The following article was written by Juan Pablo Favero of San Diego State University.  It was originally published in The NSCAA Soccer Journal

The hope is that these ideas can be modified to the needs of your program, and shared with your athletes. I hope it stimulates thought and discussion among your coaching staff as to how you can create your own list of and examples of “Controllables” to help your athletes improve their performance.

Controlling the “Controllables”

Every sport has specific demands that must be mastered in order to successfully play and excel as an athlete.

Physical, Technical, Tactical, and Psychological attributes serve as building blocks for success. In soccer, physical qualities like strength, speed and agility ale critical. Technical skills such as passing, receiving and heading are important abilities that must be mastered. Tactical intelligence includes vision awareness and decision-making on and off the bail. Other sports have similarly important elements In each of these areas. Some of the key mental skills in all sports are focus, optimism, and self-confidence and all these skills can be developed and strengthened.

One of the Mental Toughness principles I teach our players is controlling the “controllables’. Athletes have limited physical and emotional energy so wasting time and energy on things you have no control over and can’t do anything about, not only can empty your energy tank but also lead to frustration and decreased performance. Examples of things you cannot control: are the weather, field conditions, the crowd, and the referee to name a few.

Instead, make, the conscious effort to focus on the things you can do something about and have control over. Here is the Top Ten list I have encouraged our Aztecs to focus on controlling.

1. ATTITUDE – Everything starts and ends with attitude and if you get it right, all else will fall in line with it. A positive, winning attitude helps you succeed and impact those around you. One of my favorite quotes on attitude is by Tony DiCicco, World Cup champion coach in 1999. “Attitude is a choice that can color any situation and it is contagious. You must act as the player you ware to become. Confident players focus on what they can do and don’t worry about what they can’t.”

2. EFFORT – How hard you work is up to you and no one else. If you give up that control, you are giving away one of the main things that sets you apart from the rest. Your effort must also be smart and reflected in your work rate in practice and games. Anson Dorrance who has won 21 National Championships puts it this way: “Winning is not something built in a day; it is constructed year-round. As always, it comes down to progressive, consistent effort, with a view toward a long-range goal.”

3. FOCUS – I define focus as relaxed concentration; it becomes especially important in games where outside distractions can keep you from performing at your best. Your focus must be on the here and now, on each play, one at a time. NBA coach Phil Jackson says, “The key is seeing and doing. If you’re focusing on anything other than reading the court and doing what needs to be done, the moment will pass you by.”

4. FITNESS – The work you put into your physical conditioning will directly affect your ability to play while making a positive impact for your team. Two-time World Cup champion Michelle Akers gives the following advice: “Be committed to the one thing you can control – your fitness. Be smart and be aware that your decisions and actions on and off the field affect the team.”

5. PREPARATION – Bobby Knight says t all: The will to win is overrated in athletics, because everyone wants to win. It’s the will to prepare to win that makes the difference. A side benefit of proper preparation is that it also helps you feel more confident.

REST AND NUTRITION – Your performance is directly impacted by your food and hydration choices as well as the amount of rest and seep you get. Some research on your part will help you make better choices in this area.

COACHABILITY – This has to do with your ability to receive, accept, and apply the coaching points from your coach. The smartest players not only learn from the coach, but also from their teammates.

EMOTIONS – You must act your way into Feeling and not feeling a certain way before you act. Former University of North Carolina basketball coach, Dean Smith said: You can act yourself into a new way of thinking more easily than you can think yourself into a new way of acting.

COMMUNICATION – Positive, assertive, and clear communication is not only something you can control, hut will also give you and your team an edge. Megan Jurado a 2012 NSCAA All-American for us at San Diego State said, ‘The sports psychology exercises really help our communication and how we work together. I think it has brought us together as a team.’

BODY LANGUAGE – While this is a part of communication, it is actually the most visible and easiest thing you can change. If you walk out with confident body language and remain that way under pressure situations, it will send a clear and powerful message to your teammates, your coach, and your opponents.

So I encourage you to concentrate on the controllables. Start with attitude and pick one other quality at a time to work on with your players. You and your team will start to think more effectively and steadily perform at a higher level.

By Juan Pablo Favero, Associate Head Coach, Women’s Soccer, San Diego State University

Traditional leadership models, often hierarchical in nature, are changing and evolving.  One of these models is the captain model, which tends to be too rigid and centralized, especially for modern-day athletics.  Even the military, where the shift to special operations teams is prevalent in fighting today’s wars, is not organized with a traditional commanding officer, top-down hierarchical model.  Instead, a group of leaders giving input and making joint decisions is the way that these elite teams have the required flexibility and synergy to make them successful in high stakes situations. Yes, there is an ultimate decision maker, and there always has to be, but many trained and competent voices are better than just one solitary one.

The key is to develop many leaders in a team who can be incrementally given more responsibility and decision-making ability as they are exposed to leadership principles.  Given ample opportunity to apply these principles and grow in confidence to make decisions, they are then able to take action in critical moments.

Most athletics teams start developing leaders in their junior or even senior year, depending if they are a fall or spring sport, often expecting these captains to have learned by osmosis and with limited training:  maybe a book or two and some conversations with the coach.   It is presumed that with this limited information, they will be able to carry the burden of knowing how to best influence their teammates and lead the team.  In most cases in my experience, this is just too much responsibility for one young person to have.  Yet, the model of having multiple captains does not make sense either because it can actually cause the opposite effect than intended by creating a type of bystander effect of sorts. .  Shared leadership on the other hand is not exclusive or limited in its numbers and creates increased buy-in and commitment.  Think of it as leaders in different areas of strength who can pass the baton to each other and support one another’s leadership efforts.

According to Jeff Spahn of the Leading Leaders consulting group, “the emerging question in leadership today is not about how to develop leaders, but rather how does a team of leaders lead each other.”  He goes on to say that this goes beyond collaboration and is more how people actually lead and follow simultaneously. This sounds like shared leadership.

What is it?

In his best-selling book Linchpin, Seth Godin shares the example of the fast and complex Japanese transit system.   It operates on schedule and on budget, not by top-down directive, but by a large pool of empowered employees making the best decisions as the challenges present themselves. “Letting people in the organization use their judgment turns out to be faster and cheaper—but only if you hire the right people and reward them for having the right attitude.”

It’s not rocket science; it is basically a way to include ALL your players and personnel in the leadership development and implementation processes.  Why limit it to just a few hand picked players, who will undoubtedly be looked upon as favorites?  Why leave it to chance?

If you wait until players are upperclassmen, they will graduate before they can learn their leadership craft through both successes and mistakes, and unfortunately, your program will miss out on the full impact they could have. We need to start to expose, train, and encourage all of our players to lead, yes, even as young freshmen.  What is the worst that could happen? Even if they choose to pass on the call to lead, at the very least they may become better followers since they will better understand the difficulties and challenges associated with leading.  In other words, this is a clear way we can not only teach leadership principles but also create buy in and a higher level of team cohesion and common purpose.

The idea that there can be too many “chiefs and not enough Indians” or too many “cooks in the kitchen” is a common objection to this model.  Part of the key in teaching shared leadership is exactly that they can also learn how to become better followers and more supportive team members when it is not their turn to lead or in an area of someone else’s strength.  Personally, I would rather have too many leaders on my team, all pulling in the same direction, than not enough.

The Traditional Hierarchical, top-down athletics captain model vs. Shared Leadership model:

How does Shared Leadership fit in to this?

SINGLE LEADERSHIP: One leader figure (coach and/or captain) and many followers results in control and predictability.  Also creates average results, and high risk of monotony and burnout.

FOLLOWERSHIP: All as followers results in lack of initiatives, no or few new ideas, limited forward movement and lack of buy-in/shared ownership.   Also creates low energy, apathy, burnout and average results.

MULTIPLE LEADERSHIP: Many leaders attempting to lead all the time (coaches and/or captains) results in a power struggle, perpetual chaos, work never gets done efficiently. Also creates poor performance, conflict, and bad results.

SHARED LEADERSHIP: Leading and following simultaneously in a true shared responsibility model, leveraging the depth of experience, expertise, and oppositional points of view of every member required to truly create and execute at a an optimal level. The openness and humility of all involved to lead in this way creates a higher level of performance, team unity, and better results.

Why is it better?

The traditional leadership hierarchical model is quickly becoming archaic.  Today’s athlete wants to know the why behind what they are being asked to do.  When we let them in behind the curtain and start to show them the inner workings of team life and what is required to lead, some of the following benefits can occur:

• Increased commitment and buy-in
• Increased team unity and cohesion; improved team environment
• Developed future leaders
• Implemented successfully=less stress
• Better “followship” is created
• Shared leadership work load, diminishing the burden
• Increased performance on the field due to creating more confident decision makers
• Increased enjoyment of the process
• Higher resilience to face challenges, obstacles, and failure: Losing teams panic and are paralyzed, winning teams with shared leadership raise their performance making up for a deficit in talent
• Improved synergy which comes from using everyone’s strengths
• Easier leadership transitions when leaders are absent (injury, suspension) or when they depart (graduation).
• Minimized impact when mistakes are made

Challenges in implementation

Like any change in paradigms, the most difficult aspect will be to navigate the team through change.  You may receive some resistance from your players, especially from those who believe it is their “due time” and have an expectation to be captains.  Of course, these are the people who need to learn the most about true leadership principles, including the servant-leadership model and not the self-serving leadership fallacy (the difference between these two is stark: being a leader is not about what I can gain, it is about how can I serve as a leader for the benefit of others and the team).

You may have to overcome the biggest obstacle of all which may be your own leadership dogma.  It usually sounds like this: “This is the way it always has been done” or “I was a captain” or “my team had captains, and it is the right of passage to seniors.”  I just want to encourage you to ask yourself … is this the best model for today’s athletes and for their current and future development?  Even if it has worked for you in the past, is it working now?  Will it work in the future?

Ideas on how to implement it

• Leadership Education
• Small Leadership Groups
• Allowing your leaders to make leadership mistakes and learn from them
• Self-Discovery assessments: Personality assessments, TAP (Troutwine Athletic Profile), leadership styles assessments, 5 love languages, et al.
• Discussion on what they believe leadership is, and what a shared leadership team should look like
• Reward independent thinking, enveloped within a team-first concept
• Recruit the right kind of people for your team, not just the most talented players. The value of positive, responsible, accountable, and team-first members who are confident to make decision is critical in competitive athletics and in the world
• Team sessions to create mission statement, team goals, and team process to achieve those goals
• Reinforce any of the aforementioned behaviors and attitudes
• Encourage player-led initiatives and projects

Shared leadership is not about competition, ego, or jockeying for position.  It is instead about collaboration, cooperation, and a shared purpose and direction.

It is about servant leadership and doing what is best for the team, even when it may not seem like it’s in my best personal interests.  It is servant-like, team-first oriented, but it is also driven, focused, and purposeful action.  Finally, it also requires the attitude of knowing when and how to follow as well as when and how to lead.  This ying-yang type of balance is what makes this type of leadership environment difficult to attain but so powerful when it is reached.

To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books from the Academy for Sport Leadership, including a Leader in Every Locker, Click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

© JPF Coaching & Consulting (Posted on the Coaches Toolbox by permission)