Teaching Leadership

How do you teach your players to be better leaders? If leadership is important to the success of your team, you need to do more than complain about it. You better recruit it or teach it - or both.

Define it - Do you just talk about leadership with your players, or do you actually have a definition of leadership? Define what leadership means to you and make sure your players know exactly what that definition is.

Make sure it fits the context - Leadership is situational and contextual. Make sure it fits you and the ethos of your program. What worked for John Wooden at UCLA might not work for you at St. Mary’s High School. It has to fit who you are.

Connect it to behaviors - Your players will understand your leadership approach if it is connected to behaviors. Point out the specific behaviors that are examples of the leadership you want, and make sure everyone knows it. They need to know what leadership looks like.

Figure out who’s curious - The best leaders are curious about their teammates. They are capable of doing their job while they are thinking about others. Those are the players who can have the biggest impact as leaders. Don’t force a specific type of leadership on players who aren’t comfortable with it.

Give them space - Let them lead. Define it, show them the behaviors, and give them the room to take ownership. So often we complain about a lack of leadership on our teams when we aren’t giving them the opportunity to lead. If all we do is tell them what to do, they are going to do what they are told, and then wait for the next command. That’s following, not leading.