An Academy for Sport Leadership Case Study–Dr. Cory Dobbs

Instructions: give a copy to every team member.  Read alone.  Answer discussion questions.  Come together as a team and engage in a spirited conversation.  When you’re done, identify two action items for your team.

Big “We,” little “me”
Thinking and Acting Like a Committed Teammate

Introduction
Erin arrived late to her first class of the day.   She was still brooding about not playing in last night’s game.  Consumed with disappointment  in her coaches, teammates, and herself, Erin was contemplating quitting the team.  She reflected on the hours upon hours invested over the past two years simply to eke out a few minutes of playing time each game.  She’d set high goals for herself, and she met most of them.  She improved in the weight room and on the playing field.  She always gave all she had in practice and the coaches were usually pleased with her as a member of the team.  However, she seemed to be stuck on starting.  Playing time.  Seemed little else mattered to her.  She wasn’t quite sure why she felt this way, she’d always thought of herself as a very good teammate.  She enjoyed working alongside everyone, had not grudges and couldn’t muster a bad word about her teammates.  She just wanted to play.  And she’d just realized after last night’s game she really wouldn’t get much playing time this year—her senior season.

Questions for Discussion

• Why might a team member become discouraged about a lack of playing time?
• How can you encourage teammates to balance “Me” with “We?”
• How might you unknowingly discourage a teammate from accepting “we?”
• How might Erin’s thoughts determine her behavior?
• What happens when one team member goes in his or her own direction?
• What might happen when a team member places too much emphasis on themselves?
• What are the benefits of being a member of a team? (physically, intellectually, emotionally, socially)
• What “rewards” might a player receive that doesn’t get much playing time?

 

What’s at Stake?
While we all have to take responsibility for ourselves and our success in life, we need to do so in a way that honors the various wholes of which we are a part.  Thinking and acting “BIG We, little me” is not about denying yourself, your needs, or your individuality.  It is about realizing that you are part of a whole that is greater than you.

Point to Ponder
A famous proverb states, “The best potential in ‘me’ is ‘we.’”

*This case is a part of a portfolio of cases created by The Academy for Sport Leadership.  Case studies legitimize a range of issues by giving the student-athlete an opportunity to explore the physical, intellectual, emotional, and social dimensions of existing or potential problems.

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 article and other helpful coaching tools can be found at Coach Dawn Writes

By Dawn Redd-Kelly.

“The most effective form of leadership is supportive. It is collaborative. It is never assigning a task, role or function to another that we ourselves would not be willing to perform. For all practical purposes, leading well is as simple as remembering to remain others-centered instead of self-centered.”—Great Leadership Isn’t About You

Teaching our athletes to lead is a big job.  Failing to set the ground rules for what you want leadership to look like can lead to hazing, “mean girl” tactics, cliques, and ultimately ineffective performances. We can’t expect our athletes to know what we want if we haven’t explicitly laid it out for them.  In the absence of a coach’s direction, the athletes are going to fill in the gap and I’m sure we can all agree that that probably won’t go well!

I believe our team leaders want to be taught and I know our teams want to be led by captains who make it easy to follow them.  What leaders are easy to follow? The author listed some characteristics in the quotation at the beginning…those are a good start:

• I rely on my captains to be a go-between. They work closely with the team as well as the coaching staff.  Ideally, they understand that they perform an important role in the team’s success.  They should be close enough to their teammates that they know when things are going a bit sideways and they need to tell the coaches.  But they should also know when not to tell the coaching staff.  My most effective team captains squashed issues before I even knew what was going on!
• Our teams are faced with the conundrum of needing to be both collaborative and competitive.  If you’ve got two players who play the same position, they will both benefit from in-practice competition, but surely they know that once the whistle blows at game time, they’re expected to support the team…whether or not they’re on the court.  Collaboration should be built into our team cultures, our captains should always be looking to take advantage of opportunities to collaborate.  Asking the younger players questions and not creating a “captain clique” will help create those collaborative feelings on the team.
• In the trenches. I don’t want captains who say, “Freshmen always do ________ (insert task here).” Freshmen (or newbies) shouldn’t always carry stuff, be expected to defer to upperclassmen, or be treated in a second-rate manner.  That kind of behavior signals insecurity in the leader.  It’s hard for players to follow a captain that lacks confidence and tries to raise themselves up by pushing their teammates down.  Everyone pitching in helps to create good feelings among the players, regardless of how long they’ve been with the team.
• Other-centered. I’ve had captains who would stay after practice with a lesser skilled teammate and help them with skill work…that’s great.  I’ve had captains who’ve told me about a teammate who beyond-the-norm homesick…that type of concern is necessary.  And we’ve had captains who, after I’ve announced that perhaps an extended conditioning session would be more productive than working on skills, gather the team together to figuratively whip them into shape.

Of course I’ve had ineffective captains as well, but that’s not what this post is about!  It’s about giving our team leaders the necessary skills that make them easy for their teammates to follow.  If we set the standards high for our captains, they will rise to the challenge.

 

The information presented here was provided to me by another coach and I know how important it is to develop our young athletes into leaders not only for the present but also for the future wanted to share this with you because it says so much that can help assist in developing a leadership academy in anyone’s athletic program.

Editor’s Note from Brian: The purpose of this post is not to say that you should copy this program as is.  It has some aspects that are sport specific, but I feel there are many ideas that can be applied to any sport. You should take the ideas that you like and adapt them to fit what you think is best.  It also can be scheduled when you are able to do it.  The post is to give you ideas, not necessarily a blueprint.

Leadership Academy Purpose:

1. Raise awareness of the importance of quality leadership
2. Increase Leadership skills of athletes
3. Share the leadership workload
4. Develop the character of athletes

Value

Coaches often pin success on superb leadership; therefore, teams should not wait for leadership to cycle in on it’s own. Instead, like developing technique, strength, or speed, coaches should implement a plan for teaching and developing leadership skills in their players. Since captains and leaders spend much more time interacting with teammates than coaches, they can significantly impact the performance of a team. Thus, strong leadership will increase team production. Moreover, many competitions will create stressful situations for athletes. Building emotional and mental resiliency in athletes will help them to perform at their best despite high pressure situations. Finally, developing character and leadership in the school and in the community will improve the quality of life for all. Students, recognizing the virtue of high character, will be more apt to make ethical choices. Teachers will be better able to focus on teaching rather than behavior management, and coaches can worry less about losing players for conduct violations.

Meeting Schedules

The Leadership Academy will meet every two weeks for dinner, from 6:00pm to 7:30pm, at various players and coaches’ houses. The meeting day will vary in order to work around basketball, hokcey and track practices / competitions. Meetings will begin the second week of January and last until the last week in May. At these meetings, participants will discuss readings from Jeff Janssen’s Team Captain’s Leadership Manual, and also identify leadership and character weaknesses that the team should improve. From May to August, the Leadership group will meet once a month to discuss team issues or progress toward goals. During the season, they will meet once a week to discuss team moral, personnel issues, and logistical matters.

Curriculum

Week 1
The group will explore the concepts of leadership. By defining leadership, discussing the risks and
rewards of leadership positions, and reflecting on effective and ineffective leaders in the past, the group will establish a context from which to build new skills. In addition, players will self-evaluate their leadership as indicated by their commitment, confidence, composure, and character, as well as their ability to function as a servant, confidence builder, refocuser, team-builder and enforcer.

Week 2
The group will examine ways to motivate themselves. Participants will evaluate their own commitment level based on Janssen’s “Commitment Continuum” (Janssen, 29), as well as asses every team mate’s commitment level. The group will discuss why they placed each player at that place on the continuum and brainstorm ways to motivate players at the “resistant-reluctant-existent” (Janssen, 29) level.

Week 3
The group will explore the concept of confidence. Participants will look at confidence’s relationship with sense of self and the want to perform under pressure. We will discuss the four sources of confidence: preparation, strengths, past success, and praise, and also discuss ways to be resilient to events that threaten confidence.

Week 4
The group will learn to how maintain composure in pressure situations. Using a “traffic light analogy” (Janssen, 52), players will learn to recognize emotional states. In addition, we will discuss refocusing strategies like slowing the pace of play, controlling the controllable, and focusing on the present, the positive, and the process.

Week 5
The group will explore the concept of character. By discussing the importance of exhibiting character in the sport, in the classroom, in social life, and in the community, participants will raise their awareness of how their character establishes their credibility as leaders.

Week 6
The group will examine ways to function as servant leaders. In order to prevent leaders from becoming overbearing, we will discuss how helping younger players, preventing hazing, and completing day to day work creates a healthier team dynamic.

Week 7
The group will explore ways in which they can build the confidence of their team mates. Each squad leader will complete a “mental game assessment” (Janssen, 91) form on the players in their squad. As a group, we will discuss strategies for increasing the confidence and mental resilience of players. For example, leaders can let them know what to expect, remind them of their strengths, remind them of past successes, establish perspective, and encourage their teammates (Janssen, 93-94).

Week 8
The group will learn ways to refocus their teammates when faces with adversity. In essence, we will revisit the concepts from week 4, and discuss ways to teach others how to refocus.

Week 9
This week will focus in strategies for team building. We will revisit the team’s vision and mission statement, “clarify the commitments and standards” (Janssen, 112) necessary to achieve this vision, and discuss ways to help teammates accept their roles. In addition, we will brainstorm and create a teambuilding calendar to schedule events like an intersquad basketball tournament, a softball game, whitewater rafting trips, and team BBQ’s.

Week 10
This week will cover strategies for serving as the enforcer. We will address the reality that conflict is inevitable and that leaders must be prepared to handle it effectively. We will discuss approaches like encouraging first, then reminding and refocusing, then drawing the line, and, finally, involving the coach (Jansses, 126-127).

Squads

Purpose for squads:
1. Shared leadership amongst several instead of few. Share the load.
2. Provide more efficient methods of communication
3. Build stronger team relationships
4. Create healthy competition
5. Establish accountability for each other

Ways to earn points:
1. Successfully completing task (earning passing grades on quizzes, selling gold-cards, achieving set and measurable goals)
2. Winning competitions (Relay race, newspaper article, etc)
3. Citizenship (Community service…approved by one of the coaches)
4. Work ethic (Strength gain, measurable speed increase)

Ways to lose points: (and $1’s!)
1. Not completing required tasks (Team assignments, locker room cleanup) -1
2. Tardy -1
3. Unexcused absence -2
4. Violation of code of conduct -10

At the end of the season, the winning squad will finance a meal of their choice. The last place team will serve it to them!!

About the Author of this post:

Jerry Campbell has over 30 years of high school and college coaching experience. He has experience as a head coach, offensive coordinator, and various position coaches. He has written numerous football coaching articles in various publications, is the author of over 30 books on coaching football, and has produced 12 coaching video series. Additionally, he is a nationally sought after speaker on the coaching clinic circuit.

John McCarthy
Author / Speaker
Former College Head Coach, Former College Athletic Director, and NAIA administrator

This presentation provides excellent insight on the characteristics of successful coaches from around the country. This presentation provides motivation and insight for what successful coaches have in common with each other. John McCarthy also shares his thoughts and insight on the inter-self and the reasons we coach and the why’s for integrating life experiences in coaching. John McCarty also shares how values become an integral part in a coaches Character and how our athletes gauge what our character is really like to them. Mr. McCarthy also gives a detailed and defined meaning of success which he measures by the content of our character, leadership and contribution to the betterment of our families, communities, and the world. This is an excellent presentation on the insight for developing character and leadership both for coaches and athletes.

This video is provided by Head Coach Academy Clinics.

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The End of Yesterday
By Dr. Cory Dobbs
The Academy for Sport Leadership

Excerpt from A Leader in Every Locker (2016)

“I’m not used to supposing. I’m just a working man. My boss does the supposing . . .”

This quote is a line from the classic movie 12 Angry Men. During the opening dialogue among jury members, each feeling out their place and role in the deliberation of the fate of a young man’s life, a blue‐collar working man makes this declaration of powerlessness. The implication is that all the power—at least that of “supposing” rests in the hands of his superior. Just a movie? Hardly.

It’s been the rule for over a century in team sports to install a hierarchical leadership structure. This is accomplished by appointing a couple of players as team captains (as well as modeled by the hierarchy of the coaching staff). Surely everybody knows that on any sports team only a few players are able to really perform peer leadership. This is the team captain axiom, the basic axiom of traditional team leadership.

An axiom, of course, is a truth so self‐evident it doesn’t need to be proved. After all, everybody knows an axiom is accurate and correct. So then, it’s indisputable that you need a pecking order in order to get things done.

Not too fast, things are not what they always seem to be on the surface. The bad news is that far too often our intuitive ways of thinking about the world are wrong. Yes, axioms can be wrong. The good news is that it’s possible to set them right.

What’s self‐evident, what’s obvious, what everybody knows, has deep roots and of course isn’t in need of change. Yet, paradoxically that which is self‐evident hides something–covers over what might be a deeper truth. Axioms, by their nature, are anti‐learning. Nobody ever questions an axiom. Nobody ever discusses an axiom (save for a few propeller heads). It’s just taken as a given. And nobody ever talks about the possible counterproductive consequences of what everybody knows. The fish, after all, never questions the water he lives in.

Then, all of a sudden, someone comes along with a breakthrough idea and turns the old axiom upside down. The taken‐for‐granted truth, it turns out, wasn’t really the truth after all. “The world is flat,” was the truth people lived by for thousands of years. Then, along comes Nicolas Copernicus who proves to the world the old axiom to be wrong.

Twenty years ago, to choose a different model of team leadership was unthinkable. In elaborating on the end of two decades as a premier athlete Kobe Bryant had much to say when asked the question, if he could go back in time and offer advice to himself as a rookie, what would he say? His response: “It’s hard to tell somebody ‐‐ a player at that age ‐‐ to understand compassion and empathy, but that would be my advice.”

Why of all things would Bryant endorse caring, compassion, and empathy? “Well,” Bryant continued, “because that’s the biggest thing about being a leader, I think, and winning a championship is understanding how to put yourself in other people’s shoes.” “That’s really the most important thing. It’s not necessarily the individual skill you possess. It’s about understanding others and what they may be going through. And then, in turn, when you understand that, you can communicate with them a little bit better and bring out the best in them. Bringing out the best in people isn’t passing them the ball and giving them open shots. It’s about how to connect with them, how to communicate with them so that they can navigate through whatever issues they may be facing. That’s a very, very hard thing to do.”

I’ve never been a fan of Kobe Bryant, and I seldom look to professional sports for deep insights and understanding on leadership, but it appears that the wisdom in Bryant’s words fit hand‐inglove with today’s call for a more heartfelt approach to coaching and leading. So what’s the way forward in this brave new world?

Don’t worry. While you’ve been trapped in the axiom of team captaincy, I’ve been turning over rocks to find a better way of designing a high‐performing team, its culture, and of course, leadership. I’m not done yet. It might be another decade or so before I’m finished. But this workshop workbook is a start.

So, What is Leadership?

There has been a long running debate in scholarly circles about whether people learn to lead from their experiences or if leadership is something a person is born with. Today, however, most academics agree that leadership is best considered as a set of skills and qualities that can be learned and developed along within a wide‐range of personal styles. It’s widely agreed that all people have the potential to develop leadership skills. I point this out because it is also clear that leadership is viewed and valued differently by various fields, disciplines, and cultures.

So then, what is leadership? This is the big question that every person, group, team, organization, community and society seeks to answer. Our American culture, which of course includes a heavy dose of sporting influence, exalts the lone ranger, the hero, the charismatic leader. We see this in the election and glorifying of politicians, the deifying of business tycoons, and the adoration and idolization of great coaches and athletes. This notion falls in line with the traditional ideas of leadership—that it is the make‐ up of the leader that makes all the difference. Individual determinism has been and will continue to be an easy and favored explanation of things. But traits such as self‐confidence, intelligence, and a can‐do attitude—favored qualities of a leader—do not always predict the effectiveness of a leader; rather, they can be very misleading.

However permeable the traditional mental model of leadership seems, it does not provide a path to sustainable effectiveness as it leaves out the detail and nuance of the context in which a leader takes action. It also ignores the fact that it tends to reduce followers to passive participants; resulting in deliberate apathy and often conscious withdrawal from the leadership provided by one’s peer. Careful examination of this aspect of team captaincy suggests it may promote the discounting or dismissing of the potential of all members of the team to learn and perform in a leadership role.

Both the context and followers are foundational to leadership and are central to The Academy for Sport Leadership’s search for a new conceptualization of team leadership. The leader in every locker approach to team leadership is, no doubt, a paradigm shift. Paradigms, as you know, are the common patterns and ways of looking at things in order to make sense out of them. Leadership has long been presented as an elusive phenomenon available to only a select few. It is my contention, however, that understanding the relational nature of leadership and followership opens a team up to an immensely practical and dramatically richer form of team
member involvement.

The basic foundation of any leadership process is relational. As leadership expert Margaret Wheatley notes, “None of us exists independent of our relationships with others.” At the core, it is a relationship which comes into existence because of some sense of commitment by people to a common purpose. Thus, the ASL framework for answering the question “What is leadership?” begins by grounding it in the following core assumptions:

1. Conventional views of leadership are changing. Leadership is not limited to a chosen few; it is an educational component of participation in student‐athletics and must contribute to the growth and development of all athletes. A leader in every locker embraces the potential of all student‐athletes to take on leadership roles now and in the future.

2. Leadership is a relational process. That is, leadership is a socially constructed phenomenon consisting of student‐athletes working together to accomplish something.

3. Team leadership is distributed. Leadership is not the sole responsibility of the coach, coaching staff, or selected team captains. The best team leadership results from the actions and activities of those best positioned to provide leadership contingent on the context.

4. Leadership is a process to create change. Leadership is about making things happen; transforming people and programs. Effective leadership accelerates change. Change is necessary for growth, development, and improvement in performance.

5. Leadership growth and development is personal. There is no time frame related to progressing through stages of development. It’s also recognized that all potential leaders begin at a different starting point. Leaders grow and develop through deliberate practice, informal practice, roles, reflection, and the observation of role models.

6. Leadership is a process that involves followership. All coaches and student‐athletes participating in a leader in every locker understand and embrace both roles—leading and following. Followership implies a relationship to the leader, but does not imply one that places the follower in a less important position.

7. Leadership develops over time. There is no one way to lead. The practice of leadership involves the continual practice of finding the best way to lead with the particular capabilities that the student‐athlete possesses at a specific time, while constantly working to improve and expand those capabilities.

Embedded in the seven assumptions above are the four P’s of team leadership. The framework highlights the integration of the four key domains of leadership. The framework answers the question What is Leadership? Leadership is a position, it is a process, and it is performed by a person for a purpose.

Too often leadership is narrowly defined exclusively as a person. Conceptually this leads us back to a focus on the leader, her traits and disposition. But leadership is more than the idiosyncratic actions taken by a chosen person. It is a process. A process is simply a
coordinated way of doing things. Can student‐athletes, including those that don’t possess the so‐called necessary traits, learn a process for doing leadership things? Of course they can.

Leadership is also a position. In The Academy for Sport Leadership’s way of doing things we suggest giving each student‐athlete a “role” to on‐board them into the leadership team building development process. You’ll see this later when I introduce you to my 8 Roles of Teamwork. A leader’s words and deeds provide purpose, a compelling vision of the future. Effective team leadership answers, for all team members, the questions, “why am I doing this?”

The four P’s, like the compass that they form, are only a tool for answering the question “What is leadership.” Each student‐athlete (and coach too) brings his or her own unique values, skills, experiences, and personality to the leader role; and each student‐athlete has his or her own personal way of making change happen. The compass is a simple model that represents the key domains of an effective leadership development program.

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

If you would like to learn more about the book that this excerpt came from click: A Leader in Every Locker