Advice Acceptance

Brett Ledbetter is one of the leaders in character education.  He works with the best athletes and coaches in the world.  He recently spoke with leaders in our district about how to improve behaviors.

We define appropriate behavior in our district as above the line behaviors, and we define inappropriate behaviors as below the line behaviors.  We talked for about an hour on how to get all of our kids above the line.

One thing that he said was that NBA athletes generally ask these three questions when working with a new coach:

- Are They Smart?
- Is There a Conflict of Interest?
- Do They Care?

You have to have the knowledge, resources, and ability to grow your people.  If you can't or don't, they just won't believe in you, trust you, or follow you.

You also have to make sure that you have common goals.  You have to be working with each other, and against each other.  Everybody wants to feel valued, heard, and appreciated.  Listen to your people and what they want.  Make sure that they know that you appreciate and value them.

Brett said that it is important to build a relationship and to build trust with your athletes.  This allows you to push them out of their comfort zone.  As the old saying goes, 'They won't care how much you know until they know how much you care.'

Good luck going out there and helping these kids grow.  Just remember these three points.