Understand your role as a team leader

“If you are going to be a leader on your team, I think it’s important to not avoid hard topics, and you need to have a social justice and a compassion-driven mentality,” says Chapman. “You also need to pay attention to what people are saying and whether people are being excluded. That could be in language—like what pronouns someone uses—or it could be noticing the makeup of your team as a whole.”

As a team leader, you can also acknowledge and celebrate that you are all different, says Chapman. “Everyone on a team is important and unique,” he explains. “As a leader, it’s essential that you recognize that not everyone shares that same experience that you do. We all vary in our socialization, demographic, sexual orientation, spirituality, and race. We all come from different places, and many of us have multiple identities.”

Start with a team audit

“The team audit is a tool to help you get started,” explains Kyba. “Look at your team as a whole and ask where there are issues that need to be addressed. Is there diversity on the team? If not, why not? Can that be addressed? Are you considering barriers to joining the team, and whether the barriers are more emotional or practical? Is the team hosting practices on days when certain religious groups can’t practice, or charging high prices for uniforms or extra training camps? What are the issues that could prevent the team from being a welcoming place for everyone?” This conversation can also address more systemic issues like equity for women in sport—start with your team, but feel free to open up the audit to more global issues.

Remember, nothing about them without them

“When picking an area of focus, remember: nothing about them without them,” says Kyba. “If you want to learn more about the Black Lives Matter movement, you need to go to the source and not just make up your own ideas.” Do you want to address the obstacles that make it hard for Black students to participate in school sports? Before you plan any specific actions, bring Black students to the table.

Identify the one area of focus

“After a team audit, you may be feeling pulled in several different directions,” says Kyba. “That’s difficult to negotiate because each area is important. But if you try to focus on everything at once, you will likely not see much change.” Pick one area of focus—like bringing more women into the school’s athletics program, for example—and choose activities that will directly impact that area.

Identify activities

It’s great to have a team with strong values around diversity, equity, and inclusion, but without action, those values can fall flat. Once you’ve selected an area of focus, now you can work with the team to come up with ideas for activities to improve the situation. To improve women’s participation, for instance, a team could do ‘recruitment’ in clubs and classes that tend to be more women-dominant, or host open practices for women to see how they like the sport before committing, or even add in ‘field trips’ to professional women’s sporting events, suggests LaBotz.

Start small

Once again, it’s worth pointing out that you may come up with a list of 25 activities, but you don’t need to do them all at once, says Kyba. “You can’t do 800 fundraisers!” she says. “As a team, you may decide that there’s one activity that you want to focus on first, such as adding land acknowledgments at the beginning of every competition.” After a few successful events, the team can pick the next activity to add in.

Make it fun

While some activities like land acknowledgements, reconciliation ceremonies, or protests are more serious in nature, remember that DE&I efforts can have elements of fun too. “Doing things that are tangentially sport-related like going to a WNBA game together or making a list of podcasts or books that are written by women athletes can be fun team bonding activities in addition to helping make positive change,” Kyba says.

Push against pushback

While these efforts are obviously positive and necessary, there is a chance that some people may push back against your efforts and suggest focusing solely on practice and competition. “It is up to each person on the team whether they want to be involved, but hopefully you’ll be able to find something that resonates for everyone,” says Kyba. “If you do have members who are skeptical, it’s worth asking them what their concerns are and what’s giving them pause. They may simply be concerned that the team won’t be as focused on competing. In that case, you can remind them that a team that’s more inclusive and unified is going to play better.”

To that point, it is worth noting that while DE&I efforts are important from a human standpoint first and foremost, they truly do make teams stronger in competition as well. “That team cohesion leads to success,” says LaBotz. “If you’re not making an effort to make a team diverse and inclusive, you’ll likely end up with a team that has bullies and cliques, and that’s very destructive in terms of performance.”

________________________

Takeaway

Starting a DE&I effort on your team can feel overwhelming but there are ways to make it manageable and effect real change. And remember in everything you do: nothing about them without them.

Here, TrueSport Expert Amanda Stanec, PhD, the founder and owner of MOVE + LIVE + LEARN, explains how ranking systems can be harmful to young athletes, and how a coach can navigate making gains as a team without an extreme focus on numbers.

How Rankings Hurt Athletes

As a coach, pause and ask yourself why you care about ranking kids in the first place, says Stanec. “Kids aren’t professional athletes, they aren’t nearly finished growing and developing, and ranking them at an early age makes very little sense from any perspective,” she adds. The emotional toll of being ranked first or last (or stuck in the gray zone in the middle) can be hard for young athletes, and from a practical physical perspective, your highest-ranked player could change depending on when kids hit puberty or have growth spurts.

“Rankings cause too much attention to be focused on the individual, and this can stunt development in a variety of ways,” Stanec adds. “Rankings create this culture of playing for the short-term wins, instead of focusing on the long-term plan to help kids develop and reach their potential.” This isn’t just true of youth athletes under 12. This is also true of teen athletes, even at the high school level.

“Focusing on winning rather than developing all the athletes is also more likely to hinder team chemistry, as some coaches will play those experiencing success early in the season and fail to give others a chance to prove themselves,” Stanec says. “When the team chemistry falls apart, I’d argue that you’re much less likely to achieve that high ranking as a team anyway.”

So why do we rank kids if there isn’t a positive outcome? Because adults seemingly enjoy applying adult constructs to youth sports. “There don’t seem to be positives to ranking youth athletes, other than serving adult egos,” Stanec says. “Championships and rankings are adult constructs that we’re putting on kids when it is not age or developmentally appropriate to do so.”

What a Coach Should Do Instead

Maybe your director has said that rankings matter, or you’re aware that colleges are looking at competitive high schoolers for scholarships. So, rankings matter, right? Not really, argues Stanec. Even if you can’t avoid rankings in high school, you can deemphasize them and simply focus on the daily behaviors that will optimize results.

“When you keep a sport enjoyable—and enjoyable includes competing at your best and being an exceptional teammate—you develop stronger athletes who stay in sport longer,” says Stanec. “That means your retention is better, so your chances of developing better players actually grows when you stop emphasizing who’s doing the best.”

Rankings can also be a hard metric to work with as a coach. “You can’t control how good the other team is. You can’t control the officials. All you can control is what you control,” says Stanec. That means focusing on process goals for your players rather than game day outcomes.

“Remember, this isn’t about avoiding competition: As a coach, your goal is to have every athlete do their best. A focus on development doesn’t mean you don’t care about the win. It means that the decisions you make in pursuit of winning are made from a developmental lens. Some people think that focusing on development means losing, but you will win more when you are centered on development and the growth of each player.”

However, Stanec does note that some pushback from parents may come when you make the shift to long-term development. “I’d be remiss to not mention that there is privilege in this conversation,” she says. “Some parents are simply over-competitive, but for other parents, that competitive nature comes because sport could be their child’s only chance at affording school. So have empathy and understanding. Help educate the parents who don’t understand your position.”

_______________________

Takeaway

Rather than focusing on individual or team-based rankings, focus on developing young athletes as happy, healthy humans. This doesn’t mean giving up on competition—it simply means rewarding hard work and growth rather than number of goals scored. If you emphasize the work rather than the result, your team will still see gains and you might be surprised by which players make the biggest improvements.

As a coach, you’re in a unique position to help athletes create a feeling of empowerment that can spread into the rest of their lives and help them as they navigate the adult world when they eventually leave school. Here, TrueSport Expert and President of Now What Facilitation, Nadia Kyba, MSW, shares a few ways to help your athletes embrace responsibility through a lens of empowerment and agency.

Understand where young athletes are today

It is easier than ever for parents to micromanage their children. Smartphones allow them to track what athletes are looking at, what apps they’re using, and where they are at all times. And understandably, parents are nervous about allowing children certain freedoms that perhaps you took for granted in your youth. Because of this, athletes joining your team may rarely, if ever, make a decision for themselves. Kyba says that as the coach, you have the ability to empower athletes to make their own decisions—and that’s more important than winning any game.

Help athletes understand that they have the ability to change

There’s nothing more empowering than the realization that as a human, you’re allowed to—and encouraged to—grow and change. But many young athletes don’t get that message from their parents, especially parents who may have an idea of who they want their athlete to be. “When we talk about agency, it’s not just about letting kids make decisions for themselves,” says Kyba. “It’s about helping kids realize that they have different directions they can go and things they can improve on or change about themselves if they want to. The ability to change is a huge gift.”

Let athletes set their own personal goals

At the start of the season, most teams will make goals that are for the entire team in a season. But Kyba suggests adding individual goals on top of that practice. “Goal setting at the beginning of the year can be so important to growth,” she says. “Have athletes think through what goals they want for the season as individuals. They’re already on the team, whether by their choice or their parents’, but setting individual goals allows them to find what’s meaningful to them. That might be performance related, but it could also be related to things like confidence or leadership. Encourage athletes to think outside of the performance space.”

Include athletes in decision-making

As a coach, it’s tempting to make decisions for the good of the team without consulting the team. But bringing the athletes into the decision making process, as well as the goal-setting and team value-setting processes that should occur at the start of the season, shows that you believe the athletes’ input matters. “Include them in decisions and give them leadership opportunities even when it would be easier for you to simply take the reins,” says Kyba. “Athletes should be the ones in charge of things like fundraisers, team meals, team communications, and even things like leading warmups or registering for tournaments. The more responsibility you give the athletes, the greater the sense of responsibility that they feel.”

Inform athletes that they have rights

Most coaches won’t take the time to explain to athletes that they have specific rights but its critical to creating a sense of agency, says Kyba. “For example, some schools, districts, or states have the two-person rule, where no athlete can be alone with the coach. There might be a rule that a coach can’t interact with athletes on social media. Be transparent: It might feel awkward to talk about at the beginning of the season, but athletes will feel more empowered knowing that you understand and respect their rights.”

Let athletes have consequences

As a coach, you’re often in a tough spot where you could smooth over a situation for an athlete (like a forgotten race registration or sign-up form) versus letting the athlete deal with the consequences. While it’s tempting to smooth things over, especially if it likely means the difference between winning and losing a game, making the athlete deal with the consequences of their actions reminds them that being empowered is both an opportunity and a responsibility. However, before you do this, make sure that your athletes know and understand their responsibilities very clearly so there’s no room for confusion! Try signing ‘contracts’ outlining the rules and responsibilities early in the season.

Help them foster belief in themselves

Those responsibilities we just mentioned might seem like a burden for young athletes, but actually, they help athletes develop self-belief and a sense of self-efficacy. “If you tell your athletes that you know they can take responsibility for getting warmed up and to the start line of their race, that’s you letting them know that you believe in them and trust them,” says Kyba. “The more information and responsibility you give athletes, the more they can have agency.” Giving them information can also apply to bringing experts in to share more knowledge: Sports psychologists and dietitians can help athletes feel more control over their mindset and nutrition, while you help hone their athletic skills.

Make sure feedback is heard

Help athletes see feedback as empowering, not embarrassing. Unfortunately, a lot of athletes have grown up with parents who are afraid to criticize or offer feedback because they don’t want their child to feel bad. While that’s entirely understandable, it’s hard for that young athlete to then go into the real world—or even into college and collegiate athletics—without the ability to gracefully accept and integrate feedback. As you offer feedback after practices or competitions, make sure that your athletes are actually absorbing what you’re saying. For athletes who are clearly struggling with this, consider taking video during practice or games to show the athlete where they can make improvements. Those concrete pieces of evidence can help a stubborn athlete start to accept feedback, says Kyba, and that can make the athlete more resilient and empowered in the long run.

__________________________

Takeaway

Athletes may come to you lacking the ability to take responsibility or make decision, largely because they’ve been micromanaged for much of their lives. You can give athletes the chance to feel empowered in a very authentic way by including them in decision-making, letting them set their own goals specific, giving them responsibilities, and providing feedback that helps them improve and grow.

According to board-certified family physician and TrueSport Expert Deborah Gilboa, MD, “If you want to lead through change, you’re going to have to be mission-focused, you’re going to have to lean on empathy even when you disagree, and you’re going to have to have good boundaries about what behaviors, tone of voice, and timing are acceptable to you,” she says.

Here, Gilboa shares more advice on how you as a coach can help empower your students to be true leaders on the team, and navigate big and small changes.

Understand Your Role

Whether you think about your role as coach or the role that your team captain plays, Gilboa points out that leadership is rarely needed in the absence of change. When you ask a student to run the team through the usual warmup drills because you need to handle something else, you are not asking them to be a leader, you are asking them to serve as your proxy. Gilboa explains that leadership is about humans working to make fundamental change to the status quo. This can be on a micro level—changing the warmup drills to something different—or on a macro level—fighting to change a school policy.

Bring Students to the Table

If you want students to support change and become true leaders, bring them to the table. That includes having conversations with your team regarding changes in school policies and bringing a student representative to leadership meetings. “This is probably one of the most powerful ways to start bringing change to a team,” says Gilboa. “When talking about leadership with a Gen Z team, which is what all coaches are doing now, it’s important to understand that this generation has been taught to advocate for themselves, and they are offended when people try to make decisions for them without their representation. You do not have to turn decision-making into a democracy by giving them a deciding vote. However, you do need to give them a voice. Bringing them to the table does that.”

Set Boundaries and Expectations

As Gilboa said, you are not necessarily required to give your team full autonomy. Set expectations ahead of time. If, for example, you bring a student representative to a coaches’ meeting at the beginning of the season to discuss a new policy, you can tell your student that they will not have the opportunity to speak, or if they will have a chance to speak, they will only have a certain amount of time. “Let the students know when they’re going to have a vote, and when they’re just going to have a voice. For example, I often say to my kids, ‘This is not your decision, but I’m interested in your opinion.’” You can also set expectations around solo-interactions: If an athlete has a problem with a policy, for example, they should feel comfortable coming to you and expressing their feelings, but they also should know what actions are appropriate.

Define Your Team’s Mission

It is critical for leaders who want to affect change to know exactly what they stand for and why. “You and your team need to get clear: figure out where you stand on an issue, and then figure out how to express it to other people,” says Gilboa. “What’s the mission of your team? When you look at your mission, you’ll know if any specific change fits or not. For example, imagine you receive a call this month from a parent of a child who wants to do orchestra, but it conflicts with some practices. Look at your mission: Do we value the development of the whole child? Do we support mental wellness and developing an identity outside of sport? Having those values clearly established makes it easy to make decisions about changing policies or long-standing rules.”

Show the Action Plan

Change—especially large-scale, systemic change—is hard. It often takes incredibly arduous work to make even minor progress when fighting against the status quo. Making sure your team is aware of the blueprint for success is important. Gilboa explains that after making a decision, it’s important to share next steps with the team—and also the opportunity cost of change. “Change is rarely as simple as making the initial decision,” she says. There might be immediate and/or long-term consequences for individuals or the team as a whole.

Encourage Empathetic Communication

There is room for dissension in the ranks. “If you are going to be a leader that encourages change, one of the crucial leadership strategies is empathy without trying to fix everything immediately,” Gilboa says. “You cannot see people’s frustration or disappointment as a referendum on your leadership. If you see it that way, then you’re not going to be able to hear how they’re really feeling. And then, you’re not leading, you’re just bossing. Understand that this current generation of athletes engages through disagreement. They don’t see disagreeing with someone as a sign of disrespect; to them, it’s engagement. This is so important for older coaches to understand. This dialogue is valuable.”

_______________________

Takeaway

Being a mission-driven team helps keep decision-making simple, since every decision or change will be run through the lens of what matters to your team, whether that’s winning championships or focusing on wellness. If you’re a coach trying to make change happen in your team, your school, your district, or your state, it’s important to be clear with athletes about what’s at stake. Bring an athlete representative to the table, and while your athletes don’t always need to be able to choose what’s best for the team, they should have a voice when it comes to making the tough decisions.

Vicki Vaughan, Director of Athletics at The Colorado Springs School and a longtime contributor to TrueSport curriculum, shares her experiences as an athletic director, coach, and passionate fan of youth athletics while explaining why your role matters.

You Hire the Coaches

Whether you hire outside coaches with a sport-specific budget or you rally teachers to take on coaching roles, as athletic director, you create a culture with the people you hire and by how you set expectations, Vaughan explains. If you think kids should be playing multiple sports throughout the year rather than specializing, you should hire coaches who share that philosophy and who will accommodate students who need to juggle practice schedules, multiple sports, academic classwork, and extracurriculars.

If your school is known for making sports accessible to all students, not just elite athletes, you should hire coaches who are invested in nurturing athletes at all levels. “If I have a coach who puts winning above everything else, then that’s not a good fit for our school,” says Vaughan. “I really focus on finding coaches who align with our school’s philosophies. Yes, it can be difficult, but finding the right coach is worth it in the long run and improves longevity with the partnership.”

When a coach fails to meet expectations, an athletic director must work with the coach on potential improvements. Sometimes, Vaughan says, that means letting a coach go, which can be difficult. But if the coach is no longer serving the students’ needs, it is the athletic director’s job to find a replacement. “Hiring coaches who are a proper fit for our school’s setting is a priority, and when I find them, keeping them is important. I’m especially partial to hiring coaches who are enthusiastic, passionate about their sport, hardworking, proactive and solution savvy, communicative, and connected to young people.” She supports the concept that the athletic director must serve as the coach of all coaches.

Establish Expectations

Our TrueSport Experts encourage coaches to create team mission statements and rules to live by, but as an athletic director, you can help shape a school-wide set of expectations and values for athletes and coaches alike. “It’s important to train coaches to send the right messages to athletes, those that reinforce your school’s philosophy and mission,” says Vaughan. For her, that includes selecting coaches who will prioritize helping athletes to meet their potential and learn through the process, not necessarily the outcome. “We work together to find that healthy, fine line between winning and learning,” concludes Vaughan.

Risk management is also a vital component in the job of athletic directors. Today’s coaches are required to be certified in CPR and concussion training while expectations around bullying prevention, heat illness, and safe environments for all athletes is increasing. “In addition to training coaches around safety issues, keeping facilities and fields safe, and designing emergency plans around all scenarios, today’s athletic directors must be prepared to accommodate all new segments of students,” Vaughan states.

Set an Example

Do you arrive early to help set up for the swim meet or stay late to talk to parents after the big game? Vaughan is clear around the importance of setting an example, adding that as the athletic director, she never asks coaches to do more than she would do herself, which is part of the reason she still coaches girls’ basketball at her school. Another reason is that she enjoys the connectedness with the players and believes that through coaching, she continues to impact young people while helping them to reach their potential.

Vaughan leads by example rather than just setting rules and regulations for others, and she models the behavior she expects from her coaching staff. “Throughout my tenure as AD, I’ve learned to work smarter and proactively, not necessarily harder, and this makes all the difference.” Vaughan adds that effective athletic directors are aware that actions speak louder than words, and recommends remembering that you are always being observed by your athletes, parents, coaches, and peers, whether you know it or not.

 Create Connections

Connecting is important within the personal relationships needed for the job as an athletic director. “Building relationships is an integral part of my job and maintaining these relationships through proper communication channels is vital,” says Vaughan. “In a typical day, I connect with athletes, coaches, peers, and parents around the clock, whether in person, on the phone, via email, or even with social media.” An effective athletic director thrives in a setting with other people and enjoys making connections with an invested interest in others.

Athletic directors can also help connect coaches to experts who may be needed when dealing with crises among athletes. If an athlete is struggling with disordered eating, anxiety, depression, or any other mental health issues, a coach may not be equipped to deal with it. But as an athletic director, you can make sure that coaches have the resources they need to help athletes in crisis. Vaughan has her “rolodex of experts” on hand and ensures that all coaches in the school know that if a player is struggling, the coach can connect with an expert who can help.

Provide a Precedent

Vaughan plans to begin the fall semester by bringing in a sports psychology and motivational expert to talk to all the athletes in her school. She hopes to encourage students to get involved and play more school sports (something that many schools have been struggling with in the wake of the pandemic). Another reason is to set the precedent that bringing in experts to speak with athletes is a great practice that coaches can implement throughout the season.

“Whenever messaging to athletes can be reinforced with outside speakers and professionals, it places an emphasis on the content and makes a larger impact,” adds Vaughan. “Utilizing other voices to help drive home a message or establish a cultural norm within the athletic department is much more effective than when I speak on my own.”

The Best Athletic Directors Go Unnoticed

“Being an athletic director is often a thankless job. It sounds a bit counterintuitive, but a lack of recognition is commendable in most cases,” says Vaughan. When people remain unaware of your duties (e.g., scheduling practices and game times, coordinating transportation, ordering equipment and uniforms, planning with other schools in the district, handling game-day setup and tear down, etc.), that is usually a sign that things are operating steadily. But when events don’t run smoothly, communication isn’t clear, or there are scheduling glitches, this typically means there are issues to iron out and better work to be done.

“So much of the work is done before the actual event takes place, and planning ahead—envisioning various scenarios and anticipating outcomes— is a good practice,” add Vaughan. An example is when athletic directors are planning for outdoor games and weather becomes an issue. Will the scenario require a date or time change? Is there a weather plan in place to protect attendees? Have the officials been contacted? Who do I need to speak to at the opposing school? “I’ve learned through trial and error that too much planning is better than just enough,” says Vaughan.

_________________

Takeaway

As athletic director, your role encompasses so much more than simply scheduling and hiring. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day work that goes with the athletic director position, but in the larger picture, you are capable of creating and reaffirming a culture of sport in your school that will help athletes succeed on and off the court. Help your coaches by clearly defining the principles and values that you want your school’s athletes to maintain, be a positive example, and make sure that you are helping to create a safe environment while nurturing connections where needed.

Board-certified family physician and TrueSport Expert Deborah Gilboa, MD, unpacks exactly what it means to be a true leader.

Respect, Not Popularity

“When you’re in high school, popularity and leadership may feel like exactly the same thing … or at least, it does until you’re put in a position of leadership,” says Gilboa. “Imagine you’re in charge of younger kids at a summer camp. When you’re in charge of them, at first you may want them to like you or think you’re cool, because then they’ll listen to you. But that’s not true. They have to respect you, or they won’t listen to you.”

She adds, “There’s a difference between popularity and respect. Popularity is doing what people want, and respect is doing what people need.” Picture yourself at practice, leading the team through warmup drills. Your team might like you if you say, “Sure, we can skip sprints today.” But what they need to perform at their best is to do those drills to the best of their abilities. So even though sprints may not be what the team wants, sprints are what the team needs.

Think Back to Leaders You Remember

“Try to remember a teacher, coach, or team leader who made a positive impression on you or who made you a better athlete or student. You probably didn’t always like them, but you really respected them,” says Gilboa. “They probably made you work on things that you needed to but were not the most fun to focus on. But they never asked you to do something they wouldn’t do.”

Ask yourself, how did that person lead? What did they do?

Leadership Is for Many Types of People

When you picture a team leader, you may automatically picture the movie star version of a team captain: the popular, extroverted person who is incredibly skilled in the sport and is willing to push their team to its furthest limits to win the state championship. But any personality type or skill level can make a great leader. “It’s not only about being tough. You don’t even have to be tough to be respected,” says Gilboa. “You don’t have to be extroverted or loud to be respected either. You just have to be willing to tell people what they need, even when it isn’t what they want.”

Practice What You Preach

While Gilboa says that leading means doing what your teammates need versus what they want, she adds that the critical difference between a good and bad leader is the willingness to do those things yourself. “If you’re asking some of your players to do drills that are boring or painful, you need to be in there doing them alongside your teammates,” says Gilboa. “You shouldn’t ask anyone to do something that you wouldn’t.”

Be Mission-Oriented

If you are the team leader, learn your team’s values and objectives for the year. “Start off by asking your team why they’re there,” Gilboa suggests. “Get your team to create their mission for this season. One team’s mission might be to crush finals; one team’s might be to improve their record; another’s might be to be the most respected team at the school. It can vary widely. But create one unified vision for what it means to be on the team. Then, every time they’re slumping during the season, you can point back to the mission. You’re not asking them to do something because they like you, or even because they trust you; you’re asking them to do things because it will move the team closer to their mission.”

Stand Up for Your Team

Students, especially high schoolers, should be part of high-level decisions about athletics at their school, particularly when it pertains to their specific sport. Because of this, as team leader, part of your job is advocating for your team and demanding that seat at the table. If there is a big coaches’ meeting, student leaders should be included, says Gilboa. That may not be how your school operates now, but it is something you can discuss with your coach. A real leader does not just help the team move through drills at practice; a real leader also stands up for the team and ensures the team understands what conversations are happening and why certain decisions are made. Players will not always agree with those decisions, but they have the right to know. You are the bridge between your team and the institutions that control it.

Being a Leader Is Worth It

Being a leader is a lot of work. But, as Gilboa says, it also brings a lot of reward. “When there’s success, whether it’s a new record or a championship win, you have more ownership over that. And, leading a sports team will teach you how to lead in any situation. You’ll recognize what good leadership is, and you’ll be able to use those skills when you choose to.”

Want to be Popular? Do a Different Job.

If popularity is your goal — and that’s fine if it is! — then Gilboa says you may want to opt out of being team leader and find another role within the team. “For example, imagine you’re new to a school and you don’t know anyone, so you join the soccer team hoping to make some new friends,” Gilboa says. “Getting onto the team and taking a role as team captain might seem like the best way to meet everyone and get to know them, but it’s actually going to put a lot of pressure on you, and it may even make it difficult to make friends easily because you need to focus on what the team needs, not what you want. Instead, you can lead from behind. You can work hard for the team without claiming an official leadership role. In this capacity, you can be the person who plays a kazoo for everybody’s birthday or decorates their lockers before a big meet.”

_______________________

Takeaway

If being popular and making friends is your primary focus on a team, being a leader may not be your best option. However, if you want to help your team succeed and you’re hoping to boost your leadership skills, which will help you later in life, then being a team leader is a great way to do just that. But don’t take the position lightly: It comes with a lot of work and responsibility!

Here, TrueSport Expert Deborah Gilboa, MD, explains how to look at your team through a new lens: Seeing each athlete as capable of taking on leadership roles, and as individuals who may require different types of encouragement from you.

Leadership can look different to different athletes

It’s important to recognize that leadership is not an inherent trait: it’s a series of skills that can be honed. Similarly, there’s not just one type of leader. “We often have this picture, especially in sport, of what a leader looks like,” Gilboa says. “Most people will list characteristics like outgoing, assertive, talented, and communicative. But the truth is that not all leaders are like that, and we rob some kids of leadership opportunities because they don’t have those obvious characteristics. Some leaders have great insight and empathy, or the ability to listen and not to talk, or to delegate decision making.”

Differentiate your coaching and their leadership

“Differentiating leadership means knowing your group and giving each athlete an opportunity to use the leadership characteristics that are natural to them,” Gilboa explains. “And it’s also about differentiating your approach to each athlete.” Some kids will respond well to tough love, others need quiet guidance, some need reassurance, and some need to be pushed a bit harder in order to perform.

You need to let athletes lead

Because of the work required to manage a team and the needs of each player, you cannot be the only leader for your team. “There’s not enough of you to go around,” Gilboa says. “You’ll burn out trying to be the only leader.” However, especially at the start of a season, it can feel difficult to let go of leading and trust that your athletes can take over certain aspects. In fact, it can feel like more work as you set up team leaders who will run the team through warm up drills and cool-downs, or who will help to call plays and offer suggestions to other players. But fostering leaders in the group will pay off quickly—and save you time and energy through the season. Delegate as much as possible to leaders on the team as the season progresses. This is also great practice for them!

Get outside of your own beliefs

Gilboa suggests making a list of all the different qualities that can be associated with being a leader. Later, look at the list and match the names of all the athletes to each quality: Some athletes might have more than one, but ensure that every athlete has at least one quality. This will help you hone in on how each athlete can improve their personal leadership qualities, and serve to remind you how different leadership can look.

Help kids see themselves as leaders

“Out loud, acknowledge what athletes do as leaders. Naming their leadership qualities makes a big difference, so tell an athlete, ‘Hey, I admire how you handled that situation on the court today,'” Gilboa says. For a shy athlete, being told that they are being a great leader can be a life-changing moment. Young athletes need to hear that from you because many possess some leadership quality, but don’t see it in themselves. Set a goal of telling each athlete one thing that you noticed each week.

Try different approaches

While coaches shouldn’t show any signs of favoritism on the team, you may need to change up your own leadership style to reach different athletes. Some athletes may require more attention, while other athletes actually thrive with only occasional input from you, Gilboa explains. And remember that some athletes won’t respond well to being put on the spot, especially in leadership roles, but might be more suited to quiet leadership opportunities. Leading warm up drills may frighten some athletes, but those athletes may be well-suited to help organize their team’s tactics during a scrimmage.

Tell athletes what to expect

“One thing that will really help coaches is providing full transparency: Tell your team that throughout the year, athletes may notice that you’re spending more time with one person or another,” Gilboa says. “Let them know, ‘While you might think that another athlete is getting most of my attention, I give attention to who needs it in the moment. And each of you are going to need it at some point.'”

_______________________

Takeaway

With differentiated leadership, coaches can both honor young athletes’ natural leadership styles and effectively offer them support based on individual needs.

Learn more about Deborah Gilboah, MD.

Here, TrueSport Expert Deborah  Gilboa, MD, explains how to ensure that the leadership skills learned in sport can translate to other spaces.

Teach athletes that leadership is a learnable skill

Many athletes, especially those who may be shy or introverted by nature, may not believe that they’re leadership material. But like dribbling a soccer ball or perfecting a swim stroke, leadership skills can be mastered with practice.

Have athletes create a list of leadership qualities at the beginning of the season (depending on the age, you may need to help them). Try to broaden their definition of being a leader from the basic ‘taking charge’ or ‘being outgoing’ to softer skills like empathy and listening. With this expanded definition of leadership, athletes can practice a style of leadership that feels most natural to them and is sustainable through sport and life.

Use athletics as a starting place to discuss leadership

“As parents, it’s rare that we get to sit and watch our child for an hour, but when they’re playing a sport, we get to do just that: We get to observe our children from the sidelines,” Gilboa says. “The next time you do this, pay attention and catch them doing three things that you admire. It could be how they treated someone else, or how they handled themselves during adversity, or that they passed to a kid who’d been left out for most of the game. Then, on the ride home or during dinner, tell them about those things you noticed.”

The more positive aspects you can call attention to, the more you’ll see that behavior playing out. On the flip side, if you constantly point out negatives about your young athlete, it’s likely that you’ll see more negative behavior as a result.

Bring in alumni

For older athletes, getting to know athletes who graduated a few years prior can be a huge boost to their growth and development. “It’s really crucial to find people who have gone as far, or a little further, than your young athletes in their sport,” says Gilboa. “Get them to come to a practice to talk about what they learned through the sport and how it has helped them in the rest of their life.” This helps student athletes begin to understand how leadership in athletics can transfer to other parts of life.

Avoid being the middleman

As a coach or parent, you may occasionally find yourself in the position of playing middleman between a young athlete and a teammate or adult. But Gilboa says whenever possible, try to avoid being a moderator and instead, help the young athlete take responsibility for hard conversations. For example, if you’re a parent and your child is complaining that they don’t get enough playing time, don’t call the coach on their behalf. Instead, help your athlete prepare to have a conversation with the coach.

Unless your athlete reports feeling unsafe or you’re worried that the situation is unsafe, help your athlete be his own advocate whenever possible. “If they’re not in danger, they’re just uncomfortable,” Gilboa says. “This is a chance for them to learn new communication skills and improve their emotional intelligence and resilience.” These skills are the foundations of a strong leader.

Coach athletes to practice resilience

“Being able to build connections, set boundaries, stay open to new ideas, manage discomfort, set goals, find different options, take action, and persevere in tough times are all qualities of a resilient person, as well as a great leader,” she says. Make sure those skills make it onto your athlete’s leadership quality list and point out whenever you notice that your athlete is displaying one of those skills. For example, perseverance could mean staying late at soccer practice to help a teammate master a certain kick.

_________________________

Takeaway

There are many styles of leadership that make it possible for athletes with various personalities to become leaders. Leadership qualities can be honed during your athlete’s time in sport and applied both in and outside of sport.