’t define these guys.” High achievers, much like the entirety of Coach Saban’s roster, can get caught in the trap of believing that their failures define them. Add on to that the pressure of anonymous “others” (particularly on social media), which thrive on perceived failure and believe that they have the right to define who you are.

Look no further than earlier this week: Mikaela Shiffrin, arguably the greatest female downhill skier on the planet, fell in her third Olympic event—a shock to the Olympic world, as now 60% of her DNFs (did-not-finish) in her race career have happened at this Olympics. When she was interviewed immediately following her third DNF, she said about her Olympics, “I don’t know if anybody’s failed that hard with so many opportunities, maybe in the history of the Olympics.” In the same interview, she said, “I feel like a joke.” And yet, what’s crazy is, the interview started with the interviewer introducing her as “one of the best to every put on skis.”

Imagine that for a moment: You’ve dedicated yourself to a craft for years, have been successful at every level, and then in a moment that counts more than others, you come up short. Anybody that knows anything about your craft knows that you’re one of the greatest ever. And the first thing you feel is that you’re a joke. There’s a shocking disconnect in moments of perceived failure between what high achievers think they are and what others think they are.

Coach Saban acknowledges this reality, so it seems to me that in every opportunity he can, he reminds his players that a loss, an unrealized goal, does not define them. And he wants to teach those who merely watch these perfectors of their craft that truth too.

3. Express disappointment, don’t weaponize it.

One of the challenges of setting goals is that there are times when you don’t achieve them. And, often, by not achieving them, you risk feeling disappointment.

Disappointment is a tricky thing, isn’t it? It’s a feeling we all experience at times, particularly when our hopes and expectations aren’t met. It’s a powerful emotion that has, unfortunately, often been used as a weapon. Bad parents try to give their children identities as “disappointments.” Bad leaders use disappointment as both a carrot and a stick, hoping to motivate employees by their desire to please their leaders (despite it often being impossible to please leaders who use disappointment as a weapon) and by constantly expressing their disappointment with performance or person.

Coach Saban does something that I have found to be rare. He expresses disappointment without making his players and staff feel like a disappointment. When he expresses disappointment, you know he’s being genuine; he and the team had a goal they didn’t reach. It shows authenticity, which builds trust. But he doesn’t make the team feel like a disappointment, which would break trust.

How do you express disappointment without weaponizing it? First, as Coach Saban aptly does, use precise language. He often says things like, “We are disappointed…” or “I’m disappointed with the outcome.” Clarify what you’re disappointed with so that those who look up to you don’t confuse themselves into thinking you’re disappointed with a who. For many people, particularly those who have had disappointment used as a weapon against them, when they hear or sense disappointment, they internalize that they are a disappointment. Reassurance goes a long way to keeping their trust.

4. Loving people well means keeping them accountable.

Simon Sinek says, “The leaders who get the most out of their people are the leaders who care most about their people.”

There’s this idea that’s floating around that you can love people without keeping them accountable; it’s an “I love you but I don’t care about what you do” idea. It’s a mindset that’s lauded as honorable, even praise-worthy.

There are also many people who try to keep people accountable without loving them. It’s an “I only care about what you do, not who you are” idea. Very few people who ascribe to this mindset would actually agree with that quote. Because they’ve conflated what we do with who we are, they’d say that they do actually care about who you are.

I don’t want to be around either of these people, much less serve under them. A person that thinks they can care about me without caring about my actions, good or bad, doesn’t have my best interests at heart; they don’t want me to become a better person. A person that cares solely about what I do won’t care at what cost my “success” comes at.

In every press conference I watched, Coach Saban holds himself and his team accountable. And he should, particularly because his teams always have an excellent chance of winning each game they play. But he couples it with deep love for his players. Good leaders care deeply about their people and hold each person on their team ultimately responsible for their actions.

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I grew up playing sports. I had coaches who signed up when no one else would (and I’m thankful for that). I had a coach who was verbally abusive. I had everything in between.

And then I had the occasional coach that saw the potential of our team and held us to a high standard, all while loving us deeply. Coach Ray was that type of coach. He coached amazing baseball teams—teams that would win games by 20+ runs. We’re talking Alabama-level dominance. And yet, even though his grandson was on our team, each player secretly thought they were his favorite player. Years later, when my team would playing his team, he’d walk up during warmups, put me in a headlock and ask me how I and my family were.

It’s easy to write off the things high-level coaches say as simply an ESPN highlight. I’ll never sit in front of a camera next to a Heisman Trophy winner and analyze a game. But I will have people sitting next to me that look to me as a leader. Will I choose to lead them well or continue long-held negative leadership traits?

Coach Ray passed away a couple years. His obituary read, “He believed in every player in his line-up, from top to bottom each player has a value to the team and an important role to play… it empowers you as a player/person – it builds you up to accomplish things you may not otherwise be able to accomplish.”

Coach Ray won a lot of championships. But in the grand scheme of things, none of them really mattered. More importantly, he treated average kids like champions. Then they became champions. Not just on a baseball field, but in the way they now lead others.