“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.

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

Great teamwork happens when those on the team have a philosophy of being the best person for the team rather than the best person in the team. Often athletes compete brutally against each other in order to be selected on the team and then once they are on the team, they are expected to put the team first. This is quite a departure from their previous thinking when they had to fight for themselves. However, if their thinking does not change, then we end up with a non-united team. A team of individuals. A team that without question, will fail to produce their best when it matters the most. As coaches, we may or may not have a role in selecting our team. Some do and some don’t. Regardless of this, every coach, must understand the interplay of behavioural styles / personalities that exist of their team. This interplay is called Team Dynamics and just by observing a team, it can be quite a challenge to accurately understand the diverse mix of these styles. To fully and accurately understand, coaches can turn to the Athlete DISC and the Team Dynamics Profiling. After all, most teams fail due to clashes of behaviour patterns (”personality clashes”). Clashes that could have been managed had the coach and team been aware of them.

Creating Great Teams

Some coaches assume any group can automatically be a team. One of the biggest single reasons that teams misfire is that personality differences are ignored. In short, who’s selected for the team will affect the outcome. For best results, we must be strategic about the athletes on the team, what their behavioural style is and what the outcome of these behavioural styles is in creating the Team Dynamics Profile. With this knowledge coaches can begin to understand likely team behaviours and the most effective way to coach the overall team. Coaches can also see where gaps are in the team’s diversity and can, where able, recruit athletes of particular profiles to fill those gaps.

When coaches create a sporting team and employ their knowledge of the four Athlete DISC behavioral styles, they can greatly improve the team’s chances for success. Coaches will need to take into account that there are natural allies and antagonists among the styles and also that each style functions best at a different phase in the life cycle of a team. For information on Team Development Stages, stay tuned as an article is coming out soon on this topic.

For example, Interactive styles (I’s) often see Compliant styles (C’s) as overly-analytical and rule governed. Dominant styles (D’s) might sooner die than have to continually wait on the more considerate style of the Steady team members (S’s). Compliant styles, while often drawn to Steady styles, have difficulty understanding the Interactive style’s lack of focus or the Dominant style’s impatience. And Steady styles only wish everyone was as amiable and tolerant as they. So while the potential for conflict is always there, it needn’t become the reality. In creating a team, think about who you are putting on it and monitor how they function during the group’s evolution. That way you’ll not only make the best possible use of the strengths of each team member, you can help create a whole that’s much larger than the sum of the parts. Discovering what styles you have on your team is easy. When each of your team, complete an Athlete DISC Profile, they will be mapped onto a Team Dynamics Chart like the one below.

Visit our site to see the article on this topic and view the Dynamics Profile Chart.

In the Team Dynamics Profile example, a coach can see that there are two different percentage measures in each Behavioural Style. The first percentage is the Norm Group. The norm group is a measure of the % of team members that theoretically form a healthy amount of a certain behavioural style. The other percentage is Your Group. This is the actual percentage of a certain behavioural style that exists in your team.

The first aspect to look at in the Team Dynamics Profile, is the Norm Group vs Your Group percentage. We ideally want these percentages to map to the theory percentages. Successful teams tend to have healthy diversity within the behavioural profiles. Can you think of what may occur if one behavioural style is oversupplied?

In the above example, the first team issue to notice is the lack of D’s. In teams, D’s provide a sense of urgency, a pace setting style of leadership, a love of a challenge, a strong results focus and a what ever it takes style of play. What do you think may be the outcome for a team that is missing these qualities? Think about team members who naturally want to assume a leadership role, what profile do you think they are most likely?

The second observation is that there are too many I’s. Interactive (I) style behaviours are fast paced, people oriented, motivated by change and fun, are impulsive with their choices, will be interested in the social side of sport as well as the need for individual recognition. As well, I’s are talkative types who tend to wear there heart on their sleeve more so than the other styles. With roughly twice as many I’s as the theory suggests is required, this team will likely struggle at times to switch on a focus. There may be a lot of off topic communication and if their coach does not provide excitement and fun elements at training, then they will start to disengage.

The other factor in this team, is that their Steady style (S) is under represented. S styles are described as the ultimate team player. They listen, are observant of others, portray tolerance, are highly amiable and generally will naturally put the team before themselves. Some describe S’s as the glue that binds the team together. What do you think may happen in this team given that there are not enough of the S’s?

Finally, the Compliant style. You will notice that this style is also over represented by 25%. Compliant styles (C’s) are rule guided, motivated by structure and systems being effective and efficient, are stubborn and inflexible to change unless there is sufficient evidence such as facts and figures to support the change. They are also likely to be highly conscious of quality above all else, are interested in the “right” process before the result and are more a thinker than a feeler who will be reticent to express themselves. Whilst fantastic people to have on a team, they can often be prone to preferring to work alone. So knowing this what impact do you think the impact on the team will be?

In summary, Team Dynamics Profiling gives us concrete indications on how the team will bond, interact and ultimately perform. Obtaining accurate information on Team Dynamics is easy and inexpensive using the Athlete DISC Profiling system. I have noticed that when teams significantly underperform, there is almost always critical behavioural issues (”personality clashes”) that were never addressed by the coach. Sport is tough enough. Coaching is one of the most challenging roles a person can have. In a recent survey of elite coaches from a diversity of sports, coaches rated the three most challenging aspects of their roles. 50% rated “Understanding individual athlete’s personality and how to best motivate them”. 46% rated “Personal life balance – managing sport, career, home and social life.” And 31% rated “Team/squad dynamics and managing relationships within the team/squad”. Don’t make your job any harder by neglecting this critical aspect of team performance. Use the knowledge available with Athlete Assessments and the Athlete DISC to assist you to make better informed decisions.

Boden 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