Leadership

The following videos on “Growing Leaders in Your Basketball Program” and “How to Develop Leaders in Your Program” are from PGC Basketball Director of Player Development Tyler Coston.

The video is one of several hundred available as resources for improvement for basketball coaches and players at the PGC Basketball You Tube Channel

The videos are You Tube Videos.

Please make sure that the network you are on offers access to You Tube Videos.

Also, please make sure that your sound is on.

Click the play arrow to watch the videos on Developing and Growing Leaders.

 

Growing Leaders in Your Basketball Program

How to Develop Leaders in Your Basketball Program

Cracking the Code to Building an Elite Team

By Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

“A team is not just a collection of individuals.  When everyone clicks into place, a team is truly a community, a tightly knit fellowship.” 

Many coaches are expert tacticians, strategists, and teachers of techniques.   Few are adept at building teams.  I mean high-performing teams.  Think Seal Team Six.  The elite fighting force, the team that captured Osama Bin Laden.  Sure, your team may master an offense or a defense, but it’s a fact that most teams don’t reach an elite level of teamwork.  To do so requires a deliberate and intense effort to building the team.

As a researcher I’ve studied hundreds of teams and can only conclude few teams, won-loss records aside, ever achieve an elite level.  Study after study of elite teams, like Seal Team Six, continue to reveal it’s not the personnel but processes that lead to an elite level team.

Take a moment and re-read the quote above.  I’ve purposefully left off the name of the author.  I did so out of respect for his work, but I do find this quote to be lacking in terms of action-ability.   Most coaches and players unknowingly live by a “click or clash” framework of relationship building.  That is, some people just click together while others clash with one another.  And it’s rarely explicit, but very implicit—teammates prefer to go along to get along.  Not in elite teams.

At its most dynamic level a team is a system, a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system architects.  This differs from the most basic level of a team as a collection of players.  When the process of team building becomes more strategic, the calculus changes.  A laissez-faire approach changes to a more direct and deliberate approach.  Relationship building becomes the central focus.  Relationship is everything.  When you see the process of team building as social system, then the integrity of every interpersonal interaction is essential to developing an intensive teaming capability.

I’ve uncovered, through wide-ranging research and practice, twenty principles and concepts and isolated eight “roles” that are necessary for building elite teams.  Yes, I’ve cracked the code to building high-performance teams.  High-performing teams make deliberate teamwork their focus.

The Teamwork Intelligence approach is a disciplined way of thinking about and building a high-performing team; it involves discussing teamwork as both a system and a set of processes.  This allows us to explore the context in which teamwork occurs, the characteristics of the coaches and players, individual and team values, experience, the timing of events, the history in which teamwork is embedded, and how teamwork intelligence plays a role in individual and collective successes and failures.   Teamwork intelligence delves into team work as a process and as a way to understand the person (both players and coaches) embedded within a system.

To think about teamwork as a system, we need to consider the inputs, such as training for teamwork intelligence, the process, which we can describe as the system and the context in which the players and coaches interact, and the outcomes, which are the levels of motivation, performance, and well-being of players and coaches.

To leverage the process of teamwork intelligence I have designed five building blocks that must be operationalized:

(1) the four dimensions of team building and the associated eight roles of teamwork;
(2) the three mindsets of a team player;
(3) the three layers of a team player;
(4) the five core concerns of every team member, and
(5) the five forces of performance-enhancing relationships.

By optimizing these five components—the teamwork intelligence system—we are able to enhance each individual’s vital force and, in turn, the collective force of the team.

SO, WHAT IS TEAMWORK INTELLIGENCE?

Teamwork Intelligence is the purposeful and intentional relational process of team members together raising one another to higher levels of motivation, collaboration, compassion, and performance.  It’s deceptively simple: in order to build a high-performing team you have to create the conditions for team members to commit and unify—to coalesce into a single organism.  Such oneness is not inevitable; it is forged methodically and deliberately.

WHY IS TEAMWORK INTELLIGENCE THE SMART THING TO DO?

A significant aspect of teamwork intelligence is knowing the expectations one should have of one’s teammates.  One of the most significant expectations is that of high-level ownership with the purpose of each player investing in the development of a high-performing team.  Through expectations and collective achievements, identification, loyalty, and trust are built.  The goal and expected outcome is the development of the team’s full potential.

Extreme Ownership is a central concept of Teamwork Intelligence.  Teamwork Intelligence is not only about teaching student-athletes how to comply with a set of rules and procedures; it is about recognizing the profound difference between compliance-based behavior and values-based performance.  Extreme Ownership is about creating a culture in which every team member is committed to performance excellence and team member wellness based on personal commitment to the best interests of the team.  Extreme Ownership occurs when student-athletes own their personal learning and performance as well as team learning and performance.

Teamwork Intelligence generates higher levels of autonomy, extra effort, commitment, performance, and satisfaction.  High performance is what the student-athlete wants to do, not because it brings personal glory, but because they feel a sense of extreme ownership of the team.  The extreme owner is all in as a team player and willingly goes all out for the team.

I’ve seen enough to validate the claim that knowing what to do can lead to higher levels of doing.  However, I’ve also observed far too frequently a high degree of learned helplessness.  Student-athletes have, for the most part, grown up in a sport system in which they prefer to wait for the coach to take corrective action, to “instill” motive and values, and basically avoid taking responsibility for the building of the team.  This is why elite teams are emphatic about deliberately building a team and insistent on teamwork intelligence.

Teamwork Intelligence provides a framework for seeing interrelationships of the elements of the team system rather than static “snapshots” that tend to distort the differences between a mediocre team and a high-performing team.   Teamwork Intelligence provides a set of principles and includes a set of specific tools and techniques (such as role clarification provided by The Eight Roles of Teamwork) for building a high-performance team.  Investing in the development of relationships will pay off.

Okay, so are you willing to invest time, energy, and resources into developing an elite team?  If so, get started as soon as possible.   Explore the principles and practices The Academy for Sport Leadership has discovered and developed and teach in our Teamwork Intelligence Workshop.

“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
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 (visit www.aleaderineverylocker.com).

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 has taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.

this article was written by Stephanie Zonars. You can follow her on Twitter @StephanieZonars

A team can’t develop healthy team cohesion if the leadership team (i.e. coaching staff) isn’t cohesive. [Tweet That!]

Seems logical, yet somehow coaches believe they can still build a unified team despite distrust and other fractures among the staff.

Won’t happen. Can’t happen.

Patrick Lencioni’s The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business reviews some of the key points of his other best seller, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. 

Namely, that the core issue on dysfunctional teams is a lack of trust.

That’s so obvious that you’d think leadership teams and coaching staffs would be pretty good at building trust. Yet, more than often, they aren’t.

In The Advantage, Lencioni says it may be because they have a misunderstanding of the kind of trust needed on teams:

Many people think of trust in a predictive sense; if you can come to know how a person will behave in a given situation, you can trust her….The kind of trust that is necessary to build a great team is what I call vulnerability-based trust. This is what happens when members get to a point where they are completely comfortable being transparent, honest and naked with one another, where they say and genuinely mean things like “I screwed up,” “I need help,” “Your idea is better than mine,” “I wish I could learn to do that as well as you do,” and even, “I’m sorry.” (p.27)

I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve watched vulnerability completely change a team dynamic. One person willing to “go there” gives everyone else permission to open up a little more.

Compassion and empathy develops, resulting in a stronger ability to trust.

I worked with a business team on which many of the individuals had worked together for a number of years. It seemed like they knew one another well and genuinely liked one another. I was a little nervous that my trust-building exercises might fall flat.

What happened blew my mind!

During one of the exercises an individual shared a hardship she was going through. Her co-workers had no idea—even someone who had gone through something similar.

Through tears deeper connections developed that took their team to a new level of trust.

One 15-20 minute exercise Lencioni uses can give your team the opportunity to develop that kind of vulnerability-based trust.

At your next coaching staff meeting, have each person share three things*:

• where they were born
• how many siblings they have and where they fall in the order of children
• the most interesting or difficult challenge they faced as a kid

This simple exercise helps individuals feel more comfortable being vulnerable in the group and develops a new level of understanding, admiration and respect.

Even if you are rolling your eyes right now, and think you know a lot about your staff team, give it a try. It never disappoints!

Then shoot me an email to let me know what happened.

*I recommend having the leader go first.

Change Your Coaching Staff Dynamic (in 20 minutes) appeared first on Life Beyond Sport.

About Stephanie Zonars

Stephanie Zonars helps coaches build and maintain winning team cultures through her business, Life Beyond Sport. Teams at Penn State, Notre Dame, West Point and over 60 other schools have built stronger trust, communication and teamwork through her workshops. Stephanie spent three years on staff with the Penn State women’s basketball team, assisting the team to back-to-back Big Ten Championships. She’s also the author of three books. For more tips on leadership and team culture, visit LifeBeyondSport

 by Dr. Cory Dobbs

Every team has players who always do less than they are asked; still others who will do what they are asked, but no more; and some who will do things without anyone asking. What every team needs is more of the third group, players who serve to inspire those around them to do things that will make the team better. These are the players who constantly renew their commitment to being their best for the team and whom others would do well to model.

A fun and energizing environment is much more productive than a routine and stale environment. Student-athletes who enjoy their sport and their teammates come to practice with more energy—more passion. And this can be contagious.

To help lift your team’s performance look for ways to infuse your team with passion. Help teammates believe in themselves. Build their confidence and self-esteem. Search for ways to make your teammates feel important and appreciated. Celebrate and get excited about
the successes and accomplishments of your teammates. Make it a daily goal to point out the strengths and contributions of those around you.

You can infuse your team with passion by acting out the following eight principles in your daily activities:

1. Keep Your Fire Burning. Fill your energy tank frequently. Your teammates feed off your fire. Avoid burn-out by regularly relaxing and refreshing your mindset.

2. Take Charge of Your Moods. Recognize your present mental and emotional state and take time to reflect on how your attitudes impact and influence your teammates.

3. Listen to Teammates. Spend time with your teammates and attempt to understand their feelings, perspectives, and experiences. Make it a way of life rather than a one-time event.

4. Be There for Others. Team building is about recognizing, respecting, and appreciating your teammates. Your friendship can be just the encouragement a teammate might need to make it through a challenging time. The smallest gesture, a simple act of kindness, at just the right time can make a big difference.

5. Act with Integrity. Blaming, finger-pointing, and accusing others will lead to negative reactions. Do what you say you will do. In other words, walk the talk. Your attitudes and actions should be consistent with your words.

6. Be Genuine. Your teammates will see right through you if you are phony and superficial. They want you to care about them and help them achieve their goals. Belief in your teammates will breed trust and healthy relationships. Point out others’ strengths and contributions—daily!

7. Refrain from Excuse-Making. Players that are committed to excellence identify what top-notch performance looks like and then take action steps towards that standard, never making excuses for disappointments and failures along the way.

8. Mend Broken Fences. Great teammates are those willing to admit mistakes. Durable and enduring relationships are built by pushing through adversity. Conflict is natural. Restore relationships where conflict has caused tension. Be patient, persistent, and pleasant when restoring a relationship.

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

“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 any of the Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

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 college 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.

 

Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Lessons from the Art Studio

“Students who are truly student-athletes have a chance for a life-transforming, life-shaping experience. I can tell you how thankful I am for having had that experience and how it’s shaped me in countless ways. It’s an absolutely formative experience.” –
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan,
Speaker at the 2010 NCAA National Convention in Atlanta, Ga.

Leadership is one of the most important topics of our time. And it’s likely one of the most important attributes for effectiveness in any human endeavor. The success of any institution, organization, group, or team, is grounded in the effective application of leadership. For any organization to sustain success it must invest in the development of leaders—current and future— to avoid a regression towards mediocrity.

Since the dawn of civilization, groups have utilized leadership for various purposes beginning with the need for survival. Organizations today view leadership as a necessity for success and it is hard to find a person today who does not give at least lip service to the importance of developing leaders.

Yet despite this apparent intent to nurture the development of leaders, we still find ourselves desperately searching for leaders that can create and sustain success. Perhaps part of the problem is the way we teach leadership.

I teach leadership courses in two different graduate colleges for the same university. Different students, same classroom. The classroom consists of a podium, tables with chairs and a white board. The rooms are designed for teachers to stand and students to sit.

However, the classroom in which my colleague teaches art is quite different. In her art studio she often does not stand and students don’t sit. The simple reversal of classroom roles leads to a different mode of learning. Students in the art classroom poke around, observing the work of their fellow students. They ask questions, share stories, exchange insights, and offer praise or constructive critiques.

I’ve learned some powerful lessons from studying learning in the art studio. Two, of them in particular have reshaped the way I approach leadership development.

1. Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
2. The fear of failure will guarantee failure.

Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Badly

Not the orthodox way of looking at excellence. However, leadership is a messy proposition for anyone learning to lead. Since leadership is a social process, it follows that team leaders will need to experiment with such things as peer accountability. Invariably, the beginning leader will stumble. Encourage your student-athletes to get going, start leading, and take the lumps that come with learning to lead.

The art studio encourages the student to explore. Taking risks—experimentation—and being willing to do leadership badly are part of the learning process. In the art studio students are encouraged when they do something badly. They quickly look at the bad product and figure out how to improve upon their work. Poor outcomes are not seen as failures. Rather, the art student returns to the canvas to try again.

To offer some real-world perspective on bad leadership as a learning opportunity, take a quick look backwards to when you took your first coaching job. Who among us can’t look back and see incompetence and failure in some leadership efforts during our formative years? I’m on pretty safe ground here knowing that all competent coaches attended Hard Knocks University.

Here’s a simple way for you to guide your student-athletes to face the fact that risk is necessary for them to fully develop as a leader. Have them set up a matrix that involves listing leadership goals on one side of the ledger with possible risks on the other.

Sample Leadership Goal

To promote team unity through a weekly players only meeting.

Risk

One or more team members do not want  to attend and see the leaders as “better than them”

Fear of Failure Will Guarantee Failure

While the artist’s palette contains a wide-array of vibrant colors, the only color emerging leaders see is gray. Nothing appears to be black and white for the beginning leader. She’s not sure where to start, what to do, how to take leadership action. Fear of failure is real.

Failure often affects confidence and self-esteem. However, failure is not fatal. Giving your leaders the license to fail is a starting point. Creating a learner-centered approach to leader development can help the novice and the experienced team leader. Artists that persevere face their fear of failure. Failure in the art studio is guaranteed. Perfection is desired, but failure is acknowledged as part of the process.

I’ve noticed far too many young leaders fearful of leaving their comfort zones, clinging to what is comfortable and secure. The art student is encouraged to venture out and explore new styles and tools. In the art studio it is folly to discount mistakes and failure.

In the art studio, students are confronted with reality. What they put on canvas is available for all to see. Sometimes the visible picture doesn’t match the artist’s heart and effort. Such moments can be both disheartening and empowering. Vulnerability is a vital part of learning to become an artist—and a team leader.

Leadership certainly can begin to be taught in a classroom. Yet conventional methods of leadership training often fail to prepare students for the messiness of leadership. The art studio provides another model to explore as a bold approach for developing your team leaders. Experimentation, exploration, and action will involve mistakes and failure. Guiding your young leaders through the risks of leadership may well be the most important role you assume as a leadership educator.

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

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 college 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.

Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

A TEAM LEADER FACILITATED ACTIVITY

NOTE: This exercise is designed to be facilitated by a student‐athlete team leader. Have all members of the team read the short narrative and then answer the questions that follow.

Fearless Followership

Pursuing a Higher Standard of Leadership and Followership

Imagine going to your school’s health office for a visit because you’re experiencing dizzy spells. Before you’ve had a chance to describe your symptoms, the doctor writes out a prescription and says, “Take two of these pills two times a day, and call me next week.”

“Excuse me, but—I haven’t told you what’s wrong,” you say, trying to articulate your condition. “How do you know this will help me?” “Why wouldn’t it?” says the doctor. “It worked for my last patient.”

Confused by the doctor’s message and not wanting to offend her you just go along with the doctor’s directive. Rather than confront your doctor you take a sheepish approach and figure that you’ll just wait until later when not in her presence to sort things out.

In this scenario the leader is the doctor with you in the role of the patient. As a patient you are expected to follow the doctor’s directions. To question her is to question her legitimacy and authority. However, as you can see in this scenario, this presents a problem for you as your needs of the moment were neglected.

The traditional stereotype of the follower is of someone that is unwilling or unable to play a significant role in the direction a group desires to go. It is then assumed they are better suited to follow someone willing to provide direction. Generally, the role of followership has a negative connotation. Merely conceptualizing a follower “conjures up images of docility, conformity, weakness, and failure to excel” (Chaleff, 1995). Our culture tends to label followers as passive individuals lacking the “right stuff,” or someone without drive and ambition. However, effective leadership doesn’t happen without dynamic and committed followers.

Followership is important in any discussion of successful team leadership for several reasons. First, leadership and followership are fundamental roles that all athletes will move into and out of depending on the circumstances. It’s a given that as a team leader your primary role is that of a follower of your coaches. Second, just as you expect to influence the attitudes and actions of teammates you should be open to being influenced by teammates. Third, many of the characteristics that are desirable in a team leader are the same qualities possessed by committed and productive followers. Finally, the nature of the leader-follower role in team sports involves you being open to influence and change just as you look to
influence and change teammates committed to common goals.

To succeed as a team leader it is essential you appreciate and respect your teammates as followers. One way in which you can do this is to embrace fearless followership. Fearless followership is the courage to take a bold stand and demonstrate the initiative to engage with teammates in an extraordinary way. A fearless follower will challenge a teammate who threatens the cohesiveness, values, or goals of the team. That is, the fearless follower is willing to hold teammates—including a team captain—accountable for team norms, standards, and expectations. Both leaders and followers have got to encourage active and attentive followership and build the relationships needed to move the team forward.
[adinserter name=”Basketball in article display ad 2 rebecca”]
Think of it this way, if you and I agree that team captains should lead with integrity shouldn’t we expect followers to follow with integrity. If a team member falls short of expectations—including team captains—teammates must be comfortable calling them on it, but by letting them know the team needs them. In other words, not attacking the teammate but bringing them into the collective aspirations of the team.

Together, team leaders and followers striving toward a collaborative relationship based on fearless commitment to each other will create a more cohesive team capable of achieving team goals.

Followers want to be:
Accepted Connected Trusted Cared about
Supported Valued Respected A friend
Followers don’t want to be:
Rejected Disconnected Judged Neglected
Disrespected Not Valued Left out A foe
Exercise: Team Leader to Facilitate
Appoint one or two member’s of your team to facilitate a conversation regarding the
following:

The facilitator asks: What do you do when a teammate is:

• Unfocused
• Coasting
• Feeling superior
• Undisciplined
• Not coachable at a crucial moment
• Showing disrespect for teammates
• Making excuses
• Showing a lack of respect for competitors
• Has failed to keep a commitment

*This is a leadership tool created by the Academy for Sport Leadership. The Academy for Sport Leadership is a leading educational leadership training firm that uses sound educational principles, research, and learning theories to create leadership resources. The academy has developed a coherent leadership development framework and programs covering the cognitive, psycho‐motor, emotional and social dimensions of learning, thus addressing the dimensions necessary for healthy development and growth of student‐athletes

“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

About the Author

A former basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition. While coaching, he researched and developed the transformative Becoming a Team Leader program for student-athletes. Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs and high schools teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience and education process. Cory cut his teeth as a corporate leader with Fortune 500 member, The Dial Corp. As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with such organizations as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet.

Cory has taught a variety of courses on leadership and change for the following universities:

Northern Arizona University (Graduate Schools of Business and Education)

Ohio University (Graduate School of Education / Management and Leadership in Sport)

Grand Canyon University (Sports Marketing and Sports Management in the Colangelo School of Sports Business)