“You cannot manage men into battle. You manage things; you lead people.” Grace Murray Hopper

This month’s tip may seem like a slight diversion from ‘psychology’ however I believe it is the number one issue that I see in coaches and managers in football today, at all levels!

I’m talking leadership.

There is an old saying that ‘if all you’ve got is a hammer then every problem is a nail’. It is becoming more and more frequent for me to see that many coaches, and again I’m talking at every level, only have hammers.

It’s going badly – lets blast the players. It’s going well – let’s blast them to bring them down to earth. They need to be more motivated – let’s blast them. I could go on and on.

I strongly believe that the missing piece for many of these coaches is an understanding of what it takes to lead people.

You can manage tactics, you can manage arrangements, you can manage coaching sessions but to perform at their best people must be led.

In their book “The Leadership Challenge” (ISBN 0-7879-5678-3) Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner introduce five practices that great leaders do to get the most from their people. These aren’t just ‘made up’; they are the practices that coaches and managers who get the very best from their teams do naturally.

These five practices are:

Modelling the Way, Inspiring a Shared Vision, Challenging the Process, Enable Others to Act and Encourage the Heart

I’m certain that if football coaches can raise their awareness, and do more of these, then their results will improve.

How Can You Become A Better Leader?

“You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within.” Bob Nelson

We often invite clients to complete a questionnaire that helps them assess how well they ‘lead’. Here are some example questions that might help you to reflect on how well you do. Remember we firmly believe that these are applicable to any coach, of any age group, at any level.

When you make a promise to your players, do you keep it without fail?

Are you always first in and last out at training and on match days?

Do players know what is important to you? Do you walk the walk?

For example if you say that discipline is important, is your discipline excellent?

Does the squad know what your aims are for this year and for the next three years?

Did the squad have any input into these aims?

Do you talk about these aims with genuine enthusiasm? In training, are you innovative?

Do you try new methods, techniques and approaches? When things aren’t going well on or off the pitch, do you experiment rather than leaving things and ‘keeping your fingers crossed’?

Are you your own coach or manager, rather than simply doing things the way you were coached and managed?

Are you willing to let others input into your decisions?

When players disagree, are they able to discuss this with you (in the right way at the right time)?

Do you know what is important to your players?

Do you appeal to what is important to them in a positive way to get the most from them?

Do you encourage a ‘togetherness’ in your team?

If you can honestly answer ‘yes’ or ‘usually’ to most of these, then well done; you are in the minority. You’ve probably got a very successful team.

For the rest of you, maybe now is a good time for a change? The good news is most of these can be put right quite quickly (and of course we can help!) Spend some time doing the actions below and notice the difference in your players and results.

“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” Kenneth Blanchard

What to do now…

Answer the questions above… Think about what you can do to say ‘yes’ to more of them. If you are stuck for ideas, email me and I’ll help you.

Put a note in your diary to do the questionnaire again next preseason, it is a great time to start leading more.

Be polite. When working as a business coach, you must first analyze a business. You examine their profits to see how short they are falling short. Look at their marketing practices to see what they are doing wrong, and so forth. Your job is to take the bad, educate a business owner or operating manager, and transform it into good. Unfortunately, that means criticizing. Yes, it is your job, but remember that we are all naturally offended. Insult a business owner and they will get upset. It is all about delivery, be polite.

Be positive. As previously stated, your job is to take the bad and transform it into good. You do so by providing suggestions, showing by example, and by offering feedback. No business owner is so bad that they never do anything wrong. Their doors would have closed by this point if that were the case. You need to focus on the bad, but also focus on the good. For example, if a retail manager has a well-organized office, but a poor organized sales floor, commend them for their effort. Let them know they did a good job in their office, but that they should have extended the organization to the sales floor. You let them know there is a problem, but still provided positive feedback. Your client will be more receptive.

Offer praise and encouragement. As a business coach, it is your responsibility to teach business owners and operating managers how to run a successful business. The keyword is teach. You do not do the work. You can display a few examples, but let your clients do the brunt of the work. Like a sports coach, sit back and watch. Analyze the situation and provide feedback. Throughout the task, offer praise and encouragement. It sounds silly, but some people just need a positive push in the right direction. In addition, since you are treating your client like a human being, you score extra points.

Offer to work with the entire staff. When providing business coaching services, business coaches usually work directly with the company owner or manager. There are others on site though. These staff members, their actions, their results, and their productivity are important to the company’s success. You can educate your client and they can retrain their staff members, or you can offer to do it. You should charge extra for this service, but offer a low rate or discount and you should get some takers.

Offer to come back and help. As a business coach, you can spend one day working one-on-one with a client or one week. No matter what steps you take to educate them on the importance of all business components, your advice may be ignored. So, always offer to comeback for a review or to answer a few simple questions. Let them know that advice is free, but retraining will cost extra.

It’s these basic people handling principals that should both surround and be engrained in how you deal with all of your clients. As long as you take the approach of treating people the way you would want to be treated you will be OK. Like all humans we are vulnerable to mistakes and should a situation arrive where you say the wrong thing, remember the customer is always right, assess the situation, apologize if needed, and think of some alternative methods you could have used. As you gain experience you should be able to easily recognize ways on handling clients. Have at it!

Works By Marius Panzarella, Dating Coach.

Using the Athlete DISC profile, will enable you to identify your coaching style. When your athletes also complete their profile, the information you get will enable you to use the correct style with each athlete. Coach behavior should be a way to connect athlete understanding with the concepts and skills the coach is trying to improve within the objectives of the session (Hall & Smith 2006). With each of the four behavioral styles outlined in the Athlete DISC, there’s a different way to communicate, connect with, provide feedback and motivate and counsel them. How to do all this is the basis of our Coach Education webinars and the purpose of this article is to explain how to generally learn more about the coaching styles and how to be more effective in coaching your athletes.

If you are the Coach, are you the leader?

First, recognize that as a coach you are a leader. As a leader you have certain amounts of power. Your power will essentially come from two sources: “position power” and “personal power.” Position power is just what it sounds like–you’re the Coach so a certain amount of power comes from being anointed by the Club or Team Management for this role.

But personal power comes from earning it, from developing it. Position power is a starting point for coaching an athlete or team, but it’s personal power enables a coach to go from a coaching style that considers the needs of the athlete first and then fits the style of coaching required to these needs. Personal power is also based on coaches building respect and credibility in the eyes of their athletes. It is well known that a critical condition for an athlete to change their technique is the amount of credibility the coach has in the eyes of the athlete. For example, if the athlete’s previous coach has taught them a certain technique and it is deemed ineffective, then unless the athlete’s current coach has greater credibility than the athlete’s old coach, there will be no change in technique. This is because the athlete does not believe in the new coach as compared to their belief in the old coach. Building the credibility is about showing your desire to adapt to the athlete’s need (see previous article on Adaptability) and then show your expertise in the athlete’s eyes.

What is interesting in sport today, is the amount of information on topics critical to performance such as nutrition, sports science, bio mechanics. Yet show me the same depth of information on how to build effective relationships and rapport with your athletes. Business has recognized the need to develop the management and leadership skills of its people years ago. In sport many people still seem to be caught up with training programs and sports science. Believe me I know this is important. I won three Olympic medals and used every piece of sport science and bio mechanical help I could, but it was the ability of my coach who really enabled me to be my best. Actually, by the end of my career, my coach could do everything a sport science tester did and he understood the bio mechanics of my sport to a degree that exceeded many experts in the field. What my coach did better than any other coach I have seen, is his ability to build rapport with his athletes, establish enormous credibility and develop the highest level of respect. To us, he was (and is to others today) a coach who was athlete centered, where he adjusted his style to suit the needs of his athletes. I guess that is why he is Head Coach of one of the largest nations in the world. Personal power–in essence, your skill in dealing with people–is increasingly crucial to you and your role as coach.

In short, if you respect your athletes’ individuality, their essential differences, they’ll feel like they’re on a winning team and will work harder, better for you. But you must empower them rather than just seeking power over them. You can do that by learning to listen, observe, and talk to them. And then adapting so they’ll feel important, wanted and highly valued, this will build their self-esteem and that will increase their confidence in themselves. We all know the results that genuinely self-confident athletes can achieve. Want to know your coaching style?

Bo Hanson is a four time Olympian and Triple Olympic Medalist. He is one of Australia’s most dynamic speakers on sport and business performance. He founded Athlete Assessments to assist coaches and athletes to improve their results through better understanding of themselves and others. He can be contacted through http://www.athleteassessments.com or bo.hanson@athleteassessments.com

Your NLP Success Coach doesn’t just give you advice.  Expect to be fully heard and learn specific skills you need to make the changes you want to succeed now, don’t you? 

Your NLP Coach believes you have all the resources necessary to achieve any outcome in life, and you may simply have those resources organized in a way you have not been getting what you want.

NLP Success Coaching incorporates the same technology for profound personal change that sky-rocked best-selling author and motivational guru, Anthony Robbins and others to massive success.  Together, personal coaching (life coaching) and business coaching (executive coaching) has become a significant and respectable business over the last few years.

You Can Make the Changes

Other coaches may give you advice, but your NLP Success Coach can help you make the specific changes necessary to achieve excellence.  Like a sports coach, your NLP Success Coach will push you out of your comfort zone and support you in your decision to play a game big enough to inspire you to achieve more than you ever thought possible. 

How big is the game you are playing?

The quality of your life is directly impacted by the quality of your communication. Your relationships, career, finances, and personal happiness, all depend on your ability to communicate effectively with yourself and others.  In the domain of work, do you sometimes think you have communicated effectively, only to find that someone got the wrong message?  Do you worry that you are so busy ‘putting out fires’ that you are not effectively moving your business and your career forward?  Do you worry about saying and doing the right things to build and maintain relationships with those in authority positions?  You are probably good at what you do, but there are also things you cannot see or predict from your current perspective.
A characteristic of highly successful people is that they imagine a desired future and then communicate that vision in a way that enrolls, includes, and empowers other people.  Your coach will help you access your own states of excellence so that you easily exercise the energy, intention, confidence, and assertiveness necessary for extraordinary achievement.

What Can NLP Coaching Do For You?
Even Coaches have NLP Coaches! Bill Thomason has helped thousands, like you, to achieve your most highly valued outcomes of personal growth, business success, relationship, spirituality, motivation, team building, career advancement, and more.  Bill will gently nudge you toward achieving more than you ever thought possible.  Bill can help you decide what it is that you do want and will then work with you to identify and eliminate the barriers that have stopped you in the past from achieving everything you want. And you do want to live your life fully now, don’t you?

What stops you…?

…from achieving what you say you want in life?

Bill says one of his mentors growing up was his Uncle, Darrell Royal. According to Bill, who played football at the University of Texas in the early 1970’s, his Uncle was way ahead of his time as a college football coach. Long before the Inner Game of Tennis and Inner Game of Golf books by Timothy Galwey in the late 1970’s, Bill says he observed that his Uncle treated football players with great respect. After all, they were the best of the best. Derrell Royal didn’t have to yell at or berate his players when they didn’t perform at their capability level. He would ask pointed questions that allowed the player to draw learning from deep inside themselves and from their own unique experience of life.

Bill believes that this Uncle’s understanding of an athlete’s innate ability to excel, is what took the Texas Longhorns to National Championship status. Darrell Royal was named ‘Coach of the Decade,’ for the time period between 1965 and 1975, and was called, ‘the winningest coach’ of his time.
Areas of focus for your NLP Success Coaching session:

- Get a promotion

- Deal with conflict
- Handle loss of job
- Produce results faster
- Influence with integrity
- Acknowledging Successes
- Become an effective leader
- Be a full player on your team
- Change your personal history
- “Wire in” states of excellence
- Set and achieve goals/outcomes
- Deal with upsets/negative feelings

- Attract and maintain a relationship

- Design your life vs. being a victim of circumstances

What to Expect? 

Expect to experience being fully heard and to learn real-life skills that can help you get out of stuck states, develop effective strategies, and take action toward your achieving your goals. You are always a partner in your own process toward becoming everything you always wanted to be in your life.

Bill believes you have all the resources you need to get anything you want in life. You just may have had them organized in a way that was not successful.

What will happen?

You will:

- Explore how your life will be different when you have it

- Interrupt you old programming

Your coaching relationship starts after a brief conversation during which we both decide to work together.  Your NLP Coaching Agreement is typically for a two month minimum time period with at least three (3) sessions per month.  In each new session we will discuss what happened in the one before, what has transpired between sessions, and outcomes of homework assignments.  Homework will be assigned that can be accomplished in simple conversations with people or writing/journaling exercises.  Any breakdowns will be “mined” for what can be learned.  

Your NLP Success Coach becomes a mentor, a consultant, a counselor, and committed partner in helping you to achieve your goals for personal growth, business success, relationships, spirituality, motivation, or whatever it is that you really want in life.  The first step is to determine what it is you want.  The second step is to determine the “ecology” of achieving what you say you want.  

After that, the coaching schedule will take you through a number of steps to assure that you are well on the path to your desired outcome.  You may need to reassess parts of your life, redefine success, set new goals, change old unresourceful habits, and build self-esteem and confidence in yourself. 

Flexibility is of primary concern.  You will always have permission to express yourself in a safe environment.  As things come up, new directions can be evaluated.  Your NLP Success Coach will ask you to do more than you thought you could do.  You are always a partner in your own process toward becoming everything you always wanted. NLP Success Coaching is about YOU

However, coaching has become more prevalent in other areas. Life coaching has developed significantly over the last few years, with many coaches specialising in niche areas such as health, financial and career coaching to name a few.   

To concentrate on the rising demand for employing a career coach, why should you choose a coach to help you to progress in your career?  

A career coach will help you in many ways. Like in the description of a sports coach above, they will help you to develop and reach your potential, be successful and achieve results. A career coach will normally work with you on a one-to-one basis and will often offer group workshops, teleseminars and e-books to support you to progress in your career.   

A career coach can help you in the following areas:  

Career exploration and discovery  

You may be unhappy or dissatisfied in your job and feel that there is something else out there, but are not sure what it is. A career coach can help you to discover what is important to you in your job and make sure that it uses your talents, skills, and strengths, and provides you with the reward you deserve.  

Understand your strengths and weaknesses  

A career coach will help you to develop an insight into your strengths and weaknesses. This will allow you to understand yourself better and support any decisions you make in your career. It will highlight areas you may not have considered before and you can address any weaknesses that may be holding you back or use them to your advantage.  

Develop your career vision and design your career  

A career coach can help you to structure a plan to progress your career. By helping you to understand your skills and abilities, they can help you to plan your ideal job and how you are going to get there.  

Develop confidence in your own ability  

You may have a plan for your future, but you may be consciously or subconsciously holding yourself back. A career coach can help you to develop greater confidence in your ability as well as providing you with the support and motivation to help you to achieve your goal.  

Provide job search support  

A career coach can help you during all stages of your job search. From helping you to develop your CV, to finding the ideal job and then succeeding at the interview, a career coach will support you every step of the way.  

Help you to get ready for promotion  

You don’t need to want to change your career to benefit from employing a career coach. They can help you to get ready for promotion, plan for the next step in your career, and support you to develop your talents.   

Support you in the workplace  

If you are unhappy at work, there may be many reasons why this may be so. A career coach can also help you to deal with difficult situations or people and become more assertive. You can increase your profile at work, build better relationships and improve your own personal effectiveness.   

Make sure that your goals are congruent with other parts of your life  

A career does not exist on its own and is part of your overall life. It is important that a career coach makes sure that your career goals fit in well with other parts of your life. For example, if work/life balance is essential for you, they will ensure that you consider this when planning or progressing your career.  

Provide you with greater self awareness  

Some career coaches will use psychometric tests or other techniques that will help you to develop a greater self awareness of yourself. A greater self awareness will help you to understand yourself better, build stronger relationships, and communicate more effectively.  

Support you every step of the way  

Like other coaches, career coaches will support you every step of the way. 

Their role is to:   

- Challenge you and ensure that you commit to making the changes you desire.

- Hold you accountable to the actions you want to take.  You will need to report on your results, which means that as well as being accountable to yourself, you need to demonstrate what you have achieved to your coach.

- Question you and challenge your ideas and thoughts.

- Listen to you without any agenda for themselves, which gives you a chance to come up with your own solutions which are right for you.

- Celebrate your successes and recognise when you have overcome difficulties or challenges.

- Keep you motivated even when the going gets tough!

Copyright Karen Williams 2008. All Rights Reserved

Through weekly one on one coaching sessions, clients identify what is most important to them and align their thoughts, words and actions accordingly. Daily accountability for simple action items increases results exponentially. Having a life one loves starts with gaining clarity on values, enabling more meaningful choices and consistent actions. Coaching offers a tried and tested means for creating more balance, joy, energy, financial abundance, focus, and action in every area of your life.

Who Works with a Success Coach?

Entrepreneurs, business owners, leaders, sales professionals and people in transition are some of the people who typically work with a success coach. Regardless of their professional endeavors or place in life, clients have one thing in common: they are all successful, resourceful, and intelligent individuals who want to get even more out of their lives.

People hire a coach because they want more of something (money, time, happiness, success, freedom, etc) and/or less of something (frustration, tolerations, delays, regrets, etc). Thanks to the internet and web based teleconferencing, the best advice in the world can be shared from anywhere and at anytime. Another compelling reason people have for hiring a success coach: they are just unwilling to wait to get what they want. They now turn to an outside expert to help them get what they most want, in a healthier, more productive and sustainable way.

Successful professional athletes use coaching to win. Tiger Woods is one of the best, and yet he understands the value of having someone work directly with him, pointing out things he can’t see, encouraging and challenging him to achieve his greatest potential. Success coaching is like having a personal trainer for your life!

What will a success coach do for me?

First, a success coach encourages clients to set goals that they truly want to achieve. This typically includes both personal and business goals. Examples include wanting to work less hours, earn more profits, find the right employees, spend more time with the family, etc. Every client has their own specific and unique set of goals that they strive to achieve. The first step in the client-coach relationship is to identify these goals and then believe they are achievable.

Next, a success coach asks and expects their clients to do much more than they have ever done on their own. We all have TDD (time deficit disorder), but few of us realize that that a cure is available. The 80/20 principal states that 20% of our inputs generate 80% of our output. If you can identify the 20% of your daily tasks that generate 80% of your profit (income, revenue, etc) and then double your effort on those specific tasks, then you are well on the path to working less and earning more in your business.

Success coaches continuously help clients focus on specific issues and tasks in order to produce and achieve specific results. Success coaches don’t offer the “what to do”, they provide the “how to” by providing clients with the tools, support and structure to accomplish much more than they ever thought possible.

When you hire a coach, you are paying for an accountability partner, for information, advice, support, collaboration, strategies, continuous presence, energy, creativity, availability, not necessarily just time or the number of coaching sessions. You can get as much value from 15 minutes of coaching as you can from three hours of coaching; it all depends mostly on timing, openness, and synergy.

What should I look for in a success coach?

Success coaches want certain and specific things for their clients. Indicators that you have found a great success coach include someone that will help you have enough energy, happiness, money, wonderful relationships, joy, and feelings of success that get you easily through your days. Also, find one that will help you eliminate regrets and toleration of ineffective tasks and activities. Finally, search for someone that will hold you accountable while helping you create reserves in your life of everything including time, money, love, confidence, enjoyment, etc.

If you are searching for a success coach that specializes in business and entrepreneurial clients, you should seek someone that will help you get a clear financial and structural picture of where you’ve been, where you are currently, and where you want to go. Expect your business success coach to require a profitable business, operated with integrity, and that has the proper help to run the business efficiently and effectively. You will typically be expected to work “on” your business and not “in” it. A business success coach should want your business to succeed beyond your plans and to be more profitable than budgeted for while attracting customers without having to apply a great amount of effort. Finally, a business success coach should help you actually get pleasure from your business tasks and duties and have a great life too!

What should I do now?

If you truly want to maximize your efforts and your business success, it is time for you to consider the services of a professional success coach. The winners in business (and in life) don’t have to be ten times better than the competition; they only have to be a little better. Adding a dose of coaching to your life may be the prescription you need to take control of both your business and your life.

Eric Williams is the founder of the Get Ready to Win Network. Eric can be contacted at ericw01@yahoo.com or 928-255-5379. For more information, click here: http://ericwilliams.48dayscoach.com

With the aid of a life coach, you can undoubtedly improve how you perform in every aspect of your life. It is

with the skills you learn from the life coach that you can turn your life around and greatly improve upon

yourself and your place in the world.

But what is it exactly that a life coach does? How does he or she make an impact on the way you function

in the world?

Everyone’s experience with a life coach is bound to be different. After all, we’re talking about the methods

of motivating individuals to achieve the success they know they deserve but haven’t yet had the gumption

to go for. Life coaches often focus on your individual issues and help you work through them, much like a

therapist would. However, this is not a clinical or medical experience. A life coach helps you cope with your

daily life and take the steps necessary to move forward.

When it comes to performance, however, a life coach has a unique role. He or she will guide you through

all the steps necessary to prepare yourself for a life change. In fact, a life coach will probably know more

about your hopes, fears, dreams and goals than your loved ones. That is because a life coach is paid to

listen to you. You don’t have to listen to their problems or reciprocate in any way. Your meetings with a life

coach are all about you and your needs.

So when you meet up with a life coach, you can expect to evaluate your goals in life and to come up with

realistic plans for obtaining those goals. It is with this sort of focused attention you can really take

advantage and get the most out of the experience. That is not to say that talking to your friends is not

helpful. Rather, you can just receive a different sort of attention from a life coach that can better get you

and keep you on track.

When considering performance, a life coach can help you come up with a “game plan” of sorts. For many,

life coaches play an integral role in their development on a sports team so that analogy is pretty apt. They

can help you visualize your success, develop a detailed plan for obtaining success and encourage you

along the way to keep pursuing your goals. The support and guidance of a life coach is really invaluable

when it comes to improving your performance in any and all aspects of life.