Leadership

Humility is not Optional.  It’s a Necessity

Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.  The Academy for Sport Leadership

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” –C.S. Lewis

As we descend deeper into a society characterized by polarization and division, cooperation is increasingly a curious characteristic.  First, let me suggest that cooperation is a product of humility, a dispositional drive of a selfless ego.  I introduce cooperation here to set it up as a desired individual behavior to be exercised in a team environment.

Consider humility to be a serious personality characteristic; one that is geared toward the positive construction and building of healthy relationships.  But don’t align humility with meekness or shyness—as is usually the case.   Resist the temptation to dismiss humility simply because it hasn’t been lionized like “grit,” or “mental toughness.”

One of the biggest mistakes coaches make is thinking that humility means a lack of self-confidence or a personal shortcoming such as a fragile sense of one’s self.

In team relationships humility shows through by the team members’ commitment to serve and support one another, through showing appreciation for the contributions of teammates, expressing encouragement, and acceptance of each other.  The person possessing a healthy dose of humility is generous with his or her support of others as expressed through loyalty and respect for teammates.

The humble teammate displays a strong sense of duty to the team.  Let me be clear: humility is the social glue that holds the team—a fragile eco-system—in balance.  Humility always contributes to unity.

It is worth exploring how to mesh cooperation with competition.  Competition—a cherished quality in the field of sport—is often considered to be the opposite of cooperation.  Competition is the drive and compulsion to win, to earn, to get, to have, to do.  Sports and competition are synonymous.  Yet, an ego attuned to only competition breeds a self-interested ego.  At this point I’m sure you’re saying…”and so?”

We live in a culture with a high tolerance for individualism.  This breeds status and ego.  It promotes selfishness (might I get creative and say “selfieness”), and an “It’s all about me” attitude.  Society rewards those who use self-promotion to stand-out.   Of course, many young people have bought into this approach to life.  However, there is often a darker side to ego.  Ryan Holiday, author of Ego is the Enemy, reveals:

“The ego we see most commonly goes by a more casual definition: an unhealthy belief in our own importance.  Arrogance.  Self-centered ambition….The need to be better than, more than, recognized for, far past any reasonable utility—that’s ego.  It’s the sense of superiority and certainty that exceeds the bounds of confidence and talent.”

An ego out of control can and often does promote a sense of self-justification giving an individual the “freedom” to say and do whatever is in their best interest.  Ego driven people often are self-absorbed and seek only individual fulfillment.  Certainly such behavior can and often is displayed on the playing field.

However, don’t confuse this with a default proposition that competitiveness is bad; it’s clearly not.  But when an ego (triggered by a social or psychological event) is out of touch with reality it can quickly put a person on a path to self-destruction.  And when this happens good luck reaching the person; you likely won’t until they meet with a fall that humbles them.  Reality meets humility.

A humble person, one driven by a strong and stable sense of humility, is simply more likely to help a teammate, to regard others as equals and worthy of a deep, close relationship.   Simply said, the humble person who practices humility keeps their accomplishments, gifts, and talents in a proper perspective. They possess self-awareness, avoid self-serving distortions, and are keenly aware of their limitations. They value the welfare of teammates and have the ability to mindfully attend to the uniqueness of each team member.  Humility always contributes to unity.

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cory Dobbs is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership and a nationally recognized thought leader in the areas of leadership and team building.  Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience. Cory engages in naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting.

A former basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition.  After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process.  As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will care.” -Your Student-Athlete The world of coaching is changing. In Coaching for Leadership you’ll discover the foundations for designing, building, and sustaining a leadership focused culture for building a high-performance team. 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

These two articles on self-reflection and leadership were submitted by Dr. Cory Dobbs of The Academy for Sport Leadership.

The Invisible Barrier to Learning: Question Your Assumptions

What if we—you, me, and the next guy—really understood how little we know. Oh, we might have some subject matter expertise. But that only counts for a small sliver of life. Yet I consistently find that people, either because of a predisposition to self-protection (preservation) or self-promotion (preference) are slow to learn that it’s okay not to know everything.

In meeting after meeting I’ve noticed a favored declaration by the participants is “I already know that.” This message is often communicated explicitly by uttering the words, but more often the “I already know that” takes shape in nodding of the head back and forth designed to communicate this “fact”.

Why is it so worrisome to hear those words? Well, it suggests that the individual believes that their state of knowledge on that topic or subject is settled and complete. Therefore, they might not be open to learning new things, to questioning their assumptions, or considering the fact that they just might be wrong. Yet if you ask the head nodder if they are open-minded, you’ll get a continuation of the forward-backward nod to signify “of course I’m open to learning.”

The truth is this habit is hard to break. However, the curious mind is often found in the beginner, the one that is eager to learn about how things work. It’s often said that in the beginners mind there are many possibilities, in the expert there are few. Once you know this you can enter meetings with the mind of a beginner. New ideas, thoughts, or insights emerge not by chance, but by embracing and studying the challenges we encounter each and every day. You can begin learning at a deeper level by getting rid of the words “I already know that.”

Article #2: Mindset: Are You Satisficing or Maximizing?

The knowledge monopoly on “X” and “O’s” has been shattered. New coaching web sites pop up every day offering to you, the coach, all you need to master the technical and tactical parts of coaching your sport. And that’s great; tools for new coaches to get up to speed and veteran’s to quickly learn a new wrinkle.

But what about leadership development for you and your student-athletes?

In general, my research reveals two mindsets when it comes to leadership development; the maximizing mindset (searching for something that is “best”) vs. the satisficing mindset (searching for something that is “good enough”). Leadership is about relationships, it’s about expectations, preferences and an over-arching ideology. Great coaches don’t take leadership lightly. They deliberately develop team leaders and simultaneously grow themselves as leaders.

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will care.” -Your Student-Athlete The world of coaching is changing. In Coaching for Leadership you’ll discover the foundations for designing, building, and sustaining a leadership focused culture for building a high-performance team. 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

Leading with Quiet Strength

By Dr. Cory Dobbs, President, The Academy for Sport Leadership.

On an unusually warm morning, sometime in October, the head coach of a successful basketball program looked at me and said, “He just doesn’t get it. He can’t help us. He simply does not know how to lead this team!” As an invited guest I listened and observed. And listened. And observed some more.

This was a return visit by me to evaluate the team’s culture. A couple of months earlier I’d spent several weeks during the off-season working with the staff and players to build a leader in every locker culture. My visit was part research—to evaluate how “sticky” is our Teamwork Intelligence program (created by The Academy for Sport Leadership), and part coaching—to come back and revisit some of the key practices of the Teamwork Intelligence program with the coaches and players.

The player that caused the coach’s rant was a returning point guard of whom much was expected. In the past, all the point guards the coach deployed were boisterous, passionate, and outwardly emotional. This point guard, however, was unusually quiet on the floor, off the floor, and in the classroom. Conversations with him are always lop‐sided, others doing the talking. The head coach was frustrated that after two years in the program the player had yet to come out of his “shell.”

A person’s choice of interpersonal interaction sometimes offers clues to a deeper driving force—such as introversion or extroversion. One’s inclination to extroversion or introversion can quickly be determined by what I call the “crowded party effect.”

The introvert at a crowded party is likely to find a comfortable seat from which to observe the activity of others. Introverts are inclined to “be quiet” and are drained by such social encounters, while the “party animal” extrovert is energized by such activity and seeks out people to charge their batteries.

Several years ago, Susan Cain, a Harvard Business School professor, delivered one of the most well‐received Ted Talks of all time. Today the YouTube video counts more than 18 million views of her talk on introversion. Cain wrote, the 2012 book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking,” which has sold two million copies worldwide. With the Ted Talk and book, Susan Cain has single‐handedly triggered a deeper awareness of and appreciation for the many facets of introversion. She’s introduced a myth-shattering perspective that has transformed the way we view introversion and introverts.

Far more than we are consciously aware of, we live in a society dominated by extroverts. Cain’s research points out that the American culture glorifies extroversion. Sports stars and movie stars are highly paid and followed, and social media thrives on people exposing their innermost thoughts and feelings. Extroverts are highly visible in most settings and situations. Bold personalities are rewarded.

Cain writes, “We’re told that to be great is to be bold, to be happy is to be sociable. We see ourselves as a nation of extroverts—which means that we’ve lost sight of who we really are.” In fact, she notes, one‐third to one‐half of Americans are introverts. So if you’re not one yourself, she often advises audiences, “You’re probably raising or managing or married to one.”

The quiet and reserved point guard that so frustrated the coach, it turns out, was an introvert. A stone cold introvert. After practice the head coach set the stage. Before examining the practice session we sipped iced‐tea—a kind of cooling off period.

Our conversation was soon set in motion. The head coach opened our post‐practice conversation with a “See. I told you so,” reinforcing a tight grip on his perspective. My observation of the practice session that day was, however, quite different.

During the practice I counted 18 personal touches (such as grasping a teammate’s elbow in order to pull the teammate in to hear him speak)—micro acts of leadership—by the point guard. The coach looked at me in a curious way when I stated this fact. So I explained. Each touch by the point guard was a leadership act. A player threw an errant pass that was taken by the opposing squad down the floor for a quick score. Knowing and sensing his teammate’s anger the quiet leader simply walked over and literally lifted his teammate’s head—softly but authoritatively. The teammate immediately shifted back into a positive mode. Such behavior happened at the most appropriate times. During a stop in action the quiet leader walked over to a teammate and softly spoke words of instruction—never calling attention to himself. Rather, in a calm and nonchalant manner the quiet
point guard curiously found all kinds of quiet moments in which to take action and provide leadership.

The seemingly reticent team leader was completely in tune with his teammates. The head coach, however, not looking at these micro‐actions as leadership moments, simply could not see what was right in front of him. The team manager loaded up the video of the practice, allowing me to show display evidence of the “non‐leader” leading.

Most people are comfortable thinking of leaders as being outgoing, visible, and charismatic. Such a perspective is overly narrow.

Scientists now know that, extroverts have no special advantage in leadership. Yes, they tend to be more visible, and assertive, but those are situational advantages.

Introverts tend to process more information and do so accurately as they are often able to mitigate the influence of emotion. Further, introverts seldom need the emotional stimuli that an extrovert requires. They do best in quiet environments where they can interact one-on‐one, or in small groups. Knowing who the team’s introverts and extroverts are can go a long way in building deep and durable interpersonal relationships.

The specter of the introverted team leader touches on a fundamental distinction between action and reflection. When we think of team leaders, we usually envision someone like Tom Brady, LeBron James, Carli Lloyd or Julie Foudy. The image of a team leader is one of action; rare is it when reflection is considered a co‐equal quality. But action without reflection is a suboptimal way of building a cohesive team.

These two aspects of human dynamics, action and reflection, establish the essential elements of leadership. Everything a leader does involves some degree of action on the ground and reflection distilled in making sense of events, incidents, and relationships. As one expert said, “Action without reflection is thoughtless; reflection without action is passive.”

Accordingly, it is no longer impossible to have introverts participate in team leadership. A reorientation to use action (read extrovert) and reflection (read introvert) in creative ways is to ensure a healthy climate conducive to building a high‐performance team culture. To put it simply, if we recognize ways to include the introvert along with the extrovert in team leadership, we can create a leader in every locker.

The Academy for Sport Leadership’s Coaching for Leadership Approach: Our approach to team building is rooted in the belief that leadership is a powerful force for shaping a team’s culture, influencing the growth and development of student-athletes. We find that and those coaches that practice deep leadership, and a deep commitment to Coaching for Leadership, stand above and apart from others in the profession.

NEW RESOURCE FOR COACHES

In Leadership Quest Dr. Cory Dobbs offers student-athletes a leadership fable that is engaging, instructive, and transformative. This book provides a simple, yet powerful, model of leadership that will build confident and effective team leaders for any sport. Using the power of storytelling, Leadership Quest presents a proven framework for student-athletes to follow and become exceptional leaders on the playing field and in everyday life. Leadership Quest advances an athlete-centered approach to developing the leader within each and every student-athlete.

Click here for more information on the: Leadership Quest Pack

About the Author

Dr. Cory Dobbs is a national expert on sport leadership and team building and is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership.  A teacher, speaker, consultant, and writer, Dr. Dobbs has worked with professional, collegiate, and high school athletes and coaches teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience.  He facilitates workshops, seminars, and consults with a wide-range of professional organizations and teams.  Dr. Dobbs previously taught in the graduate colleges of business and education at Northern Arizona University, Sport Management and Leadership at Ohio University, and the Jerry Colangelo College of Sports Business at Grand Canyon University.

Contact Information for Dr. Cory Dobbs:
(623) 330.3831 (call or text)

This article was contributed by:

Justin Matthew Brandt
[email protected]
CoachJB.weebly.com
Here is a link to his YouTube channel
Here is a link to his Instagram

I have been asked on multiple occasions on what my rules for my classroom or team are. My response is always the same, we do not have rules, we have standards. From reasoning to prescription practices, you will be able to decide for yourself which one is actually more beneficial after digesting the information provided below.

There are major differences between the two terms, even in their simplest of forms, the definitions. Provided below are the results for the two words if you were to search for them on Google.

Rule – one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct within a particular activity or sphere.

Standard – a level of quality or attainment. An idea or thing used as a measure, norm or model in comparative evaluations.

By definition alone you can see that rules are very forceful and demeaning. In fact, if you were to reference a thesaurus for synonyms for words used in the definition, you would also find words such as “command”, “controlling” and “dominant”. Individuals are forced to bow DOWN and abide by a set of rules they may not even agree with. On the contrary, if you did a similar search for standards you would find words such as “character”, “individuality”, “genius”, and “virtue”. In this case, individuals rise UP in the situation to increase their likelihood of success. Thus, by definition alone, rules are negative, while standards are positive.

During an interview, Coach Mike Krzyzewski once described his reasoning for use of standards instead of rules by stating…

“When I was at West Point, we had a bunch of rules, all of which I didn’t agree with. Usually when you’re ruled, you never agree with all the rules, you just abide by them. But if you have standards and if everyone contributes to the way you’re going to do things, you end up owning how you do things.”

Take a moment to reflect upon this statement with the provided example. You are abiding by the rules just because it’s what you are supposed to do. So instead of running the floor with reasoning, maybe because the team you are playing against enjoys slowing the pace, you jog because it’s January and you are tired of running due to the rule. Or, my favorite, for the purpose of “because I said so”. Sound familiar?
Unfortunately, the reasoning provided above is far from being bizarre or a foreign concept. Knowing the why is the first step to buying into anything! You rarely spend your money on products without any reasoning behind it, why would you spend your time, something that has no return policy, on buying into a rule that makes no sense to you?

I’ll answer this one for you…you wouldn’t! What makes you think that your athletes will? Here are the positives and the negatives of changing this ONE statement. Negatives, you are no longer able to be lazy and some of your views that you thought were good, may actually reveal themselves to be bad. Positives, you and everyone else involved will gain perspective and reasoning, you will work harder, you will increase your program’s comprehension and you will eliminate bad habits/mentalities that were potentially holding you back. All by simply providing reasoning and answering the why.

While knowing the why is the first step when it comes to buying into anything, that does not mean it stops after day one. You will have to continue to reinforce the why on a regular basis. Your standards should also be relevant, realistic, have background data to support them, be developing and have consequences.

Relevant. The easiest way to make standards relevant is to gain input from your athletes. It is very easy to look up standards from other great teams and attempt to implement them. However, as Coach K said before in his interview, “if everyone contributes to the way you’re going to do things, you end up owning how you do things.” Ownership cannot be understated. When people don’t live up to the standards that they put into place, you can hold them accountable for both the decision they made to set the standard and the decision they made to not live up to it. Coaches, support staff and athletes alike.

Realistic and Background Data. I put these two in the same section because they work harmoniously. Your standards must be realistic for your players to live up to. If your team is young and struggling with turnovers, don’t set your standard to zero turnovers. It’s unrealistic to expect someone to go from 10 turnovers in a game to none. You wouldn’t expect a beginner weightlifter to squat two and half times their body weight, so why should your basketball player be any different? With that, you must provide some background data not only to hold them accountable, but to provide them with a standard to live up to.

The best example I can provide is drill work. One drill we do consists of athletes getting two jump shots and a lay-up in during one trip down the floor. It is a continuous transition drill that lasts three minutes long. Each year our standard is set by the numbers they achieve while running through the drill. If they don’t live up to the standards there is a consequence. The JV players and Varsity players have different standards. However, they are given the standards that are used for local collegiate programs as well. This leads into developing.

Developing. Once your players reach the standard consistently, it is time to raise the bar. In doing so, you promote a growth environment as opposed to a simple living at status quo. But remember to keep it realistic. What does that look like? If your team’s standard for “shooting drill A” is 13 and they reach 15, then the new standard is 15. If your squat workout this week is 3×10 at 200lbs, next week it’s 4×10 at 200lbs or 3×10 at 205lbs.

Consequences. While it is the least favorite portion of most people’s programs, consequences are essential to growth. You can talk goals, rules or standards until you’re blue in the face, but if there’s nothing there to hold you accountable afterwards, the majority of the population will continue to come up short. However, like your standards, make sure that your consequences are realistic and appropriate. The days where coaches make their student athletes run 30 suicides because they missed one free throw should be long gone. ESPECIALLY, if you have a coaching philosophy of running and scoring in transition. By punishing athletes with running, they associate running with a negative consequence. Do not make punishments as you go, have them predetermined, this way your emotions from the situation don’t dictate what happens in the moment.

The quick summary… Standards are instinctively more positive than rules. Rules encompass negative connotations and empower the coach/supervisor while standards inspire everyone in the program to contribute/grow their level of excellency. In order to set standards, you should be able to answer the why, make them relevant, realistic, have background data to support your standards, make sure they are always developing and growing and you MUST inforce consequences. The question you have to ask of yourself, staff and athletes now is, what standards do you want to set in order to raise your level of excellency?

by Cory L. Dobbs

John chose Yoko over Paul, George, and Ringo.  Shaq couldn’t stand Kobe.  Steve Jobs was fired by John Scully, his hand-picked CEO.  Socrates rejected Plato’s theory of forms.  Both the West Coast rapper Tupac and the East Coast legend The Notorious B.I.G. were killed as a part of a hip-hop rivalry.  And Carl Jung drifted far from Freud, his close friend and mentor.  Relationships between people of high status often prove challenging.  It not need be this way.

Have you ever been on a team where the players can’t get along?  How about having coached such a team?  Maybe it’s simply a matter of personalities.  Or the circumstances, such as a losing streak, over- power the desire to get along with one another.  Conflicts easily erupt when team relations become dysfunctional.  Yet, many coaches I’ve witnessed seem to think everyone will get along because they are forever preaching teamwork.  This is not so.

The Facts of Life

Your team is only as strong as its weakest relationship.  Yes, I know that’s a strong statement, so let me say it again.  Every team is only as strong as its weakest relationships; and great teams—players and coaches—never assume everyone will get along.  Oh, almost every coach says they spend enough time on relationship building.  Yet when I’ve asked coaches to journal their activities, slowly but surely team building and internal (player) leadership take a back seat to the tasks “necessary” to practice and master the game plan.

Two Sides to Every Story

In an effort to be transparent, let us agree that we like to think of ourselves as being reasonable, mostly right, and when in some level of conflict we often make negative attributions about the other person’s intentions.  Indeed, in the privacy of our own minds, we hold, with white knuckles, our position with a high degree of confidence and certainty.  We must be right, we reason.  The problem is, the other person we are engaged in conflict with is holding tightly to their “reasonableness” too.

Thus a dance of defensive routines emerges.  Each participant—combatant to be sure—thinks that their conclusion is factual, that their view is complete (rather than partial), and the other person is the problem.

The result: conflict.  The condition of the team changes at that moment.  The one-sided nature of each player’s perspective can, and often does, set in motion a roller-coaster of irrationality which invariably will snare more players into its trap.

Nip this in the Bud

You know that to solve a conflict requires slowing things down.  It’s crucial to find out how we got from “there” to “here.”  But the game plan doesn’t allow for this, “We must continue to move forward” you’re likely to think, say—and do.  While you might get back on track, this is why and how things get swept under the carpet.  You know relational issues will catch up with you, but you think if you run fast enough you might out-run the fall-out.  The questionable news is, you just might get away with nipping the problem in the bud.  But it will get you.  It’s just a matter of time.

The Vulnerability of Relational Blindness

Several years ago I worked with a successful high school basketball team.  After a deep run in the playoffs the team wanted to understand how to get over the hurdle and get to the proverbial “next level.”

During a leadership training exercise a senior-to-be, a starter and major contributor, broke down and apologized to his teammates.  He acknowledged the team’s loss should be attributed to him.  As the team’s point guard, with the clock running and down by one point in the state semi-final game, he had the ball in his hand and an opportunity to pass to either of two open teammates.  One teammate was not a scorer (1.5 ppg), while the other was the team’s leading scorer (19.0 ppg) and best shooter.  Down by two, he crosses half court and sees the two teammates open in each corner.  He had a choice.   And he knew the team’s best option.  So do you.  He passed it to the non-scorer, coincidently his best friend, who put up a shot with time expiring.  Air ball.

The caring young man, in his desire to be transparent, admitted that personal bias led to the sub-optimal choice of shooters.  He said it was rooted in a fight he had with the leading scorer around mid-season.   And after the fight was broken up by teammates, he willingly “recruited” the underclass team members to “side” with him.  They did.  And in effect they split the locker room into upperclass vs. underclass; seniors against the juniors.  No coach witnessed the fight, never heard that it happened, and the coaching staff was completely unaware that the locker room split.  The players, in a twisted show of team work, hid the division—the fault line—that ultimately cost the team a shot at the State Championship.

Any time you talk about relationships it’s easy to gloss over the fact that people create and sustain them.  People matter.  Relationships matter.  Student-athletes make a wide range of choices that affect relations, mostly unconscious as in the incident mentioned above.  Importantly, it’s utter folly to think that you, or any coach, will know all that goes on with team member interpersonal interactions.  This, of course, is a reason for team leaders—you need your players to engage in detecting and correcting problems encountered as they build the team.

Over the course of a season incidents like this pile up and drag down practices, film study, and in-game behavior.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting coaches are blind to such deviant behavior.  What I do know though is that when the choice for spending time is either better spent on direct team building or the game plan; it is the relationship side of things that usually falls by the way side.  Relationship building is sorely neglected during the course of a season.

Hit the “Pause” Button: Rebuilding Trust

The good news is that when conflicts and dysfunction rear their ugly heads, you can, and should, turn them into team building teachable events.

When two players (or more) clash, you need not throw your hands up and declare the issue unsolvable.  Actually, this is the moment to explore the “honesty” in perspectives.  Most coaches ignore this moment.  It stresses them out.  But if you’re willing to, you can use the “argument” to strengthen the relationship.

In the dictionary, the antonym of honesty is lying.  Thus a participant in any conflict is going to protect himself.  In most cases differences of opinion arise out of one’s desire to feel respected, appreciated, and needed.  And the opposite of arguing is agreement.  The curious thing is that the conflict participants are, for the most part, seeking agreement—however one-sided it is to begin with.

You can capitalize on this moment of truth by harnessing honesty and agreement.

You task, and goal, is turn the adversarial relationship into one in alignment with the team’s mission.  Now is the time to hit the pause button—literally.

Give the participants their own quiet space in which to reflect and respond to the following questions.

• What is the outcome I want here?
• Do I want a relationship with this person?
• What is the outcome our teammates want?
• What goals do we share?
• How do I want this to end?

These reflective questions help the student-athlete learn to see themselves as architects of their own experience.  They determine the need and desire to shift to acting on the end they want and the future they’re trying to achieve.

During the course of a season the absence of interpersonal conflict is unlikely.  Conflict is natural.  What you do with conflict will have much to do with the growth, or stunting the growth, of your team building efforts.

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

We are pleased to announce a new chapter to the second edition of the best-selling Coaching for Leadership. The chapter, The Big Shift: Unlock Your Team’s Potential by Creating Player-Led Teambuilding, connects the previous edition of this book to its origin, as well as to the future of team sports. The new chapter sets forth a practical and applicable agenda for change and improvement. The reader is introduced to seven vital elements of change; seven shifts of traditional mental models that lead to the new core principles necessary for creating a player-led team culture. Click here for more information about Coaching for Leadership

The Academy for Sport Leadership 

About the Author

Dr. Cory Dobbs is a national expert on sport leadership and team building and is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership.  A teacher, speaker, consultant, and writer, Dr. Dobbs has worked with professional, collegiate, and high school athletes and coaches teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience.  He facilitates workshops, seminars, and consults with a wide-range of professional organizations and teams.  Dr. Dobbs previously taught in the graduate colleges of business and education at Northern Arizona University, Sport Management and Leadership at Ohio University, and the Jerry Colangelo College of Sports Business at Grand Canyon University.

It’s All About Style
Mobilizing Purpose and Possibility with Transformative Leadership

Dr. Cory Dobbs.
Coaching Maxim:  Leadership demands we make decisions that define who we are and how we interact with others.

We often talk about a leader having a “style” of leadership, a distinctive way of thinking, feeling, and acting.  And it is true; coaches do have a style that shapes who they are and what they do.  The relationship between style and leadership is expressed as a systematic process in how a coach gets things done and inspires his or her players to be their very best.

Over the past decade I have watched many coaches in action and have detected a distinct difference between two dominant leadership styles.  There are many ways to describe the leadership habits of coaches, but it appears to me that as leaders most fall into one of two categories—drivers or builders.   Drivers tend to be what leadership experts refer to as transactional leaders while builders fall pretty naturally into the category of transformational leaders. Drivers and builders have two very different leadership mindsets and skill sets.

Drivers are generally after impressive achievements, especially the attainment of fame, status, popularity, or power.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld would say.  Drivers view success to be mastery of the technical and tactical aspects of their sport. Builders commit to their calling and enjoy the human development side of coaching.  For them, significance is found in contributing to the lives of their players.  It’s not that they don’t want to win; it’s simply that winning includes building self-confident people who will succeed away from the playing field.

Coaching is a major factor in any team’s success.  Most players recognize this.  They’ve been coached since they were tots playing in youth leagues.  And for the most part they’ve believed in and trusted their coaches to teach them to play the game while instilling life skills and personal values.  However, many adults reveal years later that they learned little from coaches they encountered in their student-athletic experience.  Generally, the coaches that fail to have a long-term impact on student-athletes are transactional leaders.  Many former student-athletes view their experience as being a pawn in the game of student-athletics.

Transformational leaders (builders) do more with and for their student-athletes than transactional leaders (drivers).  These leaders tend to empower student-athletes with challenge and persuasion and actively engage in supporting and mentoring the holistic development of their players.  Transformational leaders seek to inspire their followers to commit to a shared vision of how student-athletics can enhance their lives.  For the transformational leader the sport situation offers an opportunity for the participant to learn such life skills as perseverance, character development, relationship building, and goal attainment.

Transactional leaders, on the other hand, are those that prefer to set up simple interactional exchanges or agreements with their followers, often investing little in building relationships.  They manage players through the use of carrots and sticks—offering a reward (usually playing time) for a desired behavior.  These leaders are those that often use the maxim “the bench is my best teacher.”

This is a prime example of contingent reinforcement—you do “X” and I’ll give you “Y.”  A transformational leader, while certainly not shy to use the bench as a learning tool, would not view the bench as a teacher—that’s a role they cherish.  The transactional coach keeps his or her distance from the athlete, preferring to have a “distant” relationship.  Some coaches will fake the relational process, but the lack of authenticity is quickly recognized by the student-athlete.  The transformational coach is more likely to spend time building relationships with players and showing them he or she cares.  Their mindset is that people aren’t going to care about you and your concerns unless they know you care about theirs.

Transformational leaders don’t do this just to be nice, they understand it to be an effective and appropriate way to deal with young and developing student-athletes.  Building relations is not a road block to success as many coaches find that because they show they care about the person, they can ask for and demand more performance.  Think about it.  Are you more likely to extend yourself for someone you care about or someone you don’t like and care for?

Coaches do many things.  They inspire and motivate, they teach and instruct, and they set an example.  More than anything else, however, coaches help the student-athletes make sense of some of life’s most important lessons.

Over time many coaches move from a driver dominated way of coaching to that of a builder.  Take for example Westmont College men’s basketball coach John Moore.  “Coaching and teaching is more meaningful for me today than it was eight to ten years ago,” said Moore.  “It is more significant because of the kinds of things that are important in coaching.  Someone once said to me, ‘You don’t have a philosophy of coaching until you get to 15 years as a head coach.’ I discounted that originally, but there was a point for me, and it was in that 15-year range, that I realized that I had a philosophy of coaching – that makes it more meaningful for me and more meaningful for my players.”

Being a driver, a transactional leader, can be very effective in producing immediate results.  However, the constant pounding and intimidating of your student-athletes will reduce the motivation of most student-athletes.  Student-athletes prefer to be guided and seek motivation from the collaborative process of coaching.  Even the most self-motivated player will lose their drive if you don’t provide them with positive reinforcement and a sense of worth.

Transformational coaches appeal to players by working with the athletes to create a compelling and collective purpose; a purpose beyond individual ambition that enriches the possibilities of each team member.  By valuing both relationships and results, a builder’s influence leads to higher levels of trust, empowerment, and community.

For builders, the real definition of success is a life and work that brings personal fulfillment, lasting relationships, and makes a difference in the world in which they live.

Are You a Driver or a Builder?

Drivers  / Dominant Leadership Style: Transactional	Builders / Dominant Leadership Style: Transformative
Put results first. Relationships are subordinate to results, a means to an end.	Put people first.  Relationships are priorities to producing results.
Make the decisions. Drivers like being decisive and in control.  Drivers set the agenda.	Stress team capabilities.  Builders want to build systems and talent.
Possess a controlling spirit.  They feel if they can control people, they’ll maintain absolute authority.	Get others involved.  Builders seek input from other coaches and value input from players.
Resort to more regulations.  Drivers use rules and regulations to enforce compliance.  Drivers want things done their way.	Let solutions emerge.  Builders don’t try to tackle every problem knowing that some problems solve themselves.
Crack the whip.  Drivers keep pressure on for accountability.  Come down hard when goals aren’t attained.	Take a long-term focus.  Builders assemble players, programs, and processes.
Take a short-term focus.  Drivers tend to focus on the day’s or week’s results.	Are mission driven. It’s the mission that sets the priorities.
Focus on “what” have you done for me lately? Enough said.	Are servant leaders. What’s my contribution?  Builders possess a mental model stimulated by a “What can I contribute to the lives of my players” approach to leading.
Get “in your face.”  Drivers thrive on confrontation.  “My way or the highway”.	Embrace empowerment. Builders work to prepare others for leadership roles.
Are more critical than positive.  Drivers find it difficult to accentuate the positive.	Support identity of team. No two teams will ever be the same.  Builders see value in the diversity of personalities.
Power trip.  Fear giving away power.  Empowering student-athletes to become team leaders is not a priority.	Vision is the main course, not an appetizer.  Builders weigh the costs of today’s decisions on  tomorrow.
Span of vision.  Concern is for results today regardless of costs tomorrow.

About the Author

Dr. Cory Dobbs is a national expert on sport leadership and team building and is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership.  A teacher, speaker, consultant, and writer, Dr. Dobbs has worked with professional, collegiate, and high school athletes and coaches teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience.  He facilitates workshops, seminars, and consults with a wide-range of professional organizations and teams.  Dr. Dobbs previously taught in the graduate colleges of business and education at Northern Arizona University, Sport Management and Leadership at Ohio University, and the Jerry Colangelo College of Sports Business at Grand Canyon University.

Dr. Dobbs recently joined Jamy Bechler on the “Success is a Choice” Podcast – hear his thoughts on team leadership and developing a leader in every locker here.

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