Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.
The Academy for Sport Leadership

www.sportleadership.com

Time and again, through my own eyes and those of student-athletes, I have seen the impact of poor leadership. Leadership from the ranks of the players and leadership from the coaching staff, when not actions of character, almost always turn out badly. Teams underperform, players drift from the team, coaches ratchet up bad behavior and the result of poor leadership—characterless leadership—destroys opportunities for members of the team to grow, develop, and enjoy their sport.

Today’s most effective coaches do more than win games; they imbue their program with character. Indeed, they lead with character.

Simply put, leaders of character take serious four universal practices: tell the truth, keep your promises, give forgiveness, and treat others as you want to be treated. When coaches and student-athletes commit to these four behaviors, they are viewed as people of character. These traits are respected and admired. Together, they illuminate “leadership character.”

Sports are supposed to infuse participants with character. Indeed, the first requirement to be a coach is to be a person of character. If this sounds like a tough stance on who should coach, it is. Coaches have traditionally been valued for their teaching skills, decision making, and the best always strive to understand and empathize with their players. Great coaches believe that student-athletes have an intrinsic value beyond their contributions on the playing field. But the distance between a great coach and a good coach is quite wide.

No matter what the final record for the season happens to be, if poor leadership, from the coaches or the players, is a part of the process, the experience for each and every participant is sure to be one of disappointment. It’s likely to have included many frustrations for the participants and at times created disillusionment, anguish, and sadness. Characterless leadership is simply that impactful.

Peter Block, author of Stewardship, has defined stewardship as “holding something in trust for another.” In sports, that something the coach holds in trust is the student-athlete’s experience. The coach committed to the growth and development of players recognizes the tremendous responsibility to do everything within his or her power to nurture integrity, hold players accountable to one another, guide them to own their mistakes, and teach the young student-athlete to let go of the past.

Based on all my years coaching, and observing (research from the outside looking in) coaches and student-athletes, I find the coach capable of humility and deep self-awareness to be the one most likely to have leadership character. The capacity to bring out the best in people demands character. The mark of a great coach—teacher—is that he or she lives and models the four universals of telling the truth, keeping one’s promises, letting go of others’ mistakes, and empathizing with others.

And, a second article from Dr. Dobbs:

Pumping Iron: Not-Invented-Here

Today every student-athlete lifts weights.   But this hasn’t always been the norm.  If you look at the black-and-white photographs of athletes from the 1960’s you’ll see mostly underdeveloped physiques.  Weightlifting began on the fringes in the 60s, and mostly in the form of machines for training.  At that time, most coaches assumed that weightlifting would harm an athlete’s fine motor skills.  So weight training remained on the periphery.

But then, a movie released in 1977 exploded on the scene and overnight created the strength industry.  A little-known Austrian bodybuilder, Arnold Schwarzenegger, breathed life into competitive bodybuilding.  Hollywood saw an opportunity and acted quickly.  Pumping Iron, a docudrama, focused on Schwarzenegger and his dedication to lifting weights to build a Mr. Universe body, triggered a movement that spilled over into almost every sport on the planet.

A fatal flaw of sports has been to shy away from training and operating methods that don’t originate within the field of the sport.  This bias is revealed in the aversion to things not-invented-here.  Not-Invented-Here is the automatic negative perception of something (such as an idea or belief) that does not originate in one’s field.  Have you read Moneyball?  Data analytics and those that wanted to explore their value were rejected, until the Oakland A’s on-the-field success proved this new way of building a team.  Today, if you look closely, you’ll see that data analytics have found a comfortable place in the world of sports.

Here’s a short list of ideas about Not-Invented-Here.   Google each and learn a little more.

-CTE (see Dr. Bennet Omalu and Concussion the movie)
-Free Agency (see Curt Flood)
-Sport Psychology (see Thomas Tutko)

-Great Performers are Made, not Born (See Anders Ericsson)

-A Leader in Every Locker (see Cory Dobbs, Coaching for Leadership)

-Karl Dunker, (see Functional Fixedness)

Let me encourage searching for ways to improve your players, programs, and organizations by any means necessary.  Don’t approach improvement and innovation with a fixed-mindset and get caught in the trap of rejecting something because it was Not-Invented-Here.

Cory is the Founder & President of The Academy for Sport Leadership. A former basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition. Cory has worked with collegiate athletic programs and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process.

To contact Cory visit www.sportleadership.com

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will care.” -Your Student-Athlete The world of coaching is changing. In Coaching for Leadership you’ll discover the foundations for designing, building, and sustaining a leadership focused culture for building a high-performance team. To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

The R.E.A.L. Man Program is a strategic and progressive character development program designed to help middle school, high school, and college-aged students to reach their full potential, in every aspect of their lives.

The 20-lesson program is a blueprint for success, which is aimed at helping students understand and live out the principles of a positive and influential life.

The foundation for the program can be described as:

Respect all people,
Especially women.
Always do the right thing.
Live a life that matters.

Here are a three videos about the R.E.A.L. Man Program.

The first video is a short description of the program. The second video is of an actual lesson taught by a coach at a school that utilizes the R.E.A.L Man Program. The third is an overview of the program.

The second video is a YouTube video, so you will need to be on a server that allows you to access YouTube.

There is sound with each video.

If you are interested in finding out more about the program, contact:

Kathy DiCocco at 203-206-4801 or email her at [email protected]

Or click here to visit The R.E.A.L Man Program

Please click the play arrows to view the videos.

R.E.A.L. Man Overview

 

Learning to do the Right Thing

James Vint on the R.E.A.L. Man Program

There is a new breed of leaders and coaches in the world of sports.

They insist on cultivating healthy, strong relationships where deep caring, respect, integrity, trust, love and loyalty are forged.

These coaches are the ones doing great things.

They are inspiring their athletes to do great things on and off the field. The athletes that play for these coaches are reaping great rewards for their participation.

In the video clip below Dr. Jerry Lynch, internationally known expert in the field of applied sports psychology conducts a panel discussion with a group of athletes.

The athletes are discussing what qualities they look for in their head coach.

This clip is from a complete DVD on how to lead in sports. For more information about the DVD click the link How to Inspire, Empower and Lead in Sports: Perspectives from Athletes and Coaches

The YouTube video has sound, so please make sure that your sound is turned on and that you have access to the site.

This article is also posted  on The Coaches Toolbox, a collection of free resources for coaches of all sports

Answering the question “What is leadership?” begins by grounding it in theses 7 core assumptions

By Dr. Cory Dobbs
The Academy for Sport Leadership

Excerpt from A Leader in Every Locker (2016)

“I’m not used to supposing. I’m just a working man. My boss does the supposing . . .”

This quote is a line from the classic movie 12 Angry Men. During the opening dialogue among jury members, each feeling out their place and role in the deliberation of the fate of a young man’s life, a blue‐collar working man makes this declaration of powerlessness. The implication is that all the power—at least that of “supposing” rests in the hands of his superior. Just a movie? Hardly.

It’s been the rule for over a century in team sports to install a hierarchical leadership structure. This is accomplished by appointing a couple of players as team captains (as well as modeled by the hierarchy of the coaching staff). Surely everybody knows that on any sports team only a few players are able to really perform peer leadership. This is the team captain axiom, the basic axiom of traditional team leadership.

An axiom, of course, is a truth so self‐evident it doesn’t need to be proved. After all, everybody knows an axiom is accurate and correct. So then, it’s indisputable that you need a pecking order in order to get things done.

Not too fast, things are not what they always seem to be on the surface. The bad news is that far too often our intuitive ways of thinking about the world are wrong. Yes, axioms can be wrong. The good news is that it’s possible to set them right.

What’s self‐evident, what’s obvious, what everybody knows, has deep roots and of course isn’t in need of change. Yet, paradoxically that which is self‐evident hides something–covers over what might be a deeper truth. Axioms, by their nature, are anti‐learning. Nobody ever questions an axiom. Nobody ever discusses an axiom (save for a few propeller heads). It’s just taken as a given. And nobody ever talks about the possible counterproductive consequences of what everybody knows. The fish, after all, never questions the water he lives in.

Then, all of a sudden, someone comes along with a breakthrough idea and turns the old axiom upside down. The taken‐for‐granted truth, it turns out, wasn’t really the truth after all. “The world is flat,” was the truth people lived by for thousands of years. Then, along comes Nicolas Copernicus who proves to the world the old axiom to be wrong.

Twenty years ago, to choose a different model of team leadership was unthinkable. In elaborating on the end of two decades as a premier athlete Kobe Bryant had much to say when asked the question, if he could go back in time and offer advice to himself as a rookie, what would he say? His response: “It’s hard to tell somebody ‐‐ a player at that age ‐‐ to understand compassion and empathy, but that would be my advice.”

Why of all things would Bryant endorse caring, compassion, and empathy? “Well,” Bryant continued, “because that’s the biggest thing about being a leader, I think, and winning a championship is understanding how to put yourself in other people’s shoes.” “That’s really the most important thing. It’s not necessarily the individual skill you possess. It’s about understanding others and what they may be going through. And then, in turn, when you understand that, you can communicate with them a little bit better and bring out the best in them. Bringing out the best in people isn’t passing them the ball and giving them open shots. It’s about how to connect with them, how to communicate with them so that they can navigate through whatever issues they may be facing. That’s a very, very hard thing to do.”

I’ve never been a fan of Kobe Bryant, and I seldom look to professional sports for deep insights and understanding on leadership, but it appears that the wisdom in Bryant’s words fit hand‐inglove with today’s call for a more heartfelt approach to coaching and leading. So what’s the way forward in this brave new world?

Don’t worry. While you’ve been trapped in the axiom of team captaincy, I’ve been turning over rocks to find a better way of designing a high‐performing team, its culture, and of course, leadership. I’m not done yet. It might be another decade or so before I’m finished. But this workshop workbook is a start.

So, What is Leadership?

There has been a long running debate in scholarly circles about whether people learn to lead from their experiences or if leadership is something a person is born with. Today, however, most academics agree that leadership is best considered as a set of skills and qualities that can be learned and developed along within a wide‐range of personal styles. It’s widely agreed that all people have the potential to develop leadership skills. I point this out because it is also clear that leadership is viewed and valued differently by various fields, disciplines, and cultures.

So then, what is leadership? This is the big question that every person, group, team, organization, community and society seeks to answer. Our American culture, which of course includes a heavy dose of sporting influence, exalts the lone ranger, the hero, the charismatic leader. We see this in the election and glorifying of politicians, the deifying of business tycoons, and the adoration and idolization of great coaches and athletes. This notion falls in line with the traditional ideas of leadership—that it is the make‐ up of the leader that makes all the difference. Individual determinism has been and will continue to be an easy and favored explanation of things. But traits such as self‐confidence, intelligence, and a can‐do attitude—favored qualities of a leader—do not always predict the effectiveness of a leader; rather, they can be very misleading.

However permeable the traditional mental model of leadership seems, it does not provide a path to sustainable effectiveness as it leaves out the detail and nuance of the context in which a leader takes action. It also ignores the fact that it tends to reduce followers to passive participants; resulting in deliberate apathy and often conscious withdrawal from the leadership provided by one’s peer. Careful examination of this aspect of team captaincy suggests it may promote the discounting or dismissing of the potential of all members of the team to learn and perform in a leadership role.

Both the context and followers are foundational to leadership and are central to The Academy for Sport Leadership’s search for a new conceptualization of team leadership. The leader in every locker approach to team leadership is, no doubt, a paradigm shift. Paradigms, as you know, are the common patterns and ways of looking at things in order to make sense out of them. Leadership has long been presented as an elusive phenomenon available to only a select few. It is my contention, however, that understanding the relational nature of leadership and followership opens a team up to an immensely practical and dramatically richer form of team
member involvement.

The basic foundation of any leadership process is relational. As leadership expert Margaret Wheatley notes, “None of us exists independent of our relationships with others.” At the core, it is a relationship which comes into existence because of some sense of commitment by people to a common purpose. Thus, the ASL framework for answering the question “What is leadership?” begins by grounding it in the following core assumptions:

1. Conventional views of leadership are changing. Leadership is not limited to a chosen few; it is an educational component of participation in student‐athletics and must contribute to the growth and development of all athletes. A leader in every locker embraces the potential of all student‐athletes to take on leadership roles now and in the future.

2. Leadership is a relational process. That is, leadership is a socially constructed phenomenon consisting of student‐athletes working together to accomplish something.

3. Team leadership is distributed. Leadership is not the sole responsibility of the coach, coaching staff, or selected team captains. The best team leadership results from the actions and activities of those best positioned to provide leadership contingent on the context.

4. Leadership is a process to create change. Leadership is about making things happen; transforming people and programs. Effective leadership accelerates change. Change is necessary for growth, development, and improvement in performance.

5. Leadership growth and development is personal. There is no time frame related to progressing through stages of development. It’s also recognized that all potential leaders begin at a different starting point. Leaders grow and develop through deliberate practice, informal practice, roles, reflection, and the observation of role models.

6. Leadership is a process that involves followership. All coaches and student‐athletes participating in a leader in every locker understand and embrace both roles—leading and following. Followership implies a relationship to the leader, but does not imply one that places the follower in a less important position.

7. Leadership develops over time. There is no one way to lead. The practice of leadership involves the continual practice of finding the best way to lead with the particular capabilities that the student‐athlete possesses at a specific time, while constantly working to improve and expand those capabilities.

Embedded in the seven assumptions above are the four P’s of team leadership. The framework highlights the integration of the four key domains of leadership. The framework answers the question What is Leadership? Leadership is a position, it is a process, and it is performed by a person for a purpose.

Too often leadership is narrowly defined exclusively as a person. Conceptually this leads us back to a focus on the leader, her traits and disposition. But leadership is more than the idiosyncratic actions taken by a chosen person. It is a process. A process is simply a
coordinated way of doing things. Can student‐athletes, including those that don’t possess the so‐called necessary traits, learn a process for doing leadership things? Of course they can.

Leadership is also a position. In The Academy for Sport Leadership’s way of doing things we suggest giving each student‐athlete a “role” to on‐board them into the leadership team building development process. You’ll see this later when I introduce you to my 8 Roles of Teamwork. A leader’s words and deeds provide purpose, a compelling vision of the future. Effective team leadership answers, for all team members, the questions, “why am I doing this?”

The four P’s, like the compass that they form, are only a tool for answering the question “What is leadership.” Each student‐athlete (and coach too) brings his or her own unique values, skills, experiences, and personality to the leader role; and each student‐athlete has his or her own personal way of making change happen. The compass is a simple model that represents the key domains of an effective leadership development program.

To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

If you would like to learn more about the book that this excerpt came from click: A Leader in Every Locker

This post can be found at The Coaches Toolbox, a collection of resources for coaches of all sports.

An Interview with Dr. Cory Dobbs, President of The Academy for Sport Leadership

Q:  Why do you find it necessary to add the role of Leadership Educator to the practice of coaching?  Aren’t coaches already modeling leadership for their student-athletes?

A:  Let me explain by telling you a story.  I recently met with a “brand” name coach and his staff to discuss leadership education.  The coach is highly recognized as a top coach in his field.  I opened our conversation by asking him “Are you a world-class coach?”  He looked at me with an unassuming grin.  So I said “The world certainly sees you as a world-class coach.”  His staff chuckled but agreed.  “So let’s check that box,” I said.  “And,” I declared, “would you agree that coaching is teaching?”  He and his staff vigorously shook their heads to imply a definitive “yes.”

“Now,” I continued, “are you a world-class leader?”  Again, he looked at me with a humble smile.   I asked his staff for a thumbs up or thumbs down vote of agreement.  All thumbs were pointed upward.  “Check that box too” I announced.

“Okay,” I said as I headed towards my home territory.  “Are you a world-class leadership educator?”  The grin on his face slipped into a look of bewilderment.  “Well,” I said cunningly, “if you’re a world-class coach and a world-class leader shouldn’t you be a world-class leadership educator?”  Puzzled and disoriented, the brand name world-class coach didn’t quite know how to respond.  I continued, “How do you go about developing team leaders—or in my world team leadership?”  After uttering something he asked me to explain to him just what leadership education is and how one goes about becoming a leadership educator.

A leadership educator is no different than, let’s say, a professor of management—someone who teaches management.  A leadership educator teaches leadership.  However, this role seems a little strange for many coaches.  Few engage in a planned program and curriculum with the deliberate intention to build team leaders.   Rather, most simply leave it to the seemingly natural growth of the individual.  Oh, let’s not forget that a rigorous development program can be time consuming and emotionally demanding.

“Coach,” I said, “we can’t check that box can we?”  I then began to teach: “The role of leadership educator requires a different mindset, skill set and involves very different actions from the one’s you’ve been practicing for a lifetime.”  The coach quickly acknowledged that a huge gap exists between what he and his coaching staff are doing and what they could do to develop team leaders.  He then asked if I would work with him and his staff to develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities to be high-performing leadership educators.

Q:  A leader in every locker sounds a lot like “Everyone gets a trophy.”

A:  First, there’s a big difference between welfare and well-being.  When everyone gets a trophy it’s often like a government handout—it’s freely given, no strings attached (and just as likely not to have been well-thought through as it does have extraordinary potential as a long-term positive of participation if done right).  However, when a coach is concerned for the total well-being of her student-athletes, she is delighted to have everyone on the team maximize the experience; which includes learning how to lead.

In a recent workshop a coach asked me if the idea of a leader in every locker is like a trophy for everyone.  I held back, but then I injected my research and organizational framework into my response.  I let the coach know emphatically, it’s just the opposite.  I had to first help the coach see beyond her flawed mental model of leaders are born, the driving factor behind such thinking.

The notion of a born leader appeals to our belief in intelligence, charisma, and other personal traits as attributes necessary for leadership.  Most of us have been taught since childhood, at least implicitly, that we are either a leader or a follower—mostly followers as we can only have one class president.  This plays on an almost universal theme that some people must be given the role of telling us what to do; it fits with our sensibilities that we are better off by granting some people power and agency.

To be sure, my experience—countless number of workshops plus working alongside coaches—is that in most cases coaches are cynics when it comes to the idea that everyone has the ability to lead (though anticipating the critique of this claim I’m compelled to ensure I don’t imply all are equally motivated to learn to lead).  For those of us who do not want to simply dismiss people as not capable of learning to lead—especially those who’ve had few role models in their lives—the concept of leadership development is a significant step forward.

The idea that leaders are extraordinary people with special gifts is an assumption many coaches have embedded in their minds—baked into the cake.  Most coaches operate from a paradigm—a set of assumptions about how the world works—that makes it difficult to understand why the virtues of a leader in every locker far exceed the verifiable inefficiencies of the team captain model.

What I’m advocating is this: when a coach assumes the role of leadership educator, it is to teach leadership to all his or her student-athletes.  Why in the world would you not want to teach leadership to all of your players?   And why in the world would you not want your players to develop a leadership mindset, skill set, and act like a leader?

Beginning with the end in mind, when you deploy a leadership learning system you are creating a learning organization.  When coaches honor the need to personalize learning for each student-athlete, they then create a dynamic learning environment in which everyone is learning in action and by reflection.

However, if a coach doesn’t think it’s worth his or her time, then it’s likely they are acting from what Stanford professor Carol Dweck calls a “fixed mindset.”  A coach that acts from this perspective will do little to stimulate interest and commitment to personal leadership development of the student-athlete.  Such a mindset places little value in teaching leadership.  After all, they reason, either the athlete is a “natural” leader gifted with the “right stuff” or they’re not.  This thinking suggests only a few athletes on any team are capable of leading.  Such thinking makes no sense.

Leadership is not an all-or-nothing ability, something you either have or don’t have.  As a form of social interaction, leadership can be developed when student-athletes and coaches put in effort, time, and practice.

The reality is the student-athlete (and the coach too!) has to work hard to learn how to lead, to develop a set of skills and competencies that will serve as a foundation for lifelong learning of leadership and team building.  Leadership can be learned, indeed it must be learned.  The key is that it must be practiced in order to facilitate the growth and development of the student-athlete.  Without practice, which requires time, effort, and energy, all you have is a potential leader.

Finally, in my Coach’s Guidebook: A Leader in Every Locker I make clear that most student-athletes are raised in sport to simply follow the lead of the coach; thereby making the participant a passive recipient of leadership.  After years of going along to get along the young athlete develops the habit of passive followership.  This is one of the biggest challenges of change we face as leadership educators.

Should everyone get a trophy?  Probably not (save for another day the issue of participation and achievement).

Should everyone get an opportunity to learn about leadership and explore how to lead?  Yes!  And to do so requires great effort on the part of the student-athlete.  The athlete is not given anything but opportunity.   Are all leaders equal?  No!  Everyone has a different starting line, but all student-athletes can learn to lead at some level.

Q:  In your workshops you urge, quite forcefully I might add, coaches to rethink their
thinking?

A:  I do this because every act of coaching rests on assumptions, generalizations, and get this—hypotheses.  That is, the coach’s mindset determines to a great extent how he operates.  It is very unlikely that a coach will change his or her ways of coaching until they look in the mirror and consider who they are and what they believe and why they believe what they believe.  Once they peel away the layers and recognize how deeply held beliefs and attitudes—such as only a few athletes are capable of leading—he or she can design a culture that maximizes the experience for everyone.

It’s a shame that many coaches are intimidated by the idea that embedded within every player is a potential leader.  There is great suspicion of how things will work if everyone is potentially a leader.  A common concern about a leader in every locker came up one day when I was talking with a group of coaches.  “How can you ask us to have all our student-athletes lead?” one coach said to me.  “Isn’t that opening Pandora ’s Box?”  Recall that when Pandora’s Box was opened, all the troubles of humanity flew out.  Is this how coaches imagine what might happen should everyone learn to lead and be given opportunities to lead?

I understand their concern.  They really have no reference point to relate the practice of teaching everyone leadership.  But when coaches and players learn for example, the 5 Steps of Team Leadership, the 8 Roles of Team Leadership, and The Coach as a Leadership Educator that I’ve created it all begins to make sense.  Something else we do is utilize a specialized vocabulary.  In addition to the 5 Steps of Leadership our program includes specialized terminology and unique constructs such as the eight roles of team leadership, leadership educator, followership and leadership orientation, and leadershift to cite some of the vital elements of our way of talking, thinking, and developing leaders.

The unnatural gap between the traditional team captain model and the reality that everyone can learn to lead at some level requires a monumental change program.  It’s going to take awhile, but over time coaches will discover new things about how it all works together to the advantage of the program and the players.

 

To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

About the Author

A former basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition. While coaching, he researched and developed the transformative Becoming a Team Leader program for student-athletes. Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs and high schools teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience and education process. Cory cut his teeth as a corporate leader with Fortune 500 member, The Dial Corp. As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with such organizations as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet.

Cory has taught a variety of courses on leadership and change for the following universities:

Northern Arizona University (Graduate Schools of Business and Education)

Ohio University (Graduate School of Education / Management and Leadership in Sport)

Grand Canyon University (Sports Marketing and Sports Management in the Colangelo School of Sports Business)

Visit www.corydobbs.com to read Cory’s leadership blog.