You’re a coach, which means you have a position of leadership. However, keep in mind that just because you have a business card, plaque on your office door, or embroidered shirts saying “coach” doesn’t mean you are a good leader. There are plenty of politicians, CEOs, administrators, and yes, even coaches that aren’t maximizing the leadership potential of their positions.
Your status as a coach provides you a tremendous opportunity and starting point to make a positive impact on people. Leadership isn’t about positions or status, but about influence. Anyone can be a leader because anyone can have influence. However, you have a head start because you have power, status, and authority. You have a built-in platform and opportunity to use your power for good … or for bad.
There are a lot of qualities and things that go into being a leader, but there are also some components to leadership that often go overlooked. These concepts might appear to be obvious but as you’ll see, there are some dynamics to each of these that the best leaders latch onto and take to another level.
Here are four concepts that real leaders embrace …
- The best leaders are 100% responsible for their program
- The best leaders empower their team members
- The best leaders are able to connect
- The best leaders lead by example
Real leadership isn’t just about titles, status, authority, or organizational flow charts. Real leadership is about inspiring others and making others better. This is best done when a leader goes above and beyond what “most” people do when they have a position of leadership.
Real leadership is a verb, not a noun. Real leadership isn’t about the position, but about the people.
Real leaders take responsibility
At first glance, taking responsibility seems obvious. Of course, you’re willing to take responsibility for your actions. However, it’s not just about your actions. It’s about taking responsibility for the actions of everyone. Former U.S. President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read, “The buck stops here.” It’s about taking responsibility for what happens in your program and not passing the buck.
Jeff Bain, a member of the NACDA Hall of Fame, liked to say, “You can delegate tasks, but not responsibility.” Your athletes are going to perform tasks during games and practices. You can’t always control what they do, but you can influence whether they’re properly prepared, equipped, and empowered to do their job correctly. Y
Too often coaches (leaders) will say “it’s not my fault” or play the blame game. Your athlete might have screwed up. It’s not your fault they just turned the ball over, but it is your responsibility to have prepared them properly and put them into the best situation to succeed. It’s your responsibility to help them be better for the next time.
Nobody’s perfect and you can’t anticipate everything, nor can you control everyone. But the best leaders understand that they’re the adults in the organization. They understand that they’re the ones who provide the guidance. Coaches are the individuals that understand the vision and should be know how to take someone from where they’re currently at to where they need to be.
The best leaders are not concerned with who gets the credit or the blame. It might not be your fault, but it’s 100% your responsibility to find solutions and make things better. It’s your responsibility to prepare each of your team members to be the best version of themselves and perform at their highest level.
Real leaders empower others
Many coaches believe that a good leader has good followers. In reality, the best leaders develop other leaders. A good leader not only equips others to do their job but also empowers others. The best leaders don’t need to use their power to benefit themselves. They use their power to help others.
Good leaders don’t focus on having compliant followers who buy into everything they say. This becomes a by-product of an environment in which team members are empowered. It’s not about “just do what you’re supposed to do” or “why can’t you do what I told you to do”, but it becomes a situation where team members do things because it’s the right thing to do, not because you told them to do it.
The best leaders are not worried about titles or status. They are okay with giving up some of their power in order to allow others a part in the process. They want others to have an ownership stake in what’s going on. A good leader that empowers others will usually see more of togetherness mentality. The team will take the approach that they win together, lose together, celebrate successes together, and overcome challenges together.
The more that team members share in the journey and are invested in the process, the more they’ll take ownership in the results. As a coach, you can’t be everywhere and control everything, but when you empower other leaders, your positive influence can spread.
Real leaders are able to connect
Only when your athletes (and parents) trust you and respect you will you reach your potential as a leader and to your program’s culture to a higher level. The old coaching adage, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is often true.
Most of the problems people have is relationship based and most of these stem from a lack of trust, communication, or respect. These issues are typically a result of not having a strong and healthy connection with a person.
Do you have parent problems? There’s a good chance they don’t trust you, respect you, or believe in you. This can probably be traced to the fact that there is no connection with them. You have built a strong bond with them. They don’t give you the benefit of the doubt because there is no investment in the relationship. This can be the same for you as a coach. You don’t trust, respect, or believe in a parent (or athlete) for the same reasons.
There’ll no doubt come a time when you need to have tough conversations with people and when this happens, you’ll need a strong bond. The more you’re able to connect with others, the easier those conversations will be.
Even if you don’t subscribe to the idea of empowering others and instead just want people to buy into what you’re selling and be a compliant follower, you’ll need to connect with them. No connection means they’ll not be inspired to listen. They’ll not trust or respect you. If this is the case, they won’t truly be bought-in, and they will struggle to be good followers. There’ll be no long-term or sustained success.
Real leaders lead by example
Once again, this probably seems like an obvious concept, but there’s a layer to this that often gets overlooked by people in positions of leadership. Even though this might be an obvious quality of leadership, coaches don’t always lead by example. Coaches are really good at telling their athletes what to do, but they don’t always do a good job of demonstrating this.
National Junior College Hall of Fame basketball coach Denny Lehnus used to say, “What you do is what you believe, everything else is just talk.” Coaches are good at talking, but not always so good at doing. You want your athletes to be calm, cool, and collected? This is more likely to occur if you’re calm, cool, and collected. You want your athletes to bounce back from adversity and move on to the next play, then you shouldn’t hold on to mistakes from your athletes or get distracted by the officials.
Coaches are often good at setting standards, establishing policies, or communicating vision, but sometimes fail to live up to those standards, abide by the policies themselves, or align their daily activities with the long-term vision. The best leaders model the very behavior they desire.
Coaches might preach and emphasize a team-mentality among their athletes, but be isolated, selfish, or agenda-driven themselves. Coaches might have double standards or only praise the top performers or stars, while ignoring (in large part) some of the “role players”. Athletes tend to see these things. They pick up on these actions and can feel the coach is being inconsistent at best and hypocritical at worst.
You should be finding ways to practice what you preach. Understandably, you’re not perfect. However, young people are still learning about life and maturing on a daily basis. In most cases, coaches will have the most influence in their life. As much as possible, your words should align with your actions. The best leaders not only talk the talk but walk the walk.
It’s not about you
In the best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, the first line penned by author Rick Warren is, “It’s not about you.” Your position as a coach allows you more opportunities to serve others. The best coaches are servant leaders. The best leaders understand it’s not about them and how they can personally benefit from their position, but rather how they can help, serve, and benefit others through their status, power, resources, position, or expertise.
It’s not about you, but it starts with you. It starts with a mentality of serving your people and making them better. Using your power for good. Using your status to make a positive impact. It’s not about you but you set the tone. Leadership expert and author, John C. Maxwell says, “A leader knows the way, shows the way, and goes the way.”