Athletic Directors Toolbox

12 Simple Yet Significant Daily To Do’s for Leaders

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Help your emerging and existing leaders recognize, value, and act on the many tiny opportunities to lead every day.  Take a look at this simple 12-point checklist created by Jeff Janseen.

By Jeff Janssen, founder and president of the Janssen Sports Leadership Center

Jeff directs cutting-edge Leadership Academies for high school and college coaches and all across the nation including North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Illinois, Yale, Baylor, Wake Forest, and Winston-Salem State.

Student-athletes of all ages often wonder, “What can I do to be a better leader?”

Fortunately leadership opportunities abound and present themselves on a daily basis. While they may be subtle, leaders are usually given at least a dozen opportunities to demonstrate leadership every single day.

These leadership opportunities are rarely available in the form of dramatic, rousing, “win one for the Gipper” type speeches, but most often present themselves in simple, yet significant interactions on a daily basis.

There’s a quote we often use in our Leadership Academies by Helen Keller that drives home the value of these seemingly trivial, yet critical leadership moments. She said, “I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”

Most emerging leaders erroneously view and define leadership as the mighty shoves reserved only for the heroic captains of the team. In actuality, however, it’s the tiny pushes of leadership that happen more frequently and have the greatest impact over time.

To help your emerging and existing leaders recognize, value, and act on the many tiny opportunities to lead every day, I have created a simple 12-point checklist. I encourage you to go over the checklist with your leaders to show them just how simple leadership can be – yet how profoundly powerful the aggregate of these 12 daily leadership actions can be on your program.

12 SIMPLE YET SIGNIFICANT DAILY TO DO’S FOR LEADERS

1. Be the hardest worker at practice today. Without fail, one of the quickest ways to impact a team is with your own work ethic. Choose to be one of the hardest workers on your team today. Not only does it set the tone for the work ethic of your program, it is also one of the best and quickest ways to enhance your leadership credibility with your teammates and coaches.

2. Be a spark of energy and enthusiasm today. Let your passion for the sport shine through today. Spread a contagious energy and enthusiasm amongst your teammates. Think about how lucky you are to be able to play and compete. Remember back to when you were a young child and reconnect with the joy you played with back then. Make your sport fun again for yourself and your teammates.

3. Model mental toughness today. Because your teammates will look to you under pressure, adversity, and stress, be sure to model mental toughness today. Bounce back quickly after errors to show your teammates how to respond to negative situations. Maintain your poise and optimism despite any mistakes you might make so that your teammates can trust and rely on you to get them through the tough times.

4. Connect with a teammate today. Leadership is all about relationships. Invest the time to build and strengthen the relationships you have with each of your teammates. Inquire about their day, challenges, and goals. Make a special and ongoing effort to get to know every athlete on your team, not just your friends and classmates. The relationship building you do each day will pay off immeasurably down the road.

5. Compliment a teammate today. Be on the lookout for teammates who are contributing to your team. Call out a teammate for making a hustle play, pushing through a weight workout, recovering quickly from a mistake, getting an A on an exam, etc. Praise the actions and attitudes you want to see repeated. As Mother Teresa once said, “Kind words are short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.”

6. Challenge a teammate today. Challenge at least one of your teammates today. Positively push them and yourself to make the most of your workout. Make a friendly wager to see if they can be successful at least 4 out of 5 times in a drill. See if you both can improve your times in conditioning. Offer to stay after to help if there is anything they want to work on. Good leaders consistently invite, inspire, and sometimes implore others to greatness.

7. Support a teammate today. Odds are, at least one of your teammates is struggling with something today – it could be a performance slump, a rocky romantic relationship, a disagreement with a coach, an unglamorous role, struggling with a class, or a sick family member. Good leaders are consistently on the lookout for teammates who might be struggling and are ready to offer an ear to listen, an encouraging word, a pat on the back, or a shoulder to cry on.

8. Constructively confront negativity, pessimism, and laziness today. As a leader, have the courage to constructively confront the negativity, pessimism, and laziness that will crop up on your team from time to time. Instead of fueling the fire by joining in or silently standing by, be sure to refocus your teammates on solutions rather than dwelling on and complaining about the problems. Left unchecked, these problems can quickly grow to distract, divide, and destroy your team.

9. Build and bond your team today. Team chemistry naturally ebbs and flows throughout the course of the season. Take the time to monitor and maintain your team’s chemistry. Let your reserves and support staff know how much you appreciate them. Stay connected and current with each of the natural sub-groups on your team. Douse any brush fires that might be occurring and continually remind team members about your common goal and common bond.

10. Check in with your coach today. Invest the time to check in with your coach today. Ask what you can do to best help the team this week. Find out what your coach wants to accomplish with today’s practice. Also discuss if there is anything your coach is concerned about regarding your team. Discuss your collective insights on your team’s chemistry, focus, and mindset. Work together to effectively co-lead your team.

11. Remind your team how today’s work leads to tomorrow’s dreams. It’s easy to get bogged down during your season with monotonous drills, tiring conditioning, and demanding workouts. Remind your teammates how all the quality work you do today gives you a distinct advantage over your opponents. Help them see and even get excited about how today’s hard work is a long-term investment in your team’s goals, rather than just a short-term hardship or sacrifice.

12. Represent yourself and team with class and pride today. Leaders have the awesome privilege and responsibility of representing their teams. Take advantage of this opportunity by representing your team with class and pride today. Hold a door open for someone, sit in the front rows of class and actively engage in the discussion, say please and thank you, dress in respectful attire, etc. These tiny pushes represent you and your team with class and distinction. And they ultimately set you up for a lifetime of respect and success.

Great leaders willingly invest the time and effort to engage in these 12 leadership actions on a daily basis. In applying these principles, leaders build strong relationships, keep their team on track, and enhance their credibility.

Encourage your emerging leaders to take advantage of at least 7-9 of these actions on daily basis. Your veteran leaders should be looking to capitalize on 10 to all 12 of these opportunities.

And as a coach, I encourage you to go back and look at all 12 again as well. The 12 leadership behaviors are things that you could and should be doing on a daily basis too. Be sure that you too take advantage of these 12 tiny pushes of leadership that will ultimately make a huge impact on your team.

This article was written by Jeff Janssen, founder and president of the Janssen Sports Leadership Center

Jeff directs cutting-edge Leadership Academies for high school and college coaches and all across the nation including North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Illinois, Yale, Baylor, Wake Forest, and Winston-Salem State.

His site has several other useful articles for coaches and team leaders. Here is the link: Coaches Championship Network

Making Something Out of Nothing

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Noticing a Mighty Oak in the Tiny Acorn

Cory Dobbs, Ed.D., The Academy for Sport Leadership

One thing I know is true: everyone I meet has more learning and doing capacity than I am aware of, just like the mighty oak hidden in every tiny acorn.  My work with The Academy for Sport Leadership has led me to conclude that a shared leadership system is far more productive than the hierarchical model embodied in the traditional team captain model.  I call the participative model, which rests on the practice of mutual learning, the Team Leadership Model.

The Team Leadership Model promotes the processes of team leadership and team building as growth opportunities.  It advances the assumption that all members have the ability to inspire others, to reflect on their actions, to increase self-awareness and to leverage their relational capabilities and build positive, impactful relationships.   

At the heart of the leader in every locker framework is the core belief that every student-athlete has the ability to learn and develop leadership skills.  The transformational coach encourages every student-athlete to reach into their reservoir of beliefs about what is possible for them to accomplish when engaging in learning how to lead and team build.  When the student-athlete does this they come to believe that more is always possible.

The coach with the ability to see more than a small capped nut will always be rewarded.  More importantly, his players will grow in ways that can only happen in the right environment.

Teams that I’ve worked with that have utilized the team leadership framework—a leader in every locker—have enhanced interpersonal activity and collective effectiveness in the four domains of team sport—the physical, intellectual, emotional, and social domains.   The essence of the leader in every locker model is that student-athletes learn to teach and learn in an interactive way so everyone grows individually while expanding the technical and the relational capacity of the team.

The Team Leadership model creates an environment in which members are accountable not just to the coach, but to the team as a whole.  This sounds good to coaches, but very few actually practice the Team Leadership concepts.  The reasons coaches balk at the idea of Team Leadership—leadership from every locker—is that, in general, they are either hooked on control or of the firm belief that leaders are simply born which leads to the conclusion that leaders are in short supply.

Some coaches will admit this, many won’t. The old way of thinking is comfortable and less time consuming.  But, let me say again, my research strongly suggests the traditional captain mode is very limited.  The team captain model as practiced by most coaches is a sink or swim proposition.

When you choose to make leadership and team building skills and abilities for all players a priority, not only do you increase responsibility and reliance on one another, you change how your student-athletes interact as leaders and followers.

Okay, lift the hood.  Kick the tires. Compare the assumptions that undergird the two models.

The Two Major Leadership Frameworks

Traditional Team Captain Model (Rank-Based)     VS.                Team Leadership Model (Peer-Based)

Starts from a position that leadership is exclusive; leaders possess the “right stuff” Starts from a position of leadership as inclusive; everyone is invited to lead self, others, and with others to create individual and team well-being
Fixed mindset; leadership can be learned to some extent, but mostly a unique genetic endowment

 

 Growth mindset; basic and advanced qualities and skills can be cultivated
Scarcity mindset

 

 Abundance mindset

 
Grounded in leadership as a “power” position

 

 Grounded in leadership as an “influence” position

 
Hierarchical command and control over others

 

 Peer-based influence as a source of strength

 
Performance oriented

 

 Participant- oriented

 
Leader accountable to coaching staff; invested in pleasing coaches

 

 Leader acts from deep sense of responsibility and accountability to others

 
Leadership learning “passed” down to future leaders

 

 Individualized leadership development

 
Followers are recipients of an act of leadership

 

 Followers are central to any act of leadership

 
Leader-centric (focus on person)

 

 Leadership-Centric (focus on process and context)

 

 

About the Author

Dr. Cory Dobbs is a national expert on sport leadership and team building and is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership.  A teacher, speaker, consultant, and writer, Dr. Dobbs has worked with professional, collegiate, and high school athletes and coaches teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience.  He facilitates workshops, seminars, and consults with a wide-range of professional organizations and teams.  Dr. Dobbs previously taught in the graduate colleges of business and education at Northern Arizona University, Sport Management and Leadership at Ohio University, and the Jerry Colangelo College of Sports Business at Grand Canyon University.

NEW RESOURCE

Coaching for Leadership: How to Develop a Leader in Every Locker. ($24.99)

 

The Academy for Sport Leadership 

The Academy for Sport Leadership’s underlying convictions are as follows: 1) the most important lessons of leadership are learned in real-life situations, 2) team leaders develop best through active practice, structured reflection, and informative feedback, 3) learning to lead is an on-going process in which guidance from a mentor, coach, or colleague helps facilitate learning and growth, and 4) leadership lessons learned in sport should transcend the game and assist student-athletes in developing the capacity to lead in today’s changing environment.

 

Walking the Talk: How Self-Reflection Can Make You a Better Coach

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by Cory Dobbs, Ed.D., The Academy for Sport Leadership

 

In 1953 New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary and his Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Mount Everest—the first to do so.  Conquering Everest was and is one of man’s greatest challenges.  The grinding mental, emotional, and physical aspects of the climb along with intellectual problem-solving are the heart of the challenge.

In 1996, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer led a commercial expedition team attempting to climb Everest.  Hall and Fischer were considered expert climbers, both having scaled the summit of Everest.  The two highly talented climbers were hired by a motley crew of inexperienced hikers who made the trek to Nepal to attempt the climb under the guidance of the esteemed Hall and Fischer.

Jon Krakauer, a journalist, was a member of the climbers joining Hall’s team.  As it turned out, Krakauer ended up chronicling a tragic expedition in which five people lost their lives, including Hall and Fischer.

The two leaders, very experienced and somewhat arrogant, “rightfully” behaved authoritatively.  Both Hall and Fischer issued and demanded adherence to their rules for a safe and successful climb.  Krakauer recorded a self-confident Hall reminding his team “I will tolerate no dissension up there.  My word will be absolute law, beyond appeal.”

One team member recalled, “Rob had lectured us repeatedly about the importance of having a predetermined turnaround time on summit day…and abiding by it no matter how close we were to the top.”

Knowing the descent from the summit to be perilous, the leaders invoked a two o’clock rule.  The Sherpa’s, guides and clients all understood that if a climber had not reached the top by two o’clock in the afternoon of “summit day” they were to obey the order and turn around and abandon their bid for the summit. Yet Hall and Fischer would go on to ignore the safe-guard and not retreat down the slopes upon the clock hitting two.

Fischer kept climbing, though exhausted and suffering tremendously, touching the top at 3:45.  He continued to climb, every step perilous to his declining health, though he would never let any of his team to do so under similar conditions.

Krakauer’s book of the expedition, Into Thin Air, exposes the autocratic nature of Hall’s leadership.  Hall had a pecking order and no one was to question his decisions.  As Krakauer recorded, “Passivity on the part of the clients had thus been encouraged throughout the expedition.”  And the Sherpas and guides too were afraid of Hall’s rebuke, unsure of the consequences of displeasing him.

The Idiosyncratic knowledge and unique skills of Hall and Fisher were not enough to overcome the blizzard they encountered on their way back to Camp IV. Having scaled Everest they were in grave trouble.

The vulnerabilities inherent in self-reflection lead us to develop mechanisms to bypass or minimize the embarrassment or threat that we might experience when we scrutinize our thoughts, feelings, and actions.  My sense is that both Hall and Fischer never really had to answer to anybody but themselves, believing self-reflection to be something for the other guy.  After all, why do you need to question your assumptions and behaviors if you’re successful? And the more successful, the less likely you are to self-reflect.  Bragging of their conquests and boasting about their track records led them to believe they were above their own rules—those were for the novice.

I’ve seen it time and time again, coaches that dismiss the practice of self-reflection tend to create cultures that turn out to have unintended and unpredicted side effects that degrade the environment.  These coaches fail to recognize or respond to value conflicts, often violating their own standards.  It is striking that many coaches choose to overlook the practice of self-reflection.

Thankfully what you do is not a matter of life and death.  However, deep inside your coaching bubble you might just find walking your talk difficult at times.  Contrary to the popular thought that all coaches are grounded in reality, it ain’t always so.  Like Hall and Fischer we all have times we simply ignore our rules.

Here’s where the rubber meets the road: the following seven questions require you to turn off the noise for fifteen minutes daily and sink your mind into your walk and your talk for the day.  If you are serious about self improvement, just like you ask your student-athletes to be serious about improvement, then adopt this process as a daily routine.  Learning to lead ourselves, just like leading others, is a truly a life-time project—our own Mt. Everest.  My guess is that after a solid month of performing this after action reflection you’ll seamlessly work your way into doing reflection-in-action.  Remember, reflection is all about growth and development—yours and your players.

Daily Self-Reflection Questions

What did I say I would do today that I didn’t do?

What did I do today that will affect team cohesion?  (positive and / or negative)

How did I relate to the players today?

What did I do today that is not something I’m proud of doing?

How did I lead the players today?  Coaches?

How did I follow the players today?  Coaches?

Based on what I learned today, what will I do tomorrow?

 

To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

About the Author

Dr. Cory Dobbs is a national expert on sport leadership and teambuilding and the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership.  A teacher, speaker, consultant, and writer, Dr. Dobbs has worked with professional, collegiate, and high school athletes and coaches teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience.  He facilitates workshops, seminars, and consults with a wide-range of professional organizations and teams.  Dr. Dobbs previously taught in the graduate colleges of business and education at Northern Arizona University, Sport Management and Leadership at Ohio University, and the Jerry Colangelo College of Sports Business at Grand Canyon University.

 

NEW RESOURCE

Coaching for Leadership: How to Develop a Leader in Every Locker. ($24.99)

Character Building and Leadership

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Teams need leadership and guidance. Players want and need leadership from their coach. Here are 10 thoughts regarding leadership and character building for you to consider when leading your teams.

 This article was provided by Coaches Network

Bruce Brown and Rob Miller of Proactive Coaching have posted the following thoughts and advice for coaches in providing leadership to the athletes:

•  Former UCLA basketball player Ken Washington on legendary Coach John Wooden, whom he played for in helping the Bruins win national championships: “Coach didn’t teach character; he nurtured it.  He nurtured values just like he nurtured your talent. Honesty, being unselfish, caring about your teammates, a good work ethic were all stressed constantly.  He gave respect even when discipline was doled out.”

•  Discipline is essential in successful team cultures.  It provides structure, order, direction, purpose, and focus.  Coaches and team leaders must respond to any teammate or coach’s undisciplined behavior by holding them accountable.  If you do not confront poor behavior then the message is that accountability is not part of the team’s values or that it doesn’t apply to everyone.

•  Here’s a letter from a team in search of a coach to provide them with leadership and guidance:

Dear Coach:

We need you.  We need you to lead.  We need to be able to trust you.  We need you to be strong, consistent and positive. We really need you in tough times.  We will look to you for how you handle, pressure, stress, mistakes and failure.  We need you to consistently correct and improve our skills.  We are counting on you to hold us accountable to the Core Covenants of our team.  We need you to be direct and honest.  We need you to know when to push us beyond our comfort zone and when to put your arm around us.  We need you to protect the team from all the outside pressure we have to deal with.  For those of us with difficult family situations, we need you to be a parent as well as a coach and show us what being part of a family looks and feels like.  We will be a direct reflection of you and your leadership.  We need you.
Your Team

•  Coaches of Significance: Be assured that your players know the job you are doing and are growing into men and women in your presence because of your leadership. They will stay in your life long after the last game is over. You are a coach of significance… you know your purpose and mission. Your athletes are thankful.

•  Anything you can do to improve the individual character of your athletes or the collective character of your team gives you a better chance for success in every way… including on the scoreboard.

•  Effective leaders catch their people doing things right and praise them sincerely.  They confront their people when they are violating team covenants as a teachable moment and redirect them without apology.  Above all, they are honest with them.  Strong leaders of integrity are difference makers.

•  Most teams like to measure themselves by their most talented people, but the truth is that the strength of the team is always impacted by the weakest attitude.  No matter how you try to cover it up, rationalize it or compensate for it, eventually poor attitudes surface and negatively impact teams.  Protect and defend your team culture .

•  Can you make this statement about your team:  “If you are not sure how hard to work or what decisions to make away from the team, all you have to do is watch and follow our seniors.” Great team cultures are built with intentional leadership.

•  Two players violate standards and school policies on alcohol. Two different families:  Family #1—The player automatically knows he will also be held accountable and face consequences when he gets home; or Family #2—The next morning, the parents are at school with a lawyer wanting to blame the coach and the school policy.  Down the road, which of these two kids has a better chance to be a successful teammate, employee or marriage partner?  Coaches and parents should be working together to raise strong kids.

•  Have you clearly defined what an “athlete” looks like in your team culture?  Have you defined it so clearly that the image cannot be misunderstood?  There is a big difference between being “athletic” and being a true athlete that has a teachable spirit, is accountable, mentally tough, selfless, and disciplined.   If you haven’t presented the right definition of being an athlete to  your players, don’t expect your athletes to mirror this definiation.

 

Proactive Coaching published materials designed to help define, build and empower leadership. Their resources include:

• Proactive Leadership, Empowering Team Leaders (book) 

• Captains, Seven Ways to Lead Your Team (booklet) 

• Captains and Coaches Workshop (DVD)

• The Impact of Trust (DVD)

For more information, visit www.proactivecoaching.info

Dealing with Slumping Athletes

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This article was provided by Coaches Network

How do you deal with an athlete that is slumping?

Far too often when high-performing athletes begin to lag in their success rates, speed, or concentration in games or practice, coaches just don’t know how to handle it.

First they think it’s just a temporary hiccup and that the athlete will quickly recover, then they try aggression or stating their disapproval in the hopes that guilt or fear will jolt the athlete back into gear, and then they resort to benching those players or limiting their playing time, thinking that pushing them off to the side will make the problem fix itself while they put more attention on the “good” players.

All of these scenarios are a gross mishandling of the situation and only make the problem worse because they increase the athletes’ frustration, while decreasing their self-confidence. What the coach likely doesn’t understand is that the athlete isn’t doing this on purpose just to ruin their day! They don’t want to suddenly be fumbling for no reason and letting their team down, they want to be in on the action and performing at the highest level, and yet something is stopping them.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that there is another reason for their slumping performance that they are aware of, but regardless there is a much better way to address the problem with your attitude and behavior.

Here are some coaching do’s and don’ts for slumping athletes:

Do’s

  • Do be empathetic. Step inside their shoes and let them know you understand how it feels to struggle.
  • Do be supportive. Build the athlete’s confidence and self-esteem. The last thing slumping athletes need is to have someone they respect and admire put them down.
  • Do communicate clearly, directly, and often. Let the athletes know where they stand, how you feel about their struggle, and what they can do to get through it. If you bench them, help them understand why you’re doing it and what they need to do to get back in the game.
  • Do be positive and hopeful. Help them believe that their performance problems are only temporary and that they’ll get through them.
  • 5.    Do help them deal constructively with negative actions from parents, fans, and the media. Help them maintain proper perspective when dealing with other people.

Don’ts

  • Don’t remind the athlete how long they’ve been performing badly. They are usually well aware of this already.
  • Don’t compare the athletes’ past great performance with their present poor ones (unless you’re using the past ones as a constructive model for the present).
  • Don’t disparage the athletes with labels like “stupid,” “head case,” or “choker.” You are a professional in a position of authority and mentorship and should be above that kind of language.
  • Don’t penalize the athletes because they are performing badly. Taking away opportunities to learn or bond with their team is the last thing they need.
  • Don’t give the athletes the silent treatment or ignore them. It is the opposite, open communication, that will get the athlete out of a slump.
  • Don’t be negative. This doesn’t mean you have to impose false positivity on the problem, but you can certainly acknowledge it without making it worse.
  • Don’t focus the athlete’s attention on everything they are doing wrong. Instead, help them focus on what they need to right to improve.