An Interview with Dr. Cory Dobbs, President of The Academy for Sport Leadership

Q:  Why do you find it necessary to add the role of Leadership Educator to the practice of coaching?  Aren’t coaches already modeling leadership for their student-athletes?

A:  Let me explain by telling you a story.  I recently met with a “brand” name coach and his staff to discuss leadership education.  The coach is highly recognized as a top coach in his field.  I opened our conversation by asking him “Are you a world-class coach?”  He looked at me with an unassuming grin.  So I said “The world certainly sees you as a world-class coach.”  His staff chuckled but agreed.  “So let’s check that box,” I said.  “And,” I declared, “would you agree that coaching is teaching?”  He and his staff vigorously shook their heads to imply a definitive “yes.”

“Now,” I continued, “are you a world-class leader?”  Again, he looked at me with a humble smile.   I asked his staff for a thumbs up or thumbs down vote of agreement.  All thumbs were pointed upward.  “Check that box too” I announced.

“Okay,” I said as I headed towards my home territory.  “Are you a world-class leadership educator?”  The grin on his face slipped into a look of bewilderment.  “Well,” I said cunningly, “if you’re a world-class coach and a world-class leader shouldn’t you be a world-class leadership educator?”  Puzzled and disoriented, the brand name world-class coach didn’t quite know how to respond.  I continued, “How do you go about developing team leaders—or in my world team leadership?”  After uttering something he asked me to explain to him just what leadership education is and how one goes about becoming a leadership educator.

A leadership educator is no different than, let’s say, a professor of management—someone who teaches management.  A leadership educator teaches leadership.  However, this role seems a little strange for many coaches.  Few engage in a planned program and curriculum with the deliberate intention to build team leaders.   Rather, most simply leave it to the seemingly natural growth of the individual.  Oh, let’s not forget that a rigorous development program can be time consuming and emotionally demanding.

“Coach,” I said, “we can’t check that box can we?”  I then began to teach: “The role of leadership educator requires a different mindset, skill set and involves very different actions from the one’s you’ve been practicing for a lifetime.”  The coach quickly acknowledged that a huge gap exists between what he and his coaching staff are doing and what they could do to develop team leaders.  He then asked if I would work with him and his staff to develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities to be high-performing leadership educators.

Q:  A leader in every locker sounds a lot like “Everyone gets a trophy.”

A:  First, there’s a big difference between welfare and well-being.  When everyone gets a trophy it’s often like a government handout—it’s freely given, no strings attached (and just as likely not to have been well-thought through as it does have extraordinary potential as a long-term positive of participation if done right).  However, when a coach is concerned for the total well-being of her student-athletes, she is delighted to have everyone on the team maximize the experience; which includes learning how to lead.

In a recent workshop a coach asked me if the idea of a leader in every locker is like a trophy for everyone.  I held back, but then I injected my research and organizational framework into my response.  I let the coach know emphatically, it’s just the opposite.  I had to first help the coach see beyond her flawed mental model of leaders are born, the driving factor behind such thinking.

The notion of a born leader appeals to our belief in intelligence, charisma, and other personal traits as attributes necessary for leadership.  Most of us have been taught since childhood, at least implicitly, that we are either a leader or a follower—mostly followers as we can only have one class president.  This plays on an almost universal theme that some people must be given the role of telling us what to do; it fits with our sensibilities that we are better off by granting some people power and agency.

To be sure, my experience—countless number of workshops plus working alongside coaches—is that in most cases coaches are cynics when it comes to the idea that everyone has the ability to lead (though anticipating the critique of this claim I’m compelled to ensure I don’t imply all are equally motivated to learn to lead).  For those of us who do not want to simply dismiss people as not capable of learning to lead—especially those who’ve had few role models in their lives—the concept of leadership development is a significant step forward.

The idea that leaders are extraordinary people with special gifts is an assumption many coaches have embedded in their minds—baked into the cake.  Most coaches operate from a paradigm—a set of assumptions about how the world works—that makes it difficult to understand why the virtues of a leader in every locker far exceed the verifiable inefficiencies of the team captain model.

What I’m advocating is this: when a coach assumes the role of leadership educator, it is to teach leadership to all his or her student-athletes.  Why in the world would you not want to teach leadership to all of your players?   And why in the world would you not want your players to develop a leadership mindset, skill set, and act like a leader?

Beginning with the end in mind, when you deploy a leadership learning system you are creating a learning organization.  When coaches honor the need to personalize learning for each student-athlete, they then create a dynamic learning environment in which everyone is learning in action and by reflection.

However, if a coach doesn’t think it’s worth his or her time, then it’s likely they are acting from what Stanford professor Carol Dweck calls a “fixed mindset.”  A coach that acts from this perspective will do little to stimulate interest and commitment to personal leadership development of the student-athlete.  Such a mindset places little value in teaching leadership.  After all, they reason, either the athlete is a “natural” leader gifted with the “right stuff” or they’re not.  This thinking suggests only a few athletes on any team are capable of leading.  Such thinking makes no sense.

Leadership is not an all-or-nothing ability, something you either have or don’t have.  As a form of social interaction, leadership can be developed when student-athletes and coaches put in effort, time, and practice.

The reality is the student-athlete (and the coach too!) has to work hard to learn how to lead, to develop a set of skills and competencies that will serve as a foundation for lifelong learning of leadership and team building.  Leadership can be learned, indeed it must be learned.  The key is that it must be practiced in order to facilitate the growth and development of the student-athlete.  Without practice, which requires time, effort, and energy, all you have is a potential leader.

Finally, in my Coach’s Guidebook: A Leader in Every Locker I make clear that most student-athletes are raised in sport to simply follow the lead of the coach; thereby making the participant a passive recipient of leadership.  After years of going along to get along the young athlete develops the habit of passive followership.  This is one of the biggest challenges of change we face as leadership educators.

Should everyone get a trophy?  Probably not (save for another day the issue of participation and achievement).

Should everyone get an opportunity to learn about leadership and explore how to lead?  Yes!  And to do so requires great effort on the part of the student-athlete.  The athlete is not given anything but opportunity.   Are all leaders equal?  No!  Everyone has a different starting line, but all student-athletes can learn to lead at some level.

Q:  In your workshops you urge, quite forcefully I might add, coaches to rethink their
thinking?

A:  I do this because every act of coaching rests on assumptions, generalizations, and get this—hypotheses.  That is, the coach’s mindset determines to a great extent how he operates.  It is very unlikely that a coach will change his or her ways of coaching until they look in the mirror and consider who they are and what they believe and why they believe what they believe.  Once they peel away the layers and recognize how deeply held beliefs and attitudes—such as only a few athletes are capable of leading—he or she can design a culture that maximizes the experience for everyone.

It’s a shame that many coaches are intimidated by the idea that embedded within every player is a potential leader.  There is great suspicion of how things will work if everyone is potentially a leader.  A common concern about a leader in every locker came up one day when I was talking with a group of coaches.  “How can you ask us to have all our student-athletes lead?” one coach said to me.  “Isn’t that opening Pandora ’s Box?”  Recall that when Pandora’s Box was opened, all the troubles of humanity flew out.  Is this how coaches imagine what might happen should everyone learn to lead and be given opportunities to lead?

I understand their concern.  They really have no reference point to relate the practice of teaching everyone leadership.  But when coaches and players learn for example, the 5 Steps of Team Leadership, the 8 Roles of Team Leadership, and The Coach as a Leadership Educator that I’ve created it all begins to make sense.  Something else we do is utilize a specialized vocabulary.  In addition to the 5 Steps of Leadership our program includes specialized terminology and unique constructs such as the eight roles of team leadership, leadership educator, followership and leadership orientation, and leadershift to cite some of the vital elements of our way of talking, thinking, and developing leaders.

The unnatural gap between the traditional team captain model and the reality that everyone can learn to lead at some level requires a monumental change program.  It’s going to take awhile, but over time coaches will discover new things about how it all works together to the advantage of the program and the players.

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

A former basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition. While coaching, he researched and developed the transformative Becoming a Team Leader program for student-athletes. Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs and high schools teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience and education process. Cory cut his teeth as a corporate leader with Fortune 500 member, The Dial Corp. As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with such organizations as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet.

Cory has taught a variety of courses on leadership and change for the following universities:

Northern Arizona University (Graduate Schools of Business and Education)

Ohio University (Graduate School of Education / Management and Leadership in Sport)

Grand Canyon University (Sports Marketing and Sports Management in the Colangelo School of Sports Business)

Visit www.corydobbs.com to read Cory’s leadership blog.

by Stephanie Zonars, LifeBeyondSport

The Lynchpin to Team Cohesion

Player leadership is crucial to creating a winning team culture.  You long to have a few players on the team with the courage to step up and lead on the court or field and in the locker room.

But there’s another role that is equally important to team cohesion and creating a solid team culture.

In the video below, Derek Sivers calls this person the “first follower.” Check out the fascinating video about how to start a movement in under 3 minutes, then look over the key points and finally, see how this relates to you and your team.

 

 

As outlined in the video:

The leader—

• has the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous
• nurtures first follower as an equal
• makes it about them, not him/herself
• makes it easy to follow

The first follower—

• has a crucial role
• shows everyone else how to follow
• is embraced by the leader as an equal
• calls others to join
• has the courage to be the first one to follow and to stand out
• typically is under appreciated
• transforms the lone nut into a leader

The reason so many of you tell me that you don’t have leaders on your team is that most young people don’t have the courage to “stand alone and look ridiculous.” Players may say they want to be leaders, but finding ones who will actually hold teammates accountable and defend the culture seems daunting.

BUT, it may be easier if they had the certainty of a first follower. If they knew that a teammate would follow well and show the rest of the team how, it may be easier to muster up the courage to step up and lead.

One of the things I loved about our team handbook at Penn State was the page about how to be a good follower.

We talk so much about leadership, but sometimes fail to mention the importance of learning how to follow. [Tweet That!]

Just as your team leader(s) serve as a liaison between you and the team, the first follower serves as the connector—the lynchpin—between the team leader(s) and the rest of your players. When the leader(s) embrace the first follower as an equal and make it about the team, they become easy to follow.

You probably have identified players that you are helping to develop leadership skills.

Who are you looking to to fulfill the first follower role? Identify that player, make sure she knows the crucial nature of the role, then help her to embrace and fulfill it with excellence.

The Lynchpin to Team Cohesion appeared first on Life Beyond Sport.

About Stephanie Zonars

Stephanie Zonars helps coaches build and maintain winning team cultures through her business, Life Beyond Sport. Teams at Penn State, Notre Dame, West Point and over 60 other schools have built stronger trust, communication and teamwork through her workshops. Stephanie spent three years on staff with the Penn State women’s basketball team, assisting the team to back-to-back Big Ten Championships. She’s also the author of three books. For more tips on leadership and team culture, visit LifeBeyondSport

This article was written and submitted by retired High School Coach Dave Millhollin. I am always looking for good information to share. If you have an article, drill, play, or anything else that you would like to have posted on the Coaching Toolbox, feel free to contact me.

Building Great Teams Part 1

By Dave Millhollin

Editor’s note: This is part One of Two parts for this article. Here is the link to: Building Great Teams Part 2

Over the last two decades, much attention has been given to the concept of “Team Building” by private, public, and volunteer organizations. In all situations where groups of people are necessary to produce a product, generate revenue, or provide services, the groups that work best together and possess a sense of shared common purpose tend to be the most effective and efficient.

Our program’s approach to “Team Building”

We have established four fundamental reasons for team building:

• First, we want the experience of participating on the team to be the most satisfying and enjoyable experience it can possibly be for every individual member of the team.

• Secondly, we want each individual member of our team to experience as much personal growth as possible in the context of being a member of our team.

• Thirdly, participating on a team affords the members of that team to form meaningful and lasting relationships. The relationships we develop while participating on teams can be wonderful and life-long.

• The fourth reason for team building is to ensure that our team is as competitive as it can possibly be; that we play the absolute best basketball that we are capable of playing, win as many games as we can, compete for championships and advance as far as we are capable of in post season play.

We promote the concept of “cause over self” and profess that individual achievement will be accomplished through the giving of one’s self to the goals and welfare of the team. Therefore, unselfishness and self sacrifice are two of our program’s core values.

Building the “Team”

Leadership by the coaching staff

As adult leaders we determine what kind of program we want to run. While at Ponderosa, we decided to involve our players in as much of the decision making as possible. We want to achieve the highest degree of “ownership” and commitment as possible and we want our players to be accountable to one another and to their coaches with regard to the standards we set for our program. As coaches we see our primary responsibility as that of helping our players establish realistic goals and expectations, then doing everything in our power to help them achieve those goals and expectations.

Collaboration, “Ownership”, and Commitment

Prior to and at the beginning of the season, we conduct a series of meetings where our players and coaches engage in discussions and come to agreements on almost every aspect of our program. We clarify our values and our behavioral expectations and we discuss and agree on consequences. We agree on the role of the coach and the role of the players. We also discuss and agree on what we want to accomplish during the season. These desired accomplishments are written in two areas; season goals and progressive benchmarks. The progressive benchmarks provide us with a checklist of things we want to accomplish as the season goes along, this helps us progressively evaluate our performance and identify necessary adjustments as the season moves along.

As the season gets underway we also develop an identity statement that epitomizes the kind of team we want to have for that season. One season our team decided on the slogan; “Belief, Trust, Discipline and Unselfishness”.
We want all of our actions to reflect our identity statement.

The overall purpose for the collaboration process is to bring about a sense of ownership and develop a strong sense of responsibility and commitment by the members of our team. We will then be better able to hold one another accountable during the course of the season

Players are accountable to each other, not just to their coach. They live up to a set of standards and attempt to accomplish goals that they help develop, not ones imposed upon them by authority figures.

Individual Roles

Once we have established our goals for the season and discover our team’s identity, our coaches then work with each individual player to establish individual player roles. We base these roles on the specific attributes each player has in relation to the team’s goals. We have each player answer a set of questions designed to help them recognize what they can do to help the team achieve its goals. This part of the team building process is critical. If we can get every player on our team to align his personal goals with the goals of the team and establish his role on the team accordingly, then we will have a much better chance of having a great team. This is where unselfishness and personal self sacrifice for the goals and welfare of the team comes in to play.

For a player who would like to have a different role, we allow him to work on the areas he would like to improve on in practice so he will have a chance to change his role. This comes with the understanding that first and foremost he must be focused on and be committed to his initial role. If his role is to change, he and his coach must agree on that change in order for the change to take place.

Once we establish individual player roles, we have each player write down three to five things they can personally commit to that will help the team achieve its goals. This commitment list is a reflection of each player’s individual role. We require all of our players to become familiar with all their teammates’ commitment lists. We want all our players to “Know and understand your self and your teammates”.

Communication and Reminders

Communication is an area that is essential for the effectiveness of all groups. In the area of team sports, teams that communicate on the field or court are normally the most effective at what they do. We encourage our players to communicate on and off the court. We have them constantly give each other “Reminders”. These reminders can range from players reminding each other to be on time for a meeting to getting their hands up on defense. We demand each other to communicate about every expectation of our program. During practice sessions we run many drills which reinforce communication and during games we have our players on the bench constantly communicating to their teammates on the court, giving them reminders and encouragement. This communication is critical to our team chemistry, accountability, and overall effectiveness. During our goal setting meetings the coaches discuss the importance of communication and guide the members of the team to set communication as one of our team goals. Once our players understand how important communication is, they normally buy in to it and take ownership for being good communicators.

This is part One of Two parts for this article. Here is the link to: Building Great Teams Part 2

About the author of this article, Coach Dave Millhollin In fourteen years at Ponderosa High School, Coach Dave’s teams won 260 games (.665). From 2000 through 2009 Ponderosa won 207 games over a ten year stretch which included four SVC Conference Championships and two CIF Section final four appearances. Over his 27 year Boys Varsity Coaching career, Coach Dave posted 391 wins, produced 20 college basketball players and was named SVC Coach of the Year four times. At Ponderosa, Coach Dave’s teams were #1 in California in team defense five times and in 2008 Ponderosa was the top defensive team in the Nation among shot clock states. Over Coach Millhollin’s last five seasons (2005-6 through 2009-2010; 136 games) Ponderosa averaged a composite 50% total field goal percentage, 58% two point field goal percentage and 32% three point field goal percentage. Since retiring from High School coaching in 2010, Coach Dave has been actively involved in coaching Jr High level School and AAU teams as well as and running instructional basketball clinics from the primary grades through the College level.

This post was written by Del Harris and posted with his permission.

This was written for Coach Harris’ book, On Point–Four Steps to Better Life Teams.

Thoughts on communicating in Mentorship

Five levels of communication. When speaking to groups about relating to others more effectively from a leadership position such as coaching, I often specify five levels in communicating with team members. Each succeeding level requires a bit more volume and urgency in order to be effective.

a. Conversational. In the conversational level you are getting to know your people or are conducting normal verbal exchanges with acquaintances, good friends or loved ones. This is necessary learning what makes each individual tick, as well as in forming and maintaining relationships. Some of the conversation will be about the work involved, but much will be of other items that affect daily life—family things, current events and the like. It is important to set a good environment for learning (getting better at whatever the endeavor happens to be on a life team), but it is equally important to get to know each individual’s “personal context.” Each of us is different and part of being able to show real concern for another is to learn what things are unique to the person you are mentoring. Once you understand a little better one’s personality and background, it is easier to help that person on both the good and bad days that he will go through as you work together. Good listening technique is required, whereas many coaches/teachers tend to dominate the conversational levels with the second level that is noted next. Never underestimate the power of listening, and it takes a measure of humility to do that.

b. Informational. At the informational level, you are speaking more authoritatively and more firmly because you are teaching or expressing an opinion you think is of value. Teachers, preachers, coaches, and similar type leaders will raise their tone and expand their body language when instructing in order to emphasize the subject matter. This results from the passion that one should have for his subject material and the desire to help the listener to become a better performer. Or, it may simply be the way a person speaks when he “has the floor” in a group. His voice will be elevated above the conversational level, but controlled, compared to the level of a sales pitch or election rally. It is amazing that some overlook this difference when in a restaurant, seemingly wanting to get the attention of everyone in the restaurant.

c. Encouragement. Expressions of encouragement must be real, appropriate and given with feeling. It is important to express genuine excitement for improvements and successful achievements. The level of emotion should be commensurate to the value of the act. Overplaying a simple achievement, or underplaying a real accomplishment, can undermine the speaker’s credibility. In the NBA for example, some feats deserve a nod, some a fist bump, while others merit a chest bump, perhaps. Extreme jubilation should probably be reserved for winning a championship. In the NBA, when an individual player or an entire team celebrates with over-the–top animation too soon, most experienced onlookers will say, “Hey, act like you have made a shot before, or act like you actually won a game in the past!” However, while chest bumps may be out of place in the office, good performances do demand a commensurate level of acknowledgement. Faked or forced encouragement cheapens real achievements and does little to uplift the person, who probably assumes he is about to hear the next sentence with “But,” and then be followed with a suggestion or criticism.

d. Correctional. Mistakes should not be overlooked; they must be identified and corrected. Again, there should be an increase in the emotion or urgency in the voice, similar to the encouragement mode. The third and fourth levels, encouragement and correction, must be balanced against one another, but carry more emotion and urgency than the previous levels to be effective. It is great to be positive in one’s approach to problems, but everything isn’t “OK”, particularly repeated, similar violations. While a good argument can be made that the process of any endeavor is more important than the result, real life dictates that we are judged primarily on results. It is obvious that eliminating errors is important to achieving good results. This is especially true when done in an orderly, disciplined manner. To emphasize, people may shortcut or cheat to get a good result in the short run. But that is not a legitimate method on which to base a program or system. Correction that facilitates proper execution will provide better long-term results than will ill-advised shortcuts. In sports the best teams do not beat themselves by ignoring errors or committing the same mistakes repeatedly.

e. The fifth degree, or “going crazy” level.” As for the fifth degree, there are simply times when the person who leads or takes the point in a situation has to assert a strong authoritative approach. Occasionally, the followers must learn that the leader has a limit, an edge, that they really don’t want to challenge often. Does overturning the tables in the temple ring a bell, or how about calling the Pharisees a generation of vipers face to face in front of a large audience? However, this is an area that can be overdone to the leader’s and the entire operation’s detriment. I have embraced the following plan for over 30 years: Think of it like having one of the six-shooters in the old Western movies—or maybe a nine-shot clip for the younger folks. When the season or campaign or yearly audit is over, it is good to have a bullet or two left in the chambers. Use them up too soon, and you will be like a villain in those Westerns—you will pull the trigger and all that will be heard is a click—you are out of bullets! You may as well throw in your black hat—you are done! If you think you can use an automatic weapon approach when criticizing, you will wear down your people quickly and they will shut you out. That method of teaching/coaching just doesn’t wear well in the post 1970’s society. Whether that is a good or bad thing is dependent on one’s opinion, but it is the reality in team building in the post-Vietnam era.

Think of it this way: better putting will improve all golf scores. Don’t be so quick to pull out the driver (sorry, no mulligans); use your power wisely. Scale back to the correctional level and then move on down to the instructional level, as soon as it seems appropriate to do so. Once you have made your point, move away from an emotional response to a more controlled one. A lot of times we forget that we can only make our main point once. After that, it is making the same point over and over; that tends to become argumentative and/or destructive.