Do You Recognize Two Signs of Emotional Intelligence?

by Stephanie Zonars, Life Beyond Sport.

A dear friend lost her husband to a sudden heart attack recently. Only in his 50’s, he was a great man and they had a beautiful marriage. Her loss is truly heartbreaking.

It’s a deeply painful time, but she will make it through this.

Certainly because of her faith. But also because of two signs of emotional intelligence (EI) that I’ve seen her exhibit.

Part of EI is the ability to recognize, understand and manage our own emotions. Experts say that high EI is a better indicator of our success in life than high IQ.

My friend is displaying high emotional intelligence at one of the most difficult times of her life.

It’s remarkable.

And it challenges me, because I have a lot of room to grow in these areas.

EI is crucial to your ability to lead well, so I wanted to share these observations:

EI skill #1: awareness of her emotions.

Granted, this is an extreme situation and her emotions are raw and intense. It’s hard to miss them.

Even so, in this first week without her beloved she can articulate the moments of the day that are hardest. She is aware of her capacity and when she needs people or time alone.

She has a keen sense of what is going on inside her and her emotional triggers.

This kind of awareness is the first step in developing emotional intelligence, and a huge hurdle for many.

Why is this important?

Because most of us have ways of responding to life that we’d like to change, but we can’t change the behavior without identifying the emotion that causes it.

One of my clients, for example, was an assistant coach with a difficult co-worker.

Every time he knocked on her office door, negative emotions welled up inside her. And they resulted in behaviors like a frustrated tone and the inability to make eye contact.

She tried to change her behavior, but it never lasted long. The route to real change was through identifying the emotions and addressing her triggers.

A feeling wheel can be super helpful here. It gives you language for emotions when you can’t find the right words. Here’s how it works.

Maybe you feel scared. That’s helpful, but using the wheel you can drill down to a more specific adjective. Do you feel anxious? Insecure? Helpless? Rejected? Confused?

And if you choose anxious, is that the right word or is overwhelmed a more accurate description?

This may appear elementary, but it’s important to pinpoint the emotion. How can you manage what you can’t identify?

One friend even kept a feeling wheel on her refrigerator to teach her children how to identify their feelings. The earlier we learn this life skill, the better.

The second sign of my friend’s emotional intelligence is equally, if not more, important.

EI skill #2: asking for help.

Not only did she notice that mornings are tough, but she calls a friend to talk or pray with her. She invites others into her grief and pain and receives support and love.

This is part of managing emotions effectively. And it’s a choice. Believe me, she doesn’t feel like reaching out.

And even in much less painful situations, neither do I. Perhaps you can relate.

One friend who just lost her first head coaching job would say that if she could try again she’d ask for help sooner.

Asking for help shows humility—that you know you can’t do it all.

What you think makes you look weak or stupid, simply makes you look human. It endears you to your staff and co-workers. People love following and working with humble leaders.

Asking for help promotes teamwork—giving others an opportunity to offer their gift to the team.

During my time on the Penn State’s women’s basketball staff, I liked being asked to help my co-workers or boss. I felt needed and valued, like my role and work mattered.

Asking for help is not a sign of weakness but of strength. It’s not an imposition, but a gift. [Tweet That!]

“Accepting help is a gift to the helper.”

—Robyn Benincasa, World Champion Adventure Racer

Regardless of the challenges you face this week, these two life skills—awareness of your emotions and asking for help—are imperative to your success as a leader.

Which one needs more of your attention this week? What action will you take to get better?

Do You Recognize 2 Signs of Emotional Intelligence? appeared first on Life Beyond Sport.

by Stephanie Zonars, LifeBeyondSport

Stephanie started a petition to encourage the NCAA to keep the Division I, II and III women’s games in the same city. Here is the link if you are interested: Petition

The Lynchpin to Team Cohesion

Player leadership is crucial to creating a winning team culture.  You long to have a few players on the team with the courage to step up and lead on the court or field and in the locker room.

But there’s another role that is equally important to team cohesion and creating a solid team culture.

In the video below, Derek Sivers calls this person the “first follower.” Check out the fascinating video about how to start a movement in under 3 minutes, then look over the key points and finally, see how this relates to you and your team.

As outlined in the video:

The leader—

• has the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous
• nurtures first follower as an equal
• makes it about them, not him/herself
• makes it easy to follow

The first follower—

• has a crucial role
• shows everyone else how to follow
• is embraced by the leader as an equal
• calls others to join
• has the courage to be the first one to follow and to stand out
• typically is under appreciated
• transforms the lone nut into a leader

The reason so many of you tell me that you don’t have leaders on your team is that most young people don’t have the courage to “stand alone and look ridiculous.” Players may say they want to be leaders, but finding ones who will actually hold teammates accountable and defend the culture seems daunting.

BUT, it may be easier if they had the certainty of a first follower. If they knew that a teammate would follow well and show the rest of the team how, it may be easier to muster up the courage to step up and lead.

One of the things I loved about our team handbook at Penn State was the page about how to be a good follower.

We talk so much about leadership, but sometimes fail to mention the importance of learning how to follow. [Tweet That!]

Just as your team leader(s) serve as a liaison between you and the team, the first follower serves as the connector—the lynchpin—between the team leader(s) and the rest of your players. When the leader(s) embrace the first follower as an equal and make it about the team, they become easy to follow.

You probably have identified players that you are helping to develop leadership skills.

Who are you looking to to fulfill the first follower role? Identify that player, make sure she knows the crucial nature of the role, then help her to embrace and fulfill it with excellence.

The Lynchpin to Team Cohesion 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

This post was written by John Carrier and originally posted on his Coaching Basketball Blog

Notes from Minnesota State High School League’s “Why We Play” conference at Bethel University.

“Why We Play”  is a program that promotes positive coaching and teaching character through athletics. The structure was two whole group sessions with a main speaker, two breakout sessions, and everyone back together for one final session. Below are some of the best ideas that I pulled out from each presentation.

Rod Olson
Coach Olson is currently working with the Pittsburgh Pirates developing their coaches. He also works with the Navy Seals and has authored two books on coaching. Coach Olson gave two talks. One was the opening talk on “7 Marks of a Mature Coach” and then gave a talk on what he’d learned during his time with the Navy Seals. Some of the finer points of his talk are below. I am going to buy both of Coach Olson’s books and would recommend looking at his material – it’s really good!

Kids now grow up in a different “SCENE”

• Speed: Slow is bad to kids
• Convenient: Hard is bad to kids
• Entertained: Boring is bad to kids
• Nurturing: Risk is bad to kids
• Entitlement: Work is bad
• So the question for coaches is, based on this “SCENE” how are we going to deal with our kids and teach them that slow, hard work, that is boring and risky is actually a GOOD THING?

Quantico Test

• Give your players a mental and physical test that takes some critical thinking. This will tell you everything you need to know about the make up of your team. The task should include everyone on the team as one group.
• The SEALs give their trainees a length of rope and tell them they must use to get everyone over the wall.
• Give them 10 minutes to plan and 5 minutes to execute.
• As they try to complete the task just WATCH who is doing what.
• Who’s leading and taking initiative?
• Who says something isn’t working?
• Who follows.
• Who doesn’t care. This might be the biggest one. If you’ve got these guys they will hurt your team.

Why Game

• • This is an exercise to help you get a much deeper understanding of your players motivation.
  • The gist of the exercise is to ask them why they play basketball, and then follow that up with 3 more “why” questions about their answer.

For Example:
Q: Why do you play basketball? A: Because it’s fun.
Q: Why is it fun? A: Because I’m with my friends.
Q: Why do your friends make it fun? Because they make me feel good.
Q: Why do they make you feel good? Because they pump me up when I do things correctly.

• As you can see from the example, you get to the real root of why players are playing. Understanding why they play is essential to motivating your athletes.
• Coach Olson shared a story about a football player they had. Dad played in the NFL, brother was a D1 player. The player started out well but they were motivating him by telling him this was going to lead to college, pros, etc and it didn’t work. They then found out that he loved basketball and he played football because of his friends. So they started to motivate him using his friends and peer relationships – which worked a lot better.

Mike Rowe
My first breakout session was with Coach Rowe. Coach Rowe is the head football coach at ROCORI High School in Cold Spring, MN. Coach Rowe’s breakout talk was on how their program develops the whole person. Some of my favorite parts of his talk are below.

Monday Meetings

• Take 30 min out of practice each Monday for character development.
• Intro the theme for the week.
• Give a short presentation on the topic.
• Breakout session in family groups. 8 groups for the program. Group has freshmen through seniors – stay with group all 4 years.
• Each group has an activity around the theme of the week.
• Reference the theme during the week.

Team Building Competitions

• They have different competitions and you get points for each competition.
• They do the team building competitions in their family groups.

Ryan Bartlett
Coach Bartlett is the head football coach at White Bear Lake. He spoke on Building Men for Others in White Bear Lake Football. He uses a lot of the ideas from the book Inside Out Coaching by Joe Ehrmann. Below are some of the things he does in his program to teach character to the players he leads.

• • Have a Word of the Week
  • Assistants pick the word (to be involved).
  • The word has to do with some facet of character development.
  • The coach introduces the word and talks about what the word means to the team. They then relate the word to real life – especially with a story or example.
  • The players select a teacher from the school that embodies the word of the week.
  • That teacher comes to the game, is on the field for the coin toss, and addresses the team in pre game.
  • Reading Program. Has the football players volunteer to read with elementary kids.
  • In order to get the “bear paw” decal on their helmet, players must do community service. The amount is based on their grade. It must be completed before they get the decal.

Seniors – 12 hours
Juniors – 10 hours
Sophomores – 8 hours
Freshmen – 0 hours – they are new to the program and might not know.

Tom Cody and Jody Redman
Mr. Cody and Ms. Redman did a great presentation from “Top 20 Training”. They covered a number of “mentality” issues that are helpful for both players and coaches. The best thing I got was their idea of people having “frames”.

Each person looks at the world through a different “picture frame” that influences how they see the world. The frame has see which influences feel which influences do which influences get which influences see. So what we see effects our feelings, our feelings effect what we do, what we do dictates what what get. The results (get) effect our feelings on a topic. The most important thing we can do if something isn’t going well is change the “see” part.
Easiest to change – how we see things. Gives the best, and longest lasting results. “If you can’t get out of it, get into it” So ask yourself how you can change your player’s “see” on something they are struggling with. Also ask yourself: how can YOU change your “see” on team/program issues that are driving you nuts?