Coaches' Corner~Leadership

Being a coach has its own brand of leadership.  While in some industries, the leader is in a superior position much like student and teacher, mentor and mentee, our genre is a little different.  When evaluating yourself as a leader, you probably see yourself as very good and that is more likely due to a healthy self-concept than what is actually the truth.  A large dose of confidence is usually present in those who call themselves a coach.  And when you think of those who coach coaches, they have even more than that.  I often think of a team of coaches like the Justice League of America.  Superman was indeed the leader but he had no qualms about the fact that Flash was faster than he or that Green Arrow had a great eye and could split an apple sitting on top of a persons at how many ever paces he wanted.  Aquaman could breathe under water and Batman had a fast car.  All these had their own area of superiority.  Even though I think of coaches that way, the strength of a coach does not lie in his superiority but in his humility.  Creating results for your client is of prime concern.  Your client is best looked at as your equal.

When I was in high school, my favorite teacher, N. C. Williams used to quote what she said was an Arabian proverb.  It went like this, “He who knows not and know not that he knows not, is a fool, shun him.”  And each time she said that, whoever was listening simply shut up.  There were other parts of that proverb that made more sense but since I started coaching and understanding its methodology, I got introduced to the concept, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”  So you see, the proverb from my teacher really is only part of the story.  But she was an example of what I am writing about today.  She was not simply teaching students, she was building leaders.  Perhaps I am the only one who sees her proverb the way I see it but I doubt it.  I would not be surprised to find that many in that class turned out to be leaders in their own right.  N. C. was a leader even though she was a high school teacher.  The truth test of a leader is how many leaders they produce.  You can certainly be a good leader and accomplish a lot but the sophisticated leader builds his replacement with the understanding that no one lives forever.  In the business world, no matter how great a leader you are and how much you do for your company, you must not forget the importance of your legacy.  You legacy will be irrelevant unless you build leaders rather than followers.

What about you?  Are you building leaders in the community?  Do your clients simply listen and follow or are they left to develop ideas for themselves and run them by you as opposed to you just telling them how it is?  You might think that creating leaders out of your clients may be putting yourself out of a job but just the opposite is true.  By building leaders you increase your value and increasing value in others always increase value in us.  I often reiterate that there is no right/wrong, good/bad paradigm in coaching and I will state it here again because getting this one concept down, qualifies you as a leader.  It is relevant here because I contrast two different coaches who were great and won championships but one of them built leaders as well.  Depending on the type of leader you want to be, you will align yourself with one of them.

Vince Lombardi, of the Green Bay Packers in 1967 is considered by some to be the greatest coach that ever coached the game and he is quoted a lot.  His strength was in building men.  All men are not destined to be leaders but Lombardi built them so should they become leaders, they would excel.  Did you know that every coach since he was a coach, has as their mentor the well- known Bill Walsh as the so-called father of modern football?  Bill Walsh undeniably was a leader who built leaders from the start.  It never occurred to him that he was losing something by doing it either.  Even if you lose something by training leaders and having them replace you, consider that leaders are familiar with the Law of Sacrifice and be okay with the loss.  What you gain will far outway what you lose.  Generativity is the goal of every leader.  What you leave behind is the true measure of greatness.  How does you organization thrive after you are no longer the coach or the CEO?  Make building your legacy a part of your coaching practice by creating leaders where you might not see one now.  I assure you when you see the growth I them from a distance, you will smile broadly and powerfully as you think to yourself, “I did that.”  Then you can proudly wear the moniker of being an “Extraordinary Coach.”