Leadership

Championship Values Leadership Tool

By Brian Williams on August 29, 2016

Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Championship Values

Values are among the most stable and enduring characteristics of people. They are the foundation on which attitudes and personal preferences are formed. Our core values are crucial in making vital decisions, determining life directions, and behaving in social interactions. Values help define our morality and our conceptions of what is “good” and what is “right.” Many of our behaviors are a product of the basic values we have developed throughout our lives.

However, a problem with values is that they are generally taken for granted. Most of the time people are unaware of their values and how they shape attitudes and behaviors. Unless a person’s value’s are challenged they will remain largely undetected. People are not aware that they hold some values as being more important than others. This unawareness leads to actions or behaviors that are sometimes contrary to values, or even leads to confusion about values.

The Championship Values exercise is an interactive tool for you to use in determining your values and those of your teammates. As you work through the eight steps to your team’s Championship Values, keep in mind that sometimes the best way to stimulate discussion of values is to pose a difficult situation that demands a hard look at how a value will help you best resolve the situation.
For additional resources for value-driven leadership consider The Academy for Sport Leadership’sCase Studies.

Step 1 Each team member is to think through the values (Relationship Oriented and Results Oriented) and identify circle the sixteen (8 Relationship / 8 Results) most important values—for you as a member of this team. Be sure to carefully think through just what the value is and why it’s important to you.

Step 2 Fill in the brackets with your eight (8) Relationship Oriented values on the left side and eight (8) Results Oriented values on the right side. Do this exercise individually.

Step 3 Pitting value vs. value tournament style. After placing all sixteen values in the brackets, determine a winner and move the winning values along toward the middle of the chart.

Step 4 Once you’ve completed your Championship Values tournament you’ll have identified your top four values (2 Relationship / 2 Results). Be sure that you’ve thought through the value of each value!

Step 5 Now split your team into triads (groups of three) and discuss the values. As a triad come to an agreement on 16 values and fill out the brackets. This should take some time as you and your teammates will need to work through personal differences to reach shared values.

Step 6 Once you’ve got the 16 shared values begin your tournament. At each stage engage in meaningful conversation to identify a winning value.

Step 7 Once you’ve completed your Championship Values tournament as a triad, begin the same process as a team. When you finish your tournament you will have identified four (the final four values) values that will be strongly internalized, advocated, and acted upon by all team members. The discussion should reveal values a clear-cut set of values for you and your teammates—standards of behavior towards one another and individual and team performance.

Step 8 Do the Championship Values exercise as a complete team. Your goal is a relationship between team members based on shared, strongly internalized values that are advocated and acted upon by all team members.

Click here to download a blank template of the Tool

“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)

Leadership Musings: Because Thoughts Have Consequences

By Brian Williams on August 6, 2016

by Dr. Cory Dobbs

Location Matters
Several years ago I was field testing a leadership development program with the San Francisco Giants Rookie League team headquartered in Arizona. During spring training I read an article in the local newspaper highlighting the movement of Jeff Kent’s locker. The article explained that Kent moved his locker to be mixed in with the rookies and inexperienced players.

Kent, a seasoned veteran and all-star player at the time, was acting in the role of team leader. Hall of Fame baseball player Maury Will said “You’re not going to get followers just because you say you’re the leader. The followers come because they have respect for you, and they have respect for him.”

I once heard leadership expert Warren Bennis tell of his experience in the dorms while attending MIT. Seems Bennis observed that the floor leaders in the dorms tend to be those in rooms closest to the common shower or bathrooms. Bennis suggested that the students in these rooms tended to interact with other members more often because of their room location. These students were most likely to leave the door open as an invitation to conversation.

Competence or Excellence? It’s a Matter of Deliberate Choice
In Gita Mehta’s novel, A River Sutra, the daughter of a master musician tells of her experience learning from her father:

My first music lesson extended several months. In all that time I was not permitted to touch an instrument. . . . Instead my father made me sit next to him in the evenings as the birds were alighting on the trees. “Listen,” he said in a voice so hushed it was as if he was praying. “Listen to the birds singing. Do you hear the half-notes and microtones pouring from their throats? . . . Hear? How that song ended on a single note when the bird settled into the tree? The greatest ragas must end like that, leaving just one note’s vibration in the air. . . .

Still an entire year passed before my father finally allowed me to take the veena across my knees. . . . Morning after morning, month after month he made me play the [scales] over and over again, one hand moving up and down the frets, the other plucking at the veena’s strings, until my fingers bled. . . .

I had been under my father’s instruction for five years by now. At last my father felt I was capable of commencing the performance of a raga. . . .

The father understood that excellence is a deliberate choice and guided the daughter along a path that nurtured her understanding and appreciation for the process. Shouldn’t we do the same? Or is doing just enough, enough?

Scrimmage: A deliberate practice
Deliberate: Intentional. Do you provide a space where your players can practice leadership? That would be deliberate, if you do.

To Say It is Not to Do It
“Step up!” said the coach. “Sure thing coach. But whadda ya want me to do?”

Taking the Long View
We live in a society that has become increasingly short-sighted. Today, a lack of vision permeates the life of most Americans and seemingly all young people (and perhaps it always has). Pot shot? Not really. Ask your student-athletes to tell you how much time they’ve spent thinking about their lives ten or twenty years from the present.

We talk all the time about changing the lives of our student-athletes. Yet rarely do we examine how effective we are in instilling life lessons. Sure, some players return a couple of years later to thank us for teaching them a thing or two. Simply put, in certain respects we hardly ever see the long-term effects we have on our student-athletes.

I’ve run into many ex-athletes in the corporate world. In far too many cases I’m not able to tell the difference between them and the non-athlete at the next desk.

It’s Simple, Really, If You’re Serious
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel chain is serious about empowering each employee to make a difference. Everyone in the organization—bellhops, valet, and maids—can spend up to $2000 to fix a guest’s problem on the spot. No approval necessary. Now that’s serious commitment to excellence.

When was the last time you gave valuable resources (such as practice time!) to your student-athletes to solve a problem on the spot?

Why a “real world” example? Aren’t we supposed to be preparing students for the real world?

The Bystander Effect
In 1964 Kitty Genovese was attacked in the middle of the street near her building in New York and again in her building. The attack was witnessed by many, though no one tried to stop the attack. She yelled for help. Yet no one called the police.

Such acts of apathy have been coined by social scientists the “Bystander Effect.” When people in a crowd look and see that everyone is doing nothing, then doing nothing becomes the norm.

When witnesses in the building were questioned by police after the incident about why they remained silent and did not take action, one man spoke for all the witnesses. According to a New York Times article at the time, he answered, “I didn’t want to be involved.” And neither did the others who witnessed this crime.

Okay, so a player on your team violates a team rule and you don’t know about the incident. However, team member’s do. And they don’t tell you nor do they confront the teammate. The norm has quickly become doing nothing. The players are creating an apathetic culture of going along to get along.

The Honor Code
Norms are important. Not because they generally sit at the end of the bar drinking beer, but because they shape behaviors. The purpose of an honor code is to foster commitment to the ideals of an institution or team and to shape interpersonal interactions.

A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do. –West Point

Can you imagine, and it takes imagination on this one, what life would be like if every member of your team lived this code.

Small Nudges Can Lead to Big Changes
Change the context and change the attitudes and actions. According to Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, authors of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, people “can be greatly influenced by small changes in the context.”

The idea of “nudge” is that there is “no such thing as a ‘neutral’ design.” Thaler and Sunstein elaborate on how “choice architects” organize (and thus influence) the context in which people make decisions. Context does influence behavior.

A little push in the “right” direction can have a huge systemic impact. Isn’t that what the invisible hand of an honor code does—nudge people to do the right thing.

Practice nudgery.

Your Move
Imagine yourself in a chess game where after every half-dozen moves, the arrangement of the pieces stays the same but the capabilities of each piece changes. Isn’t this what happens with your team? Random thought? Not really. The point is…

About the Author
Dr. Cory Dobbs is an accomplished researcher of human experience–a relentless investigator always exploring “how things work.” He is the founder and president of The Academy for Sport Leadership and A Leader in Every Locker and has written extensively on leadership development of student-athletes.

Coaching Basketball: That’s Outside My Boat

By Brian Williams on July 14, 2016

A Team Leadership Exercise

“That’s Outside My Boat”

Leaders Focus on Objectives, Not Obstacles

Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Years ago a young reporter assigned to the “minor” sports of the Olympic Games-rowing, canoeing, and kayaking—set out to uncover how the champions in these events mentally prepared for success. Considering these athletes participated in outdoor sports he began by asking what they would do in case of adverse conditions caused by rain, strong winds, or choppy waters—all obstacles certain to happen at some time during their events. To his surprise the response, was always the same: “That’s outside my boat.” After hearing this from athlete after athlete the reporter realized that a focused perspective was their guide to
inner excellence.

The Olympians’ intense internal focus served to eliminate distractions—those things that were out of their control—thereby allowing them to concentrate on those things they could control. These premier athletes chose an attitude of optimism over pessimism, of responsibility over irresponsibility, and of problem solver over victim of circumstances. They focused on results, not on obstacles.

Attitudes are important. Your outlook on life is the lens through which you see the world. When challenges and adversity hit you or your team, and they will, you have an opportunity to decide what to focus on. Your focus can and will influence your teammates. When your teammates are frustrated or uncertain about a course of action, they will look to you as a guide to their decisions and actions.

The Olympian rowers exemplify how focus on objectives, not on the obstacles, is the key to championship performance. The major point is that everyone has the ability to choose their attitudes and develop a positive state of mind. Players with poor attitudes are going to be unhappy and quick to blame their circumstance or other teammates for failure when confronted with trials and tribulations. Many choices of attitudes exist, and the one’s you and your teammates choose matter.

Obstacles are always a part of the competitive sports environment. Effective team leaders accept this fact and focus their attention on what they know they can do, regardless of the external context. Committed team members know and accept the vital role of problem-solver as a responsibility of team leadership. And being an effective problem solver requires leaders to know when a problem is outside the boat.

The high-performing team leader recognizes the importance of helping his or er teammates to manage the journey. The first step toward focusing your teammates on the objectives is reinforcing team member commitment to the team’s objectives—its vision, mission, and goals. And when obstacles arise, become an active change agent helping teammates adjust their attitudes and refocus their energy. Whether in calm or troubled waters, champions overcome obstacles by focusing on objectives.

Case in Point

On January 15, 2009, one man’s focus saved the lives of one hundred and fifty-five passengers aboard a fallen airplane. Captain Chesley Sullenberger was the pilot in command of Flight 1549 departing from New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Upon takeoff the plane ran into a large flock of birds that disabled the plane’s engine. With urgency as the driving force, Captain Sullenberger quickly surveyed the landscape, looking beyond the obstacles of the moment to formulate a resolution to the pending tragedy he was facing. While everyone else focused on the obstacles, Captain Sullenberger had his eyes fixed on the objective. He did the unthinkable: he landed the monstrous Airbus A320 on the
Hudson River.

Sullenberger was concerned only with what he could control. He focused on what was happening inside his aircraft. His training, like the Olympians, equipped him to adapt and adjust his course of action to meet the objectives of the situation.

Team Discussion Questions

What are some reasons people focus on obstacles?

How does the physical environment influence teams and their dynamics?

What steps can be taken to prepare for obstacles?

Why is “perspective” important in competitive sports?

About the Author

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)

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.

Shared Leadership on Basketball Teams

By Brian Williams on June 20, 2016

By Juan Pablo Favero, Associate Head Coach, Women’s Soccer, San Diego State University. The leadership insights apply to basketball teams as well.

Traditional leadership models, often hierarchical in nature, are changing and evolving. One of these models is the captain model, which tends to be too rigid and centralized, especially for modern-day athletics. Even the military, where the shift to special operations teams is prevalent in fighting today’s wars, is not organized with a traditional commanding officer, top-down hierarchical model. Instead, a group of leaders giving input and making joint decisions is the way that these elite teams have the required flexibility and synergy to make them successful in high stakes situations. Yes, there is an ultimate decision maker, and there always has to be, but many trained and competent voices are better than just one solitary one.

The key is to develop many leaders in a team who can be incrementally given more responsibility and decision-making ability as they are exposed to leadership principles. Given ample opportunity to apply these principles and grow in confidence to make decisions, they are then able to take action in critical moments.

Most athletics teams start developing leaders in their junior or even senior year, depending if they are a fall or spring sport, often expecting these captains to have learned by osmosis and with limited training: maybe a book or two and some conversations with the coach. It is presumed that with this limited information, they will be able to carry the burden of knowing how to best influence their teammates and lead the team. In most cases in my experience, this is just too much responsibility for one young person to have. Yet, the model of having multiple captains does not make sense either because it can actually cause the opposite effect than intended by creating a type of bystander effect of sorts. . Shared leadership on the other hand is not exclusive or limited in its numbers and creates increased buy-in and commitment. Think of it as leaders in different areas of strength who can pass the baton to each other and support one another’s leadership efforts.

According to Jeff Spahn of the Leading Leaders consulting group, “the emerging question in leadership today is not about how to develop leaders, but rather how does a team of leaders lead each other.” He goes on to say that this goes beyond collaboration and is more how people actually lead and follow simultaneously. This sounds like shared leadership.

What is it?

In his best-selling book Linchpin, Seth Godin shares the example of the fast and complex Japanese transit system. It operates on schedule and on budget, not by top-down directive, but by a large pool of empowered employees making the best decisions as the challenges present themselves. “Letting people in the organization use their judgment turns out to be faster and cheaper—but only if you hire the right people and reward them for having the right attitude.”

It’s not rocket science; it is basically a way to include ALL your players and personnel in the leadership development and implementation processes. Why limit it to just a few hand picked players, who will undoubtedly be looked upon as favorites? Why leave it to chance?

If you wait until players are upperclassmen, they will graduate before they can learn their leadership craft through both successes and mistakes, and unfortunately, your program will miss out on the full impact they could have. We need to start to expose, train, and encourage all of our players to lead, yes, even as young freshmen. What is the worst that could happen? Even if they choose to pass on the call to lead, at the very least they may become better followers since they will better understand the difficulties and challenges associated with leading. In other words, this is a clear way we can not only teach leadership principles but also create buy in and a higher level of team cohesion and common purpose.

The idea that there can be too many “chiefs and not enough Indians” or too many “cooks in the kitchen” is a common objection to this model. Part of the key in teaching shared leadership is exactly that they can also learn how to become better followers and more supportive team members when it is not their turn to lead or in an area of someone else’s strength. Personally, I would rather have too many leaders on my team, all pulling in the same direction, than not enough.

The Traditional Hierarchical, top-down athletics captain model vs. Shared Leadership model:

How does Shared Leadership fit in to this?

SINGLE LEADERSHIP: One leader figure (coach and/or captain) and many followers results in control and predictability. Also creates average results, and high risk of monotony and burnout.

FOLLOWERSHIP: All as followers results in lack of initiatives, no or few new ideas, limited forward movement and lack of buy-in/shared ownership. Also creates low energy, apathy, burnout and average results.

MULTIPLE LEADERSHIP: Many leaders attempting to lead all the time (coaches and/or captains) results in a power struggle, perpetual chaos, work never gets done efficiently. Also creates poor performance, conflict, and bad results.

SHARED LEADERSHIP: Leading and following simultaneously in a true shared responsibility model, leveraging the depth of experience, expertise, and oppositional points of view of every member required to truly create and execute at a an optimal level. The openness and humility of all involved to lead in this way creates a higher level of performance, team unity, and better results.

Why is it better?

The traditional leadership hierarchical model is quickly becoming archaic. Today’s athlete wants to know the why behind what they are being asked to do. When we let them in behind the curtain and start to show them the inner workings of team life and what is required to lead, some of the following benefits can occur:

Increased commitment and buy-in
Increased team unity and cohesion; improved team environment
Developed future leaders
Implemented successfully=less stress
Better “followship” is created
Shared leadership work load, diminishing the burden
Increased performance on the field due to creating more confident decision makers
Increased enjoyment of the process
Higher resilience to face challenges, obstacles, and failure: Losing teams panic and are paralyzed, winning teams with shared leadership raise their performance making up for a deficit in talent
Improved synergy which comes from using everyone’s strengths
Easier leadership transitions when leaders are absent (injury, suspension) or when they depart (graduation).
Minimized impact when mistakes are made

Challenges in implementation

Like any change in paradigms, the most difficult aspect will be to navigate the team through change. You may receive some resistance from your players, especially from those who believe it is their “due time” and have an expectation to be captains. Of course, these are the people who need to learn the most about true leadership principles, including the servant-leadership model and not the self-serving leadership fallacy (the difference between these two is stark: being a leader is not about what I can gain, it is about how can I serve as a leader for the benefit of others and the team).

You may have to overcome the biggest obstacle of all which may be your own leadership dogma. It usually sounds like this: “This is the way it always has been done” or “I was a captain” or “my team had captains, and it is the right of passage to seniors.” I just want to encourage you to ask yourself … is this the best model for today’s athletes and for their current and future development? Even if it has worked for you in the past, is it working now? Will it work in the future?

Ideas on how to implement it

Leadership Education
Small Leadership Groups
Allowing your leaders to make leadership mistakes and learn from them
Self-Discovery assessments: Personality assessments, TAP (Troutwine Athletic Profile), leadership styles assessments, 5 love languages, et al.
Discussion on what they believe leadership is, and what a shared leadership team should look like
Reward independent thinking, enveloped within a team-first concept
Recruit the right kind of people for your team, not just the most talented players. The value of positive, responsible, accountable, and team-first members who are confident to make decision is critical in competitive athletics and in the world
Team sessions to create mission statement, team goals, and team process to achieve those goals
Reinforce any of the aforementioned behaviors and attitudes
Encourage player-led initiatives and projects

Shared leadership is not about competition, ego, or jockeying for position. It is instead about collaboration, cooperation, and a shared purpose and direction.

It is about servant leadership and doing what is best for the team, even when it may not seem like it’s in my best personal interests. It is servant-like, team-first oriented, but it is also driven, focused, and purposeful action. Finally, it also requires the attitude of knowing when and how to follow as well as when and how to lead. This ying-yang type of balance is what makes this type of leadership environment difficult to attain but so powerful when it is reached.

To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books from the Academy for Sport Leadership, including a Leader in Every Locker, Click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

What if Everything You Learned is Wrong?

By Brian Williams on June 12, 2016

Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

“I want the truth!”
“You can’t handle the truth!”

So goes the memorable exchange between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in the 1992 movie A Few Good Men. We, at least most of us, sympathize with Cruise’s character, a hotshot attorney, going face-to-face with the hard-core lifer Colonel Nathan R. Jessep (Nicholson). Cruise is relentless in his pursuit of the truth, risking his reputation and career, challenging the “system.” Pushed to the limit by the young buck, the testy Jessep throws down the gauntlet; Do we really want the truth?

THE GALILEO EFFECT
Aristotle was smart, a legendary genius. But he was wrong about one thing. The wise old Greek philosopher taught that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. In the context of his day, this “observation” seemed obvious. Aristotle attributed the speed of a falling object to its proportional weight, with heavier objects falling faster than lighter ones.

Galileo, and the advancement of science, proved Aristotle wrong. We now know that the equivalence principle proves all objects fall at the same rate within a gravitational field. Aristotle was big time wrong. Such overthrows of science, certainly not trivial, are powerful course changers. Armed with scientific principles, it is an expectation that science, both at the periphery and the core, finds itself challenging a many conventional and accepted thoughts. In fact, right now, in a classroom somewhere in the world, a student is preparing to challenge some formula, doctrine, or axiom. Armed with a theory and solid research, this dedicated scholar might just create a power struggle between what was once assumed to be true, and what has become clearer and course altering.

Galileo, one of the greatest scientific minds of all time, was willing to challenge the status quo of the day. Galileo challenged the Catholic Church’s view—and the contemporary perspective—of the earth’s role in the cosmos. He dared to contest the position of a geocentric world with the “new” truth of a heliocentric model. The Church at that time couldn’t handle the scientific truth.

I want you to try a thought experiment. Find a quiet and comfortable spot where you can close your eyes and imagine that you believe leaders are made, not born, and that you’ve implemented a leadership developmental program for all your student-athletes. Invest two minutes of thought. No more, no less. What does it feel like nurturing and cultivating the seed of team leadership?

Okay, back to reality. You just spent two minutes defying conventional wisdom. Nearly all “captain” training programs are grounded in the assumption that we only need a few team leaders. What I know is that many of you struggled with the idea of a leader in every locker. After all, the world presents the framework for developing only the chosen few to assume leadership roles and responsibilities. It is, at least at the outset, much more efficient.

But today we know so much more.

AN ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Let’s face it; a leader in every locker is heresy to most coaches. Remember the lesson from Galileo; genuine challenges to established wisdom cause turmoil. They discredit the establishment and its undeniable “truths.” When Galileo, telescope at his side, publicly challenged the geocentric view of the universe, he was arrested, tried, and imprisoned for this act. Heresy said the masses.

So, the traditional practice of team captains marches on. Most coaches focus on the selection process rather than the development process. I’ve heard great stories of how coaches select team captains. Some hold interviews, others rotate captains for games, and some let the team select team captains. But however you slice it the focus is on selection rather than development. Moreover, a selection perspective, focused on player attributes, conflicts with the developmental perspective and its focus on possibilities and opportunities. Does the selection process work? Maybe.

But what if everything you learned is wrong?

Fortunately, objecting to new ways of thinking and acting in the world are less dangerous today. My research findings are clear; a leader in every locker trumps a few leaders in a few lockers. After years of investigation into “doing leadership development,” I am convinced that team sports demonstrate that you can take the approach of a leader in every locker from a thought experiment into a real-world competitive advantage.

Today, we know that everyone can, and will, become a leader; even if it’s simply in their own household as a parent. The other known is that leadership can be taught—and learned. While everyone comes to the table, locker if you will, with a different set of personality traits, it is the ability to learn from experience and the desire to be open to continuous learning that helps each student-athlete find their “hidden” talents. Rather than classifying student-athletes as “leaders” or “non-leaders,” why not change your driving assumption to everyone can learn and grow in ways that will make them more effective in the various leadership roles they might take on.

About the Author
Dr. Cory Dobbs is a national expert on sport leadership. An executive, speaker, consultant, and writer, Dr. Dobbs has established The Academy for Sport Leadership as a leader in curriculum and program development for developing student-athletes into team leaders. A former basketball coach, Dr. Dobbs basketball coaching background includes experience at the NCAA Division II, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition. The Academy for Sport Leadership’s model for development is a road-tested results driven framework for helping coaches coach for leadership and student-athletes learn how to lead. Dr. Dobbs has taught at Ohio University, Northern Arizona University, and Grand Canyon University.

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.

The Academy for Sport Leadership’s underlying convictions are as follows: 1) the most important lessons of leadership are learned in real-life

situations, 2) team leaders develop best through active practice, structured reflection, and feedback, 3) learning to lead is an on-going process in which guidance from a mentor coach helps facilitate learning and growth, and 4) leadership lessons learned in sport should transcend the game and assist student-athletes in developing the capacity to lead in today’s changing environment.

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

Being a Leadership Educator for all Players

By Brian Williams on May 17, 2016

An Interview with Dr. Cory Dobbs.

Q: Why do you find it necessary to add the role of Leadership Educator to the practice of coaching? Aren’t coaches already modeling leadership for their student-athletes?

A: Let me explain by telling you a story. I recently met with a “brand” name coach and his staff to discuss leadership education. The coach is highly recognized as a top coach in his field. I opened our conversation by asking him “Are you a world-class coach?” He looked at me with an unassuming grin. So I said “The world certainly sees you as a world-class coach.” His staff chuckled but agreed. “So let’s check that box,” I said. “And,” I declared, “would you agree that coaching is teaching?” He and his staff vigorously shook their heads to imply a definitive “yes.”

“Now,” I continued, “are you a world-class leader?” Again, he looked at me with a humble smile. I asked his staff for a thumbs up or thumbs down vote of agreement. All thumbs were pointed upward. “Check that box too” I announced.

“Okay,” I said as I headed towards my home territory. “Are you a world-class leadership educator?” The grin on his face slipped into a look of bewilderment. “Well,” I said cunningly, “if you’re a world-class coach and a world-class leader shouldn’t you be a world-class leadership educator?” Puzzled and disoriented, the brand name world-class coach didn’t quite know how to respond. I continued, “How do you go about developing team leaders—or in my world team leadership?” After uttering something he asked me to explain to him just what leadership education is and how one goes about becoming a leadership educator.

A leadership educator is no different than, let’s say, a professor of management—someone who teaches management. A leadership educator teaches leadership. However, this role seems a little strange for many coaches. Few engage in a planned program and curriculum with the deliberate intention to build team leaders. Rather, most simply leave it to the seemingly natural growth of the individual. Oh, let’s not forget that a rigorous development program can be time consuming and emotionally demanding.

“Coach,” I said, “we can’t check that box can we?” I then began to teach: “The role of leadership educator requires a different mindset, skill set and involves very different actions from the one’s you’ve been practicing for a lifetime.” The coach quickly acknowledged that a huge gap exists between what he and his coaching staff are doing and what they could do to develop team leaders. He then asked if I would work with him and his staff to develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities to be high-performing leadership educators.

Q: A leader in every locker sounds a lot like “Everyone gets a trophy.”

A: First, there’s a big difference between welfare and well-being. When everyone gets a trophy it’s often like a government handout—it’s freely given, no strings attached (and just as likely not to have been well-thought through as it does have extraordinary potential as a long-term positive of participation if done right). However, when a coach is concerned for the total well-being of her student-athletes, she is delighted to have everyone on the team maximize the experience; which includes learning how to lead.

In a recent workshop a coach asked me if the idea of a leader in every locker is like a trophy for everyone. I held back, but then I injected my research and organizational framework into my response. I let the coach know emphatically, it’s just the opposite. I had to first help the coach see beyond her flawed mental model of leaders are born, the driving factor behind such thinking.

The notion of a born leader appeals to our belief in intelligence, charisma, and other personal traits as attributes necessary for leadership. Most of us have been taught since childhood, at least implicitly, that we are either a leader or a follower—mostly followers as we can only have one class president. This plays on an almost universal theme that some people must be given the role of telling us what to do; it fits with our sensibilities that we are better off by granting some people power and agency.

To be sure, my experience—countless number of workshops plus working alongside coaches—is that in most cases coaches are cynics when it comes to the idea that everyone has the ability to lead (though anticipating the critique of this claim I’m compelled to ensure I don’t imply all are equally motivated to learn to lead). For those of us who do not want to simply dismiss people as not capable of learning to lead—especially those who’ve had few role models in their lives—the concept of leadership development is a significant step forward.

The idea that leaders are extraordinary people with special gifts is an assumption many coaches have embedded in their minds—baked into the cake. Most coaches operate from a paradigm—a set of assumptions about how the world works—that makes it difficult to understand why the virtues of a leader in every locker far exceed the verifiable inefficiencies of the team captain model.

What I’m advocating is this: when a coach assumes the role of leadership educator, it is to teach leadership to all his or her student-athletes. Why in the world would you not want to teach leadership to all of your players? And why in the world would you not want your players to develop a leadership mindset, skill set, and act like a leader?

Beginning with the end in mind, when you deploy a leadership learning system you are creating a learning organization. When coaches honor the need to personalize learning for each student-athlete, they then create a dynamic learning environment in which everyone is learning in action and by reflection.

However, if a coach doesn’t think it’s worth his or her time, then it’s likely they are acting from what Stanford professor Carol Dweck calls a “fixed mindset.” A coach that acts from this perspective will do little to stimulate interest and commitment to personal leadership development of the student-athlete. Such a mindset places little value in teaching leadership. After all, they reason, either the athlete is a “natural” leader gifted with the “right stuff” or they’re not. This thinking suggests only a few athletes on any team are capable of leading. Such thinking makes no sense.

Leadership is not an all-or-nothing ability, something you either have or don’t have. As a form of social interaction, leadership can be developed when student-athletes and coaches put in effort, time, and practice.

The reality is the student-athlete (and the coach too!) has to work hard to learn how to lead, to develop a set of skills and competencies that will serve as a foundation for lifelong learning of leadership and team building. Leadership can be learned, indeed it must be learned. The key is that it must be practiced in order to facilitate the growth and development of the student-athlete. Without practice, which requires time, effort, and energy, all you have is a potential leader.

Finally, in my Coach’s Guidebook: A Leader in Every Locker I make clear that most student-athletes are raised in sport to simply follow the lead of the coach; thereby making the participant a passive recipient of leadership. After years of going along to get along the young athlete develops the habit of passive followership. This is one of the biggest challenges of change we face as leadership educators.

Should everyone get a trophy? Probably not (save for another day the issue of participation and achievement).

Should everyone get an opportunity to learn about leadership and explore how to lead? Yes! And to do so requires great effort on the part of the student-athlete. The athlete is not given anything but opportunity. Are all leaders equal? No! Everyone has a different starting line, but all student-athletes can learn to lead at some level.

Q: In your workshops you urge, quite forcefully I might add, coaches to rethink their
thinking?

A: I do this because every act of coaching rests on assumptions, generalizations, and get this—hypotheses. That is, the coach’s mindset determines to a great extent how he operates. It is very unlikely that a coach will change his or her ways of coaching until they look in the mirror and consider who they are and what they believe and why they believe what they believe. Once they peel away the layers and recognize how deeply held beliefs and attitudes—such as only a few athletes are capable of leading—he or she can design a culture that maximizes the experience for everyone.

It’s a shame that many coaches are intimidated by the idea that embedded within every player is a potential leader. There is great suspicion of how things will work if everyone is potentially a leader. A common concern about a leader in every locker came up one day when I was talking with a group of coaches. “How can you ask us to have all our student-athletes lead?” one coach said to me. “Isn’t that opening Pandora ’s Box?” Recall that when Pandora’s Box was opened, all the troubles of humanity flew out. Is this how coaches imagine what might happen should everyone learn to lead and be given opportunities to lead?

I understand their concern. They really have no reference point to relate the practice of teaching everyone leadership. But when coaches and players learn for example, the 5 Steps of Team Leadership, the 8 Roles of Team Leadership, and The Coach as a Leadership Educator that I’ve created it all begins to make sense. Something else we do is utilize a specialized vocabulary. In addition to the 5 Steps of Leadership our program includes specialized terminology and unique constructs such as the eight roles of team leadership, leadership educator, followership and leadership orientation, and leadershift to cite some of the vital elements of our way of talking, thinking, and developing leaders.

The unnatural gap between the traditional team captain model and the reality that everyone can learn to lead at some level requires a monumental change program. It’s going to take awhile, but over time coaches will discover new things about how it all works together to the advantage of the program and the players.

About the Author

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)