Effective leadership encourages higher performance, greater satisfaction, and creates new leaders. It develops better processes and behaviors. Day and others note, "Team building interventions may focus on role clarification, goal setting, problem solving, or interpersonal relations as a target." Here are excerpts:
- Children learn from seeing what others do. (Model)
- Teach children how to see things from another’s point of view.
- Help children build their leadership self-confidence by giving them opportunities to do a good job and offer praise when appropriate.
- Find ways to create problem solving situations.
- Teach children how to work with others in a team situation.
- Show children how to break tasks into workable ways...
- Encourage children to pursue things that interest them.
We need a plan to share leadership opportunities within our teams. One of my goals is to create "player ownership" of the team. Players should get opportunities to lead practice and pregame activities, and to make offensive and defensive calls. That includes responsibility to challenge each other to leave their comfort zone, encourage accountability ("we can do that better"), and provide input on practice.
Problems arise when coaching younger players, as most do not want to "stand out", fearing being seen as "bossy" or "acting superior." We need to teach that servant leadership "doesn't mean thinking less of yourself but thinking about yourself less."
Every day gives us an opportunity to model leadership, share leadership, and teach leadership. Our commitment defines how our players grow as new leaders.
