The R.E.A.L. Man Program is a strategic and progressive character development program designed to help middle school, high school, and college-aged students to reach their full potential, in every aspect of their lives.

The 20-lesson program is a blueprint for success, which is aimed at helping students understand and live out the principles of a positive and influential life.

The foundation for the program can be described as:

Respect all people,
Especially women.
Always do the right thing.
Live a life that matters.

Here are a three videos about the R.E.A.L. Man Program.

The first video is a short description of the program. The second video is of an actual lesson taught by a coach at a school that utilizes the R.E.A.L Man Program. The third is an overview of the program.

The second video is a YouTube video, so you will need to be on a server that allows you to access YouTube.

There is sound with each video.

If you are interested in finding out more about the program, contact:

Kathy DiCocco at 203-206-4801 or email her at [email protected]

Or click here to visit The R.E.A.L Man Program

Please click the play arrows to view the videos.

R.E.A.L. Man Overview

 

Learning to do the Right Thing

James Vint on the R.E.A.L. Man Program

Humility is not Optional.  It’s a Necessity

Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.  The Academy for Sport Leadership

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” –C.S. Lewis

As we descend deeper into a society characterized by polarization and division, cooperation is increasingly a curious characteristic.  First, let me suggest that cooperation is a product of humility, a dispositional drive of a selfless ego.  I introduce cooperation here to set it up as a desired individual behavior to be exercised in a team environment.

Consider humility to be a serious personality characteristic; one that is geared toward the positive construction and building of healthy relationships.  But don’t align humility with meekness or shyness—as is usually the case.   Resist the temptation to dismiss humility simply because it hasn’t been lionized like “grit,” or “mental toughness.”

One of the biggest mistakes coaches make is thinking that humility means a lack of self-confidence or a personal shortcoming such as a fragile sense of one’s self.

In team relationships humility shows through by the team members’ commitment to serve and support one another, through showing appreciation for the contributions of teammates, expressing encouragement, and acceptance of each other.  The person possessing a healthy dose of humility is generous with his or her support of others as expressed through loyalty and respect for teammates.

The humble teammate displays a strong sense of duty to the team.  Let me be clear: humility is the social glue that holds the team—a fragile eco-system—in balance.  Humility always contributes to unity.

It is worth exploring how to mesh cooperation with competition.  Competition—a cherished quality in the field of sport—is often considered to be the opposite of cooperation.  Competition is the drive and compulsion to win, to earn, to get, to have, to do.  Sports and competition are synonymous.  Yet, an ego attuned to only competition breeds a self-interested ego.  At this point I’m sure you’re saying…”and so?”

We live in a culture with a high tolerance for individualism.  This breeds status and ego.  It promotes selfishness (might I get creative and say “selfieness”), and an “It’s all about me” attitude.  Society rewards those who use self-promotion to stand-out.   Of course, many young people have bought into this approach to life.  However, there is often a darker side to ego.  Ryan Holiday, author of Ego is the Enemy, reveals:

“The ego we see most commonly goes by a more casual definition: an unhealthy belief in our

                own importance.  Arrogance.  Self-centered ambition….The need to be better than, more than,

recognized for, far past any reasonable utility—that’s ego.  It’s the sense of superiority and certainty that exceeds the bounds of confidence and talent.”

An ego out of control can and often does promote a sense of self-justification giving an individual the “freedom” to say and do whatever is in their best interest.  Ego driven people often are self-absorbed and seek only individual fulfillment.  Certainly such behavior can and often is displayed on the playing field.

However, don’t confuse this with a default proposition that competitiveness is bad; it’s clearly not.  But when an ego (triggered by a social or psychological event) is out of touch with reality it can quickly put a person on a path to self-destruction.  And when this happens good luck reaching the person; you likely won’t until they meet with a fall that humbles them.  Reality meets humility.

A humble person, one driven by a strong and stable sense of humility, is simply more likely to help a teammate, to regard others as equals and worthy of a deep, close relationship.   Simply said, the humble person who practices humility keeps their accomplishments, gifts, and talents in a proper perspective. They possess self-awareness, avoid self-serving distortions, and are keenly aware of their limitations. They value the welfare of teammates and have the ability to mindfully attend to the uniqueness of each team member.  Humility always contributes to unity.

 

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cory Dobbs is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership and a nationally recognized thought leader in the areas of leadership and team building.  Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience. Cory engages in naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting.

A former basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition.  After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process.  As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will care.” -Your Student-Athlete The world of coaching is changing. In Coaching for Leadership you’ll discover the foundations for designing, building, and sustaining a leadership focused culture for building a high-performance team. To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

This post was provided by InnerDrive, a mental skills training company

How do we become better leaders? An effective leader is someone who can create an inspiring vision, motivate and inspire their team, manage the delivery of that shared purpose and then coach and improve that team in order to achieve that end goal. So what are the best leadership skills, and what are the keys to becoming a better leader?

1. UNDERSTANDING YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE
According to research, there are loads of different leadership styles and they vary between men and women. However, 4 main styles have been commonly agreed. These four leadership styles include autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire and transformational. By finding out what type of leader you are, you will then be able to identify your strengths and areas in which you need to improve.

For more ideas on how to help your team members develop and improve, have a look at our page on how to improve metacognition.

Autocratic

This leadership style includes, close supervision, lack of input from followers, complete control and solo decision-making.

Democratic

This leadership style includes, shared decision-making responsibilities, social equality, creativity and high engagement from group members.

Laissez-faire

This style includes, little direction from the leader, lots of freedom for group members, team members are responsible for making all decisions and a great deal of autonomy.

Transformationala-better-leader

People who have this leadership style are often described as energetic, passionate, enthusiastic, trustworthy, creative and intelligent.

A more in-depth description of these styles can be found here.

2. Be a role model

This doesn’t necessarily mean leading from the front, as keeping a watchful eye from a distance can allow your team to develop their own forms of leadership and management strategies. This point refers to the way you, as the leader, exemplify your behaviours and characteristics for your team to follow. Your actions can have a profound impact on the behaviours of your team. Research has shown that by showing your organisation what is possible, a leader can empower them to develop their own skill sets.

3. Be authentic

Being authentic in your approach to leadership provides your group with a true understanding of who you are as a person, away from your professional role. Research has shown that by doing what is promised, being visible to your organisation and being honest helps manifest a sense of trust within the group you’re leading. Be true to your values and in doing so, your team can understand the direction you want to take them in.

4. Listen to, and communicate with, your team

Research has shown that non-verbal cues like body language, facial expressions, eye movement and hand motions are an important form of communication. Matching your non-verbal cues to your actions and words can help with authenticity.

Whilst verbally and non-verbally communicating with your team, it is also important to listen to what they have to offer. Be an active listener, in doing so approach conversations with concentration and regard for the speaker’s thoughts and considerations. Likewise, studies have shown that skilled listeners also pick up on the speaker’s underlying thoughts and concerns by tuning into their non-verbal cues, showing genuine care for the person’s feelings and morale.

5. Motivate your team

Leaders can motivate people in various ways, but by making sure the individuals inside the team understand that their investment of time and effort is something worthwhile, and can encourage the desired actions. Evidence indicates that this can be done by providing recognition and praise, offering rewards, inclusion and by being passionate.

Final thought

John F. Kennedy once said, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” Highlighting how leadership is a constant learning process and that it can most definitely be taught. Anyone can become a great leader as long as you are willing to listen and learn.

These two articles on self-reflection and leadership were submitted by Dr. Cory Dobbs of The Academy for Sport Leadership

The Invisible Barrier to Learning: Question Your Assumptions

What if we—you, me, and the next guy—really understood how little we know. Oh, we might have some subject matter expertise. But that only counts for a small sliver of life. Yet I consistently find that people, either because of a predisposition to self-protection (preservation) or self-promotion (preference) are slow to learn that it’s okay not to know everything.

In meeting after meeting I’ve noticed a favored declaration by the participants is “I already know that.” This message is often communicated explicitly by uttering the words, but more often the “I already know that” takes shape in nodding of the head back and forth designed to communicate this “fact”.

Why is it so worrisome to hear those words? Well, it suggests that the individual believes that their state of knowledge on that topic or subject is settled and complete. Therefore, they might not be open to learning new things, to questioning their assumptions, or considering the fact that they just might be wrong. Yet if you ask the head nodder if they are open-minded, you’ll get a continuation of the forward-backward nod to signify “of course I’m open to learning.”

The truth is this habit is hard to break. However, the curious mind is often found in the beginner, the one that is eager to learn about how things work. It’s often said that in the beginners mind there are many possibilities, in the expert there are few. Once you know this you can enter meetings with the mind of a beginner. New ideas, thoughts, or insights emerge not by chance, but by embracing and studying the challenges we encounter each and every day. You can begin learning at a deeper level by getting rid of the words “I already know that.”

Article #2: Mindset: Are You Satisficing or Maximizing?

The knowledge monopoly on “X” and “O’s” has been shattered. New coaching web sites pop up every day offering to you, the coach, all you need to master the technical and tactical parts of coaching your sport. And that’s great; tools for new coaches to get up to speed and veteran’s to quickly learn a new wrinkle.

But what about leadership development for you and your student-athletes?

In general, my research reveals two mindsets when it comes to leadership development; the maximizing mindset (searching for something that is “best”) vs. the satisficing mindset (searching for something that is “good enough”). Leadership is about relationships, it’s about expectations, preferences and an over-arching ideology. Great coaches don’t take leadership lightly. They deliberately develop team leaders and simultaneously grow themselves as leaders.

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will care.” -Your Student-Athlete The world of coaching is changing. In Coaching for Leadership you’ll discover the foundations for designing, building, and sustaining a leadership focused culture for building a high-performance team. To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

Dr. Dobbs recently joined Jamy Bechler on the “Success is a Choice” Podcast – hear his thoughts on team leadership and developing a leader in every locker here.

This post is provided by Coaches Network

Communication is a two-way street. Not only do coaches need to be able to send clear messages that are interpreted as intended, they also need to receive messages from their athletes and staff.

In a book published by Human Kinetics, Sports psychologists Damon Burton and Thomas Raedeke, describe what good communication looks like and why it’s so important to the success of a coach.

Coaches who can clearly communicate expectations, goals, standards, and feelings to their athletes will be better able to provide instruction and lead their team. First, it’s important to note that there are two types of communication: verbal and nonverbal. Both can play a major role in how you interact with your athletes.

Many don’t realize how much nonverbal actions or gestures can affect the messages you send to others. According to Burton and Raedeke, “communication experts suggest that between 65% and 93% of the meaning of a message is conveyed through tone of voice and nonverbal behaviors (Johnson 2003).” This means that your behavior should reinforce what you say. For example, if you tell your athletes to have a positive attitude regardless of the score, you shouldn’t have a sad or dejected look on the sidelines when your team is losing or making mistakes.

Just as athletes will pick up your nonverbal cues, coaches can also learn a lot from the ways athletes behave. Not every athlete is going to tell you when they’re feeling confident or when they’re unhappy or discouraged. By being an active observer, you can better understand how your athletes are feeling and how you should communicate with them.

Timing is key to communication. Coaches constantly need to make judgments on whether or not a message needs to be sent. Sometimes a situation requires a coach’s intervention, while other times athletes might benefit from having the independence to figure things out on their own. Try to find a balance between talking too much and talking too little. Coaches who talk too much tend to ramble on and bore their athletes with unnecessary instruction, while coaches who talk too little can make the mistake of assuming their athletes know what to do or what is expected of them.

Interpretation is also a major factor. Saying something is one thing, but getting others to correctly interpret what you mean is another. It’s easy for coaches to think that what they say to their athletes will be interpreted as encouragement or helpful instruction. Yet, according to Burton and Raedeke, a simple “Run hard!” from a coach can sometimes be interpreted as “He never thinks I run hard enough.” In order to effectively communicate, you will need to give equal weight to the content of the message and the emotional impact on the receiver. By getting to know your athletes, you can become more aware of what to say and how to say it.

Burton and Raedeke cite a study that involved spending hundreds of hours observing coaches and evaluating their impact on athletes (Smith 2001, Smoll & Smith 2006). The researchers observed more than 70 coaches, coded over 80,000 behaviors, and surveyed close to 1,000 athletes. Their findings provide a helpful guide to effective communication.

They found that athletes responded positively to coaches who provided:

Positive feedback after a good performance effort
Corrective instruction and encouragement after a performance mistake
Technical instruction and a moderate amount of general encouragement unrelated to performance quality

On the other hand, athletes responded unfavorably to coaches who:

Failed to notice or reinforce good performance efforts
Criticized mistakes
Provided instruction after a mistake in a critical fashion