The Nine Necessities of Leadership in Coaching
By Shane Dreiling
- Foster a Family Environment
The ultimate leadership is servant leadership. Treat your program like a family bound by honesty, trust, and collective responsibility. Draw out the best from people and help them get to where they want to go.
- Treat each other like family and continue that relationship beyond career.
- Encourage and develop collective responsibility.
- Build relationships on honesty and fairness, developing trust and earning respect along the way.
- Don’t be too proud to receive input from your staff and players.
- Be a servant.
- Teach Individual Sacrifice
Continually remind your team that while individuals will be taken care of, the vision of the team is more important than the individuals that make up that team.
- Desire the success of each individual.
- Take the hits for your team…protect your players.
- Reward effort.
- Teach what’s important to the vision.
- Allow people to get close.
- Establish Good Habits
Be ready for success, understanding what must be accomplished each day. Success is second nature with good work habits. Purpose establishes your discipline and makes you more focused.
- Organize your day, be prepared and do your homework…your competitor is!
- Take care of unpleasant things first.
- Delegate with your staff and utilize resources.
- Pay attention to details and don’t hesitate to take notes.
- Paying the price of hard work makes you less willing to surrender. If you have a great work ethic and have begun to discipline yourself, self esteem naturally follows. As Rick Pitino says, “You must deserve victory to feel good about yourself.”
- Cultivate Self Esteem
Confidence and humility builds self-esteem and takes people to greater heights. People that feel good about themselves are the ones that consistently achieve.
- Believe in your players and staff.
- Be positive and don’t hesitate to encourage.
- Always see victory!
- Everyone wants to believe they have value.
- Self-esteem is vital to achieving and has to be earned to have significant value.
- Make A Commitment to Character
Know that before you preach character, you must model class. A man built on strong building blocks never falls under his foundation.
- Traits necessary: Humility, strong work ethic, honesty, integrity, personal responsibility, fairness and desire to trust in those around you.
- Be a role model.
- Convictions above convenience.
- Recruit high character people.
- Teach personal responsibility and self discipline.
- Set Demanding Goals
The team’s goals must be worthy of the team’s commitment. Challenge yourself and your team to reach new heights, understanding that failure is not permanent, just instructional.
- Start out simple. As you start having success, make goals more demanding.
- Focus on the Task at Hand
- Admit your weaknesses and set goals to overcome them. Don’t be content with small successes. Use those successes to work towards larger successes.
- Be Ferociously Persistent and take care of business.
- Stick to your plan of attack and realize that the goals in your life are a marathon, not a sprint.
- Master the Art of Communication
The goal is to connect with your team. Do they know how much you care? Focus on their needs as much as yours and understand that communication requires more listening than it does speaking.
- Strive to be a better communicator.
- Communicate your goals and needs to other people.
- Don’t feel the need to be right all the time.
- Learn how to relate to people, no matter their position.
- Remember, communication is less about speaking than about listening.
- Establish Consistent Discipline
Preach the pursuit of excellence. Discipline is the act of consistently performing good habits over an extended period of time. Continually remind your team to focus on the vision!
- Be honest, fair and rich in integrity.
- Demonstrate respect for authority.
- Pass the mirror test, “Did I give the best of myself today?”
- Confront problems head on.
- Embrace personal responsibility, which is discipline defined.
- Turn Negatives into Positives
Realize that a positive outlook will keep your players, staff and program motivated. You don’t have a good day, you make it a good day!
- Being positive is an attitude. Block out negativity around you. Surround yourself with positive people.
- Four stages of failure: Recognize, admit, learn, forget
- Make the big time where you are!
- Continue to keep the faith in your vision.
- Find a way…there is one!