Experience.

I have this general idea for an article based loosely on gaining experience in coaching. It's not completely formulated so, we'll see where this goes.  lol.

As I watched a new coach conduct a training session my mind drifted back to my first solo practice sessions as a coach. I remember having spent the night before preparing. The head coach would be absent from practice the next day and his instructions were short and sweet - "We need to work on off-the-ball movement."   Well, okay then.  This was pre-Internet days and I was reliant on the coaching books and videos I had for ideas. I selected a basic three team transitioning drill that I felt fit my needs, I tweaked it a bit to better fit the team I was working with.  I know I put in at least 3 hours planning for the next day's one and half hour practice session.  I wanted to be prepared.

I have fond memories of that day in part because the smiles on the players faces told me they were having a good time and the exercises I had chosen, including the featured 3 team transition game, went smoothly. I had an idea of what I wanted to accomplish in the training session and prepared to achieve it.

(Hit the jump for the rest of the article)

Leadership 101

This is not the first time I have set about teaching leadership to high school aged student athletes. Even with past experience, this is not an easy task. The teenage years are often more about fitting in than standing out, more about following than leading. And leaders, be they good or bad, positive or negative, tend to stand out. It takes a certain level of confidence to lead and developing confidence through the teenage years can be a gradual, even slow, process. Often times, in the mind of a typical student athlete, the rewards of being a leader are outweighed by the perceived risks of being a leader. How we learn to develop and teach the confidence necessary to overcome powerful emotions such as doubt, fear, trepidation and uncertainty that will determine their effectiveness and success as leaders is a process that all too often gets short shrift.  

Team sports are a natural environment for developing leadership skills. 

In having played,  coached and observed team sports over the years one thing stands out about successful teams - that being the quality of leadership. It stands to reason then a primary responsibility for a coach should be on developing quality leaders.

I think it fair to say a majority of coaches appoint team captains based on some type of arbitrary criteria grounded in both how much control they wish to relinquish to the players and the role they wish for their leaders to fill. Seniority and popularity are often determining factors when appointing captains. It is as though being a captain is about winning a popularity contest or a senior year entitlement. In truth, being a leader can place the student athlete in unpopular positions and is most definitely not an entitlement.

I recently wrote of the difference between Champions and Championships.

A similar distinction must be drawn between Leaders and Leadership.

Champions / Leaders are people and Championships / Leadership are processes.

Leaders need Leadership Opportunities from which to learn and develop leadership skills. I would suggest, if you find yourself yearning for better player leadership you should evaluate the process for developing leaders that you have in place. 

Player leadership begins with the coach. 

There are innumerable opportunities in team sports for developing leadership qualities in student athletes. The most difficult step a for coach in the process of developing leaders might well be consciously deciding to alter their coaching style to allow for student athletes to experience these opportunities. How does one learn about leading if the opportunities to lead are not adequate to provide experience in leading?

I would also suggest the quality of opportunities provided for developing leadership skills is of utmost importance. Leadership opportunities exist in any team environment. If your team is plagued by toxic or negative leadership it might be opportunities for toxic leadership have been present and seized upon.  This is where the quality of coach / player relationships comes into play.

A key aspect of leading is the ability to establish, develop and maintain relationships. This has been a primary focus in our Leadership Class sessions to date. I have asked our student athletes to summon up 20 seconds of courage when tasked with completing the interview sections in each chapter. I have asked them to step outside their comfort zones, introduce themselves to new people and conduct short interviews with these people.  We have gone from blowing off these assignments entirely to interviewing parents to interviewing people in our extended families and finally tp interviewing people who are relative if not actual strangers before the interviews begin. The confidence being gained through this process, through these opportunities is palpable. So too is the transition from leading by example to being vocal leaders. Classroom participation has steadily improved. We have even had players volunteer to LEAD classroom sessions! Progress in the Process.  

The coach's foremost responsibility to the TEAM is...

In a world where professional and high profile sports dominate one might think guiding a team to wins is a coach's first priority.  In a bottom line economic sense this is probably true. However, I challenge this assumption in the context of the wider world of sports.  Here it is the coach's responsibility to properly prepare the team to put its collective best foot forward. 

Putting your best foot forward is not about winning every game.  It is not about playing mistake free soccer.  It is all about placing your team in position to give their best effort possible on a given day. Putting your best foot forward should be a steady march of improvement from day to day with recognition adversity will be encountered along the way. Positioning your team to put its best foot forward very much depends on how you teach them to react to adversity. Do you allow for excuses thereby empowering the adversity to determine your teams effort?  Or do you embrace adversity as an opportunity?

Properly identifying adversity is also an important aspect of allowing your team to put its best foot forward.  If your team will be facing a far superior opponent and you set the goal as upsetting them it will be difficult for your team to its best foot forward that day. If you identify obtainable in-game goals that could lead to an upset of a superior opponent chances of your team putting it's best foot forward increases against even the best of opponents.

In a sense, putting your best foot forward is about persevering along the road to success. Continuous Progress Improvement is a term that was used in schools when my sons were of that age. As coaches we are charged with preparing and positioning our team to constantly put their best foot forward and in doing so grow the program, the team and its individuals. 

Another way to look at this is to say we should never be satisfied.  Complacency is destructive to progress and greatly hinders the ability to put our best foot forward. Keeping a team hungry and focused can be a challenge and is a primary reason coaches work so hard to limit distractions, utilize team bonding exercises and preach "The TEAM!"  

Putting our best foot forward requires having a season-long plan for how to advance the team from it's starting point to a vision you have for them.  A firm hand on the rudder following a well charted course is paramount to helping your team put its best foot forward on a consistent basis. If you do not have a season-long plan but jump around from one topic to another attempting to fill each new leak in the dam your team is likely never to achieve full potential in any one area.  To put it another way, you are unlikely to establish a foundation strong enough to sustain real growth.