Leadership and Coaching is Influence

Coaching and leadership are part processes and systems and part influence and behaviors.  

We put in systems and processes like how we want to play, actual plays, practice times and practice schedules, and drills to teach the game and to give our team structure, but its character and behavior that drives how much our kids buy-in, how hard they work, and how much time they put into getting better.  

The better the character, the harder they work.  The more they listen and buy-in, the better the team.  Coaching is more than just plays; its influencing athletes to do what they need to do to execute at the highest level possible for themselves and for the team.

When your team isn't working as hard as you would like, or they aren't listening like they should, or they aren't performing like you know they can, it can be very frustrating and it can be very easy to start playing the blame game.

It is easy to start blaming this generation of kids, or this group of kids, or their parents, or distractions like Fortnite.  But playing the blame game just keeps you stuck in the same rut with no progress.  Instead, be solution-oriented and try to find different ways to influence the behavior that you want to see.

We can call kids uncoachable if we want, and the truth is, we just won't be able to win over every kid.  But we have to do the hard work and try.  

Kobe Bryant said, "Inspiration drives the world.  When looking at the worlds that we create, inspiration is what decides who is going to be the ruler of these particular worlds.  Then how do you inspire?  You can inspire in a myriad of different ways."  We have to inspire our kids to act.  We can find inspiration through YouTube videos of their role models, in leadership development programs, through book studies, through social media highlights of other athletes, by having mentors come to talk to the team, or through some good, old school line drills.

We influence by our overall vision, by the messages that we are sending and the approach that we take in delivering the message.  Each kid needs a different approach and many need a different message that is still aligned to the vision.  

The differentiation required to reach and affect all of our athletes is why what we do is so hard, but that is why good coaching and good leadership is so important and so impactful.

Go out and find ways to influence athletes today.