Develop Your Coaching Skills
What does a leader look like and how profound are their consistent convictions towards creating a healthy and growing work environment? When asked, many folks will answer this by naming various individuals such as politicians, presidents, senators, scientists, governors, military leaders, business leaders, and— successful athletic coaches.
Why are coaches included in this list of esteemed individuals? Because all good coaches are leaders and their coaching effectiveness is maximized by understanding how to lead people to greatness beyond where they thought they could ever venture on their own. But an “effective” coach has to have a convicted belief that the team and it’s comprising individuals can and will excel. Of course, there are always players who hit their plateau and couldn’t care less. Time to replenish (give them a chance) or replace. If the former doesn’t work out, then replace them because complacency will spread. Plus, drama works well in the movies but not in the workplace.
In a way, the relationship between athletic coaches and players is a consensual agreement or contract. Players will follow the coach’s directives, wishes or demands and in return, they expect their reward, whether that is winning, playing time, positive reinforcement, skills improvement, increased self-esteem or some other benefit.
With that in mind, just like selling a customer, a coach has the distinguished and profoundly important obligation to find out what each of his or her team members ‘wants and desires’ are. Find these out early and leading becomes easier and much more effective. I visited a store not long ago and asked several managers about their salespeople. The managers could rattle off numbers and stats, but none of them could really tell me much about the personal lives of their people because they never take the time to do ‘one on ones’ and find out what truly drives these folks. Find out what their dreams are, and you find the secret to their motivation.
The real leaders can and do effectively get their team members to “believe” in individual goal fulfillment and ultimate team successes. The great coaches believe in the law of expectation which simply stated says you most full heartily “expect” things to improve, must expect to win, must expect yourself to become better at what you do, must expect the right things to occur and so on. It is with the thoughts of convicted expectation that we can actually attain greatness at anything.
When we look back on our lives growing up most of us can identify a few people who influenced and enriched our lives. Often, that person was an athletic coach. Various reasons led us to that conclusion if you had the right coach; common goals – win, improve, help teammates become their best, team success, feelings of good self-esteem and you left better than you came. These are a few of the good memories we came away with and as a consequence, we anchored the feeling that this coach was a leader. Mine was a baseball coach who continually told me I had more talent to give and after a while, I began to believe him and then a strange thing happened; I became a pretty good third baseman and hitter. Sure, there were days we had to receive a little discipline and maybe get a little chewing on, but this “coach” always left us with the positive good thoughts of expectation and that was “hey next time you will get it right now get out there and give your best because you are a winner.” What thoughts of expectation are you leaving your players with?
There are four reasons most managers compromise their leadership convictions when in a tight spot:
1. They fear criticism
2. They fear rejection
3. They fear failure
4. They fear loss
“When the pressure comes, preferences give way while convictions hold firm”
– Edwin Louis Cole
Every leader needs to recognize thirteen basic qualities that do not require any talent:
- Being on Time
- Work Ethic
- Energy
- Attitude
- Passion
- Being Coachable
- Doing Extra
- Body Language
- Having Empathy
- Being Prepared
- Being a Good Listener
- Giving Effort
- Watching Your Words
These qualities are what your people are constantly witnessing and experiencing about you. If they were interviewed, how would they describe you as their leader/manager? How many of the basic qualities would they anoint you with according to their perception of you as a person?
Do you find yourself spending too much time fighting stuff instead of building stuff? If so, in order to offer a few tips on receiving an A+ from your team, here are some simple coaching playbook ideas for specific convictions of what the coach as a TRUE Leader should be consistently reinforcing on a daily basis:
Master and Apply Current Knowledge. Be willing to learn and willing to take the time to understand correct mechanics, technology, strategies, and the fundamental principles of the game (business). You better be getting trained along with your team, so you will know what they do as well.
Develop Interpersonal Skills. Develop interpersonal skills especially open communication skills. Have a sense of humor but scrap the sarcasm. Players need to feel that they can approach you. If they don’t feel that way problems can multiply. Get to know your team members better and understand their goals and ambitions.
Skills Development. The best coaches know and recognize the importance of “proper” training to improve batting averages as well as growing professionals in the business. The lazy ones don’t because they have done things a certain way for so long that they rarely take the initiative to define better ways of improving. Debug your team from old paradigms of training and replace them with the new 21st Century professional communications and developmental techniques. The new consumer deserves and demands this and will walk if they sense “old school” tactics are being employed on them. The consumer has stepped up their car buying game knowledge and you have to step up your game or lose them.
Eliminate all Dehumanizing Language. Treat each person with the dignity and respect that they deserve. Give positive reinforcement rather than negative feedback. Offer solutions when criticism is required and remember to leave them with an “up” statement like “I know that’s not like you and I am certain that next time you will do it much better”. Some managers I have seen treat their dogs better than their people.
Control Your Emotions. Athletes treat the coach as the role model and will emulate their behavior. If coaches are on the sidelines yelling and swearing at officials and throwing chairs, what message is that sending to the players? Watch your mouth because everyone else is.
Help Your Players Set their own Goals. Goals need to be established as a team and as an individual. Goals should be something that the individuals can actually achieve. Coaches are there to guide players in the goal-setting process as well as the evaluation of the goals, but they are not there to tell the player what their goal is or what their goal should be.
Live in the Present. Players don’t need to be consistently reminded how good you and/or your team was last year or in prior years. You may use the past as an example of how success was attained but don’t compare your players or team to prior years. Too many managers hang their hats on yesterday. Ok, that is past now let’s do it again but even better. Yesterday’s peacock is today’s feather duster.
Provide Opportunities for Success. Provide good practices, time for game planning, sensible scheduling, and a pleasant atmosphere. The administrative aspects of the job are just as important as any other aspect. Planning, preparation, training, and budgeting are very important functions. A coach must be a leader, teacher, friend, mentor, and administrator all at once.
Take a look at what big-time coaches/players have to say on the subject of coaching:
“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”
–John Wooden
“To be as good as it can be, a team has to buy into what you as the coach are doing. They have to feel you’re a part of them and they’re a part of you.”
– Bobby Knight
“Coaches have to watch for what they don’t want to see and listen to what they don’t want to hear.” – John Madden
Every coach has the ability to lead and grow their people, but it takes conviction and hard work to become a good leader. By following and living by these guidelines, you will be on your path to becoming a better and well-respected leader. And just maybe, you will be on someone’s roster of the best leaders who affected his/her life and made it better.