This week’s question: What strategies did you use to build and empower players to take ownership of the team and leadership roles? How did you deal with strong leaders who were negative leaders?
Kathy Bresnahan- Iowa City West
I can only speak from the perspective of coaching female athletes but I’m sure some strategies carry over. I do think it's a bit different coaching girls in that they often are overlooked as potential leaders. Boys, from an early age, are encouraged to take control, lauded for their athletic accomplishments, and rewarded for taking leadership roles and I’m not sure girls often have that same experience.
It’s the players team…not the coach. Give them ownership of the program. Put them in positions of responsibility
1. Let the kids set the team rules with coach input. For example, if you’re playing a Saturday tournament and leaving at 6 am, what is a reasonable time for everyone to get home the night before when attending the football game? What are expectations about attending parties where there may be alcohol? If these rules are broken, what are the consequences? There will be a lot of debate, girls like to talk🤣 but they will eventually come to a consensus
2. Team respect activity. Kids want to feel valued and appreciated. Do a group activity where every athlete is given a piece of paper with all team member names. Behind each name they will write something positive about that player. An assistant coach can compile the answers and the next practice hand out the positive list to each member. Non-starters especially benefit from something like this and we all know how toxic kids in the bench can be to a program if they feel like their contributions don’t matter. Large teams like football and soccer could do this by position groups
3. Assign a couple athletes each week to come up with a drill to work on an area that they feel needs improvement to the team success. This is something we might do on a day after a match. Coaches still run the drill based on the athlete’s suggestion
4. Negative leaders. When I had players that only gave negative feedback whether “yelling from the bench” or in practice/games I would say something to them in private and and ask them how they could get the same message but with a positive spin If this behavior continued, I would meet with them a second time
5. Team captains. We always had the players brainstorm characteristics of a good leader. Once they agreed on 4-6 qualities, each of them would write names on a piece of paper as to who on the team exhibited these qualities. They must sign their name to the paper and take ownership of the nominations. Coaches compile the list but have the option to add a captain as well.
Diane Lichtenberg- Bettendorf
What specific strategies did you use to build and empower players to take ownership and leadership roles?
Each year I would have the players vote for the captains of the team. I felt it was important for them to have some say in who they thought the leaders were. Before the vote was made, I would ask all of the players, who was interested in being a captain. The girls that were interested had to go in front of the team and explain why they wanted to be a captain and why they would be a good choice. Once all of the players spoke, they would vote. I would let them know at the next practice session who the captains would be for the season.
Once the captains were selected, I would have a meeting with them and go over information about leadership- what it means to be a good leader, roles and responsibilities of the captains, my expectations for them in their leadership roles throughout the season, etc. Topics discussed were, leading warm ups, knowing the rules on the court, pre game responsibilities, setting the tone in practice, during the match, in the weight room, off the court, in the classroom, We would meet several times throughout the season and continue our discussion on leadership.
At the beginning of the meetings, I would have them fill out a quick information sheet where they rated themselves as leaders in different areas. This was a good starting point for our meetings. We discussed any challenges they had during the week as a leader and how they could improve.
How did you deal with strong leaders who were “negative leaders”?
Over the years, I did encounter some leaders that were negative. We had some one on one meetings and talked about the importance of body languageand tone of voice during practice and games. We discussed the importance of being a positive presence on the court. We also redefined the role of the captain and of the coach.
Many times the negative leader would try to give the players feedback on their skills/game play in a negative way. Giving this type of feedback in not helpful and not one of the jobs of the captain.
Mike Cooper- Ottawa
Empowering leaders:
I would really stress senior leadership throughout my years. Hopefully by the time a player was a senior they knew what the expectation was.
My expectations for my seniors were to be the hardest workers, be at everything (summer activities, lifting and team building activities) unless they had a really good reason and be supportive of younger players in the program.
My captains were players who were respected by the others in the program and ones who would do anything for team success. I needed them to be positive with others in the program and be my eyes and ears for possible issues. I also allowed them to ask me questions that they might have or knew that others might have, but are afraid to ask. I tried to be as transparent with my captains as I could so everyone was on the same page.
When it came to negative leaders in the program we tried to address possible issues when they were sophomores. I had a really good sophomore coach who knew what we expected on the varsity and would address behaviors that might be an issue in the future. We really stressed "team"when addressing our players.
Mark Massey- Clinton
Building leadership:
— sometimes I think we make the mistake of assuming too much, assuming the right kid will become the leader naturally. I always tried to consult with assistants and older players and identified leadership in younger players and then encouraged that. And at some point verbalize to a player that you recognize that they can be a leader, point out that that could be organizing off-season activities, leading drills in the season, taking care of transportation, etc..
—- once you’ve identified an area in which a player can help in terms of being a leader, do it early enough that if there’s an issue or a struggle that needs to be taken care of it can be corrected, but it’s best not to do that publicly.
— ask veterans or better players for their input and suggestions. You want to guide them and share some of your thoughts or reasons with them. Give them some ownership.
— identify a player as an example of leadership, this can be in a practice, during a game, during a time out, in the media. “Thanks for being a leader.”
— ask the player what they think they could do to be a positive leader for the team. It can be a delicate area, I don’t think you want to ask them about any current members, but sometimes it can be helpful to ask them maybe even about a professional or collegiate player that they’ve seen that exhibited negative leadership. Showing them what negative leadership looks like helps them understand what a positive leader should look like.
— encourage players to take on leadership roles in the community, or in the student body.
— the coach should make the effort themselves to do things like keeping statistics updated, post game, summaries, or news items in social media in a timely manner. In fact, these are an area where team members can assist to a certain extent.
— some positions are naturally leadership position, setter, quarterback…
—-best approach to negative leadership is to try to prevent it to start with. Be very specific about preseason, pregame what your expectations are and are not. Much easier to set the boundaries ahead than to rein something in. If you identify a problem, I think the best way is just either through the use of video or conversation, including assistants. See if the coach can get the player to see how a certain behavior might be an issue.
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