What we have Wrong about Leadership in Sports

What we have Wrong about Leadership in Sports

Truly one of the biggest benefits of playing sports is that it allows for growth and development of each individuals leadership qualities. This happens unintentionally in sports because you have to learn to work with others, carry out assignments, and then assess if you were effective and if you should revise the plan. There are some areas of leadership that I believe we have gone off track and lost sight of what’s important. To understand what is or isn’t effective in leadership, it would serve us well to have a base definition of leadership. Leadership is the ability to guide, inspire, and influence individuals or a group towards the accomplishment of common goals. I think it’s important to note that nowhere in the definition above was there mention of titles or individual accomplishments. Those are products of the behaviors listed in the definition. If you look at professional sports organizations, it can quickly become obvious why so many of the super teams have failed terribly when in theory they should be far ahead of the competition. Those teams are ego driven and not driven by the success of the group. This comes from a broken leadership model that is continuing to fail, but is still attempted. Let’s look at some of the common poor practices of leadership in sports. 

1. Leadership is a position or title

Anyone within a team can display leadership qualities. Anyone in a team can also display poor leadership qualities. When I was at Westside Barbell, some of biggest leaders of the gym were people that will likely never be famous, but without them many world records would have never happened. They were the people behind the scenes that created the perfect environment and created success for the athletes who achieved the highest accomplishments. The best lifters in the gym on the other hand, were often not the best leaders. They were fulfilling their role as being the best athlete. Sometimes we see coaches step into the role of coach and expect to be in a position of leadership, but to have leadership is developed over time with consistency, trust, and care. Putting coach on your shirt doesn’t mean someone is a leader, walking the line and living by the standards the organization have set forth show that someone is a leader. 

2. Leadership = Control

I look at effective leadership as the bumper rails at bowling alleys. You’re there to establish framework for others to work within and help them correct when needed. A leader’s job isn’t to make sure everyone is aware that they’re in charge, it’s build others so that they feel in charge of the task at hand. It’s important that we view leadership as a collaboration effort and not a individual effort that others are expected to blindly follow. Your athletes will always give a far greater effort when they’re carrying out their plan instead of a pre designed plan that might not align with the current team goals, culture, or abilities. 

3. Leaders must Know Everything

Some of the best coaches I have met in sports are constantly seeking out others to learn from or pull in to help them learn something with a fresh perspective. My wife, Claire Kopko is a Physical Therapist and she practices out of Showtime. It is a huge benefit to me, our coaches, and our clients to be able to lean on her knowledge base when a client is dealing with a nagging injury either from a previous issue or the wear and tear of a long season. To compliment that, we have been able to work with her patients as they progress beyond Physical Therapy to help bridge the gap to get people back to sport. Different backgrounds and experiences help us create new ideas. When coaches feel they must know everything, whether it be hitting, throwing, conditioning, it displays a lack of confidence. No one likes to discover that what they’ve done or believed was not the best, but the best leaders are confident enough to feel they’re always seeking the best for the advancement of the organization. 

4. Leadership is solely Measured by Success. 

My friend Gregg Parini has built one of the most impressive swim programs in the country at Denison University. Every season, both the Men’s and Women’s teams are battling for a National Championship. The interesting part is knowing that Gregg doesn’t hang his hat on those accolades, but rather the development of the program and each individual person. Over 30 years of building the foundation of the culture has created a winning atmosphere for Denison Swim and Dive. If he was measured solely by success by the beginning of his career, maybe the program never evolves into what it is now. Those years were laying the foundation for what the program is now. It’s easy to acknowledge the programs success now (you can see the championship banners hanging above the pool from the outside of the building), but it’s the cultivation of caring that created that success. 

We should all strive to become better leaders for our team, our mission, and our craft. Effective leadership is what pushes the needle forward. We don’t become better leaders by simply reading Jocko Willock or David Goggins books. We become better leaders when we create standards and live by those standards. It’s the difficult conversations and the difficult decisions when leadership is built. It’s making decisions based on the Ethos of the organization instead of based on emotions or potential outcomes. I think a perfect way to sum up the importance of leadership is “What you tolerate becomes the standard”.

Nick Showman