Providing Insights on Leadership and Success. Coach Bechler is a John Maxwell Leadership Team Member.
SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN
Most coaching candidates can talk well about leadership.
They can describe their culture. They can explain their recruiting philosophy. They can talk about accountability, relationships, discipline, communication, and developing student-athletes.
And much of it may be sincere.
11-time NBA Championship coach Phil Jackson said, “The strength of the team is each individual member, and the strength of each member is the team.” As a coach, you understand the importance of building a strong team.
There are plenty of teams that consist of skilled individuals and athletes with tremendous physical assets. However, some of these teams never reach their potential because they are just a bunch of puzzle pieces that don’t seem to fit together.
SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN
Hiring a college coach is one of the most important decisions an athletic director makes.
It is also one of the hardest.
A coach hire affects far more than wins and losses. It shapes team culture, student-athlete experience, retention, department morale, institutional alignment, and the long-term direction of a program.
That is why we recently gathered input from 60 college athletic directors across junior colleges, NAIA programs, and NCAA Divisions I, II, and III for our 2026 College Coaching Search Report. The goal was simple: better understand what athletic directors are experiencing, noticing, valuing, and struggling with in today’s coaching searches.
There’s no doubt that you want a stronger culture and a successful program. This is oftentimes accomplished when you have athletes that are good leaders. This might manifest itself in the form of strong team captains, upperclassmen, or an overall atmosphere of all players taking responsibility for the team’s leadership.
However, whether the leadership on your team is currently where you want it to be or not, you can do something to make it even better.
SPECIAL GUEST POST FROM DAN CHRISTENSEN
Every coaching candidate talks about culture.
They believe in accountability. They care about relationships. They want to recruit high-character student-athletes. They value hard work, trust, discipline, and family.
Those are good words. But in a coaching search, they are not enough.
One of the biggest mistakes an athletic director can make is allowing “culture” to remain vague. When culture becomes a personality impression, the process drifts toward questions like, “Did we like this person?” or “Do they seem like they would fit here?”
Those questions may feel natural, but they are not enough to guide a high-stakes hire.
The better question is this: