You CAN'T lead this generation of student-athletes with "because I said so."
Let me rephrase my first statement with you CAN lead them with “because I said so.” However, you won’t fully reach them with it especially if you are trying to develop a culture within your program. Unfortunately, your culture won’t survive any adversity if there’s no trust within the program. It all starts with who is leading the way and if they are true to their purpose for coaching in the first place. You can’t lead others if you don’t know who you are and know what your purpose is. This leads me to a question I ask my interns when I first meet them.
Why do you want to become a coach? If they can’t answer it, I tell them to rethink this career field before they even get started.
Now back to my opening statement of you can’t lead the current student-athlete with “just do it because I said so.” The reason why you can’t is due to a lack of trust. If you don’t know, let me tell you that this generation of student-athletes will not listen to you because you are a coach. You can blame whoever or whatever you want for that but that’s where we are at. The first step towards developing trust is learning their name and story. I know we have a job to do but taking time to learn more about them goes a long way. I’ve learned on my coaching journey that taking time to learn about who they are can give me clues on how to coach and motivate them.
The second step of developing trust is making the environment safe. What I’m referring to is making sure the environment is safe for them to speak their mind. If you hold them back from speaking freely then you will never establish a foundational level of trust with your student-athletes. If they think the program is not meeting their needs or something should be added then we should hear them out and not just shut them down. Your interactions with them should allow for them to feel safe and free of reprisal or information being leaked upstairs to the coaching staff. If they smell any form of disloyalty then they won’t trust.
The third step of developing trust is transparency. This one is hard to achieve if you haven’t spent time working on the first two steps. When it comes to coaching transparency is important because our decisions affect our student-athletes performance and lives. Taking that lightly will have a negative affect on your relationship with them. We should be open and honest with information and be open to their feedback. Also, transparency is important when it comes too admitting when we are wrong and taking full responsibility when we make mistakes.
Coaching is hard and not meant for everybody. There’s a high level of self-awareness and reflection needed to become great at it. At the end of the day, the student-athlete suffers the most when we as coaches refuse to look in the mirror and address our blindspots. As we move forward, it won’t get easier because the world we live in is becoming more and more self-absorbed. As a result, the athletes under our leadership will need more from us than loads and intensities. Why? Because we might be the only change they see before they start their journey. Therefore, be the change and coach in the way you would want your kids to be coached!
