Principles of Coaching #2 - Love the brotherhood, let the players run, rule, and own the culture...with guidance and wisdom (Bot9 #306)
One of the greatest signs of love is to trust someone else. I find that we don’t trust our young people nearly enough. We get so locked up by fear of everything swirling around us that we grab the steering wheel of leadership and prevent the next generation from learning how to lead. This is particularly true on our fields of play where coaches have continued to make all of the decisions instead of allowing the players to make at least some of them. Players should make many, if not most, of the decisions regarding their interpretation of what the established culture means to them. For us, this means each group of young men get to find their own feel of what the “Brotherhood” means to them while contributing to the thing created by those who came before them.
One of my favorite books is With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God by Skye Jethani. Jethani draws us back into a healthier relationship with our Creator by seeking to do life “with” Him instead of over, under, for or from Him. It’s just like it was in the Garden when Adam walked with God in the cool of the evening. Imagine if we did the same with our teams. God wants to draw out the best in us by doing life with us and we have the opportunity to do the same with our teams. The young men and women we influence need to have the opportunity to walk with us in the same way. If we rule over them with an iron fist and don’t give them any piece of the pie, we miss an opportunity to develop them.
The success of your team or organization cannot circle around the efforts of the leader. Yes, the leader sets a tone, and hopefully a good one. I’m one who subscribes to the guidance former Nebraska football head coach Tom Osborne provides to leaders when he says the leader has to be the hardest worker in the organization. This is true. But that’s just to set a tone for the team. You can’t be the only one with hands on the plow. If you are, your team isn’t going to accomplish nearly as much as it could. You have to give some of the work away, set the tone, and watch your team match (or even exceed) your efforts.
Just this past week I experienced two instances of the athletic communities I’m a part of rising up around me. I had one of our grads reach out to me about on-field batting practice this week. It’s my first week back to school for team meetings so I couldn’t serve the team. Did that stop them? Not a chance. I came to the field late in the week to find a group of 6-7 guys hitting on the field with an assistant coach. That’s ownership. On Saturday morning, one of our softball freshmen asked if I could open the field because one of our returning players was going to do some extra work with her. Did you catch that? It wasn’t a coach. It was one of the players who made themselves available to work with a freshman. This is the second principle in action and it creates something special inside your team.
Jesus speaks to this idea tangentially in Matthew 11:28-30. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus speaks about taking His yoke upon you, getting to work learning from Him, and finding rest while working with Him. How is this accomplished? By not being the center of the universe and everything your team does. Jesus died in order for His word and teachings to be spread. He didn’t do the work Himself. He let others do it. Maybe we should take this idea from the greatest teacher who ever lived and give away more. Let your people lead and watch how your culture is transformed.