Don't Ask Them To Lead

Leadership is a skill. It's not a rank. It's not a soft factor or an intangible that some people magically find or develop. Sure, some people are better than others at it, but leadership is a skill that can be developed and worked on, just like passing or shooting a basketball. We work all the time with our players on their physical skills, so if we think leadership is important for our team we should be working on it just the same.

We don't ask our point guard to guard the other team's center. We don't ask our power forward to bring the ball up the floor. We work hard to figure out what our players are good at and then put them in position to be successful - to take advantage of their strengths. We don't ask them to do the things they aren't good at. So why do we do just that when it comes to leadership?

It starts with the fact that we think everybody can be a leader, which probably isn't that smart. So we take the players who are older and better than the others, and we put them in positions of leadership. We ask them to lead, generally without defining it for them or really working on their leadership skills. We use general terms like "We need better leadership!" without every really explaining what it means.

Not everyone is capable of being a great leader, but I do think everyone can improve their leadership skills if you are willing to put together an intentional process of leadership development. But certain personalities just aren't that interested in leadership, don't want the responsibility or aren't intellectually curious enough about their teammates to be effective leaders. As a head coach it's important that we evaluate leadership ability, just like we evaluate the the basketball skills of our players.

I've seen plenty of teams go down the road of trying to force leadership out of certain players, because they are the older guys and the better players. So everyone thinks they should lead. But a lot of those guys are uncomfortable with the responsibility of leadership, and that is okay. If they can make 3s and play good defense, ask them to do that. Don't ask them to do stuff they aren't good at.

Define leadership for your team and players, and make it simple and accessible. Figure out who the right leaders are for your team, and put the responsibility on them. Don't ask the players who aren't comfortable as leaders to try and lead your team. You'll get a lot more out of them by letting them be themselves. And you'll get more out of your team by finding leadership from the right people.