NWCA: IT's NOT JUST FOR COACHES ANYMORE

For the Successful Coach

Coaching Leadership
By Stan Zeamer

Open honest candid communication builds trust.

In this article, I will communicate what makes coaches in athletics special and effective than coaches in business. Why does the sport of wrestling have unique benefits and added values ' like no other sport' What is a Leader-Coach? Why does the new business work environment want and need a Leader-Coach vs. a Manager-Boss? Why do managers/coaches fail in becoming effective coaches' What can teachers, professors, managers, leaders and coaches learn from the Leader-Coach?

I will share the communication models and principles used in our businesses, how open honest communication builds trust and is the link in becoming an effective Leader-Coach in business and athletics, how honest communication is the thread that ties both the successful business and successful wrestling program together, and last I'll explain why it is important for you to effectively communicate the benefits and values of the sport we all have learned to love.

What is a Leader-Coach?

I have been drawing parallels between coaching in sports and coaching in business since I have left my coaching position at Franklin and Marshall twenty-four years ago, and they do exist. For instance, sports and business coaches both strive to motivate, inspire, and get the best performance from their athletes and employees. Both demand commitment, action, and results for the team. Both build trusting relationships and both play to win.

However, in sports there are two factors that set the Leader-Coach apart from the Business-Coach and the rest. The Coach is considered competent to coach by virtue of being hired and often the coach is able to choose the team. It is a hierarchal, authoritarian relationship where everyone knows who is in charge and expects coaching to happen.

In business, the expectations are often different. A manager is not expected to be a coach and is usually not trained to be a coach. And, of course, winning in business translates to the success of the bottom line, not necessarily into personal accomplishment or growth.

Rather than dwell on these differences, let's focus on what is a Leader-Coach that will help you understand the dynamics of the spirit of coaching. What sets the great coaches apart is their genuine concern for the coaching relationship, for wanting to bring out the best in each athlete and the team as a whole. In addition to their management skills, this human element is what makes coaches so effective in their interactions with others, what makes them a coach is recognition and acceptance by the wrestlers.

Making the Shift to Being a Leader-Coach

Making the shift from being a Manager-Coach to being a Leader-Coach takes time, because it means developing a new mind set; a mind set that is less controlling and more collaborative; less concerned with getting things done a certain way, and more concerned with helping others raise their level of performance. The transition requires a commitment, and a passion that must take place from the inside and out they feel the measuring of coaching in their heart.

Communicating Clearly and Effectively

The Leader-Coach needs to communicate the boundaries before the season starts. Boundaries include purpose, values, standards, guidelines, rules, mutual expectations, goals, and anything else that affects personal or team performance. A coach does not waver in these areas. He/She also works to establish a relationship of trust and collaboration that prevents boundaries from being barriers. A straight line to a relationship of trust is open honest, candid, communication, which builds trust in a relationship.

Let's look at Five Basic Principles of Communication that our companies strive to follow:

1. Focus on the situation, issue, or behavior: not on the person.
2. Maintain the self-confidence and self-esteem of others.
3. Maintain constructive relationships.
4. Take initiative to make things better.
5. Lead by example.

Communication Language is a Crucial Part of the Effective Leader-Coach

The language of coaching is crucial to coaching relationships of giving and receiving feedback. What you say is important, but not as important as how you frame it. An effective Coach does not attack or blame the individual, but instead communicates where performance needs to be improved.

Coaches coach people and teams - ninety-six percent of the time, coaching is a one-to-one activity, but the effective Leader-Coach also understands that success involves teamwork and alignment with the administration, teachers, parents and student-athletes. The coach hast to develop and be accountable for the larger system of communication which prevents critical breakdowns.

In our business the alignment model is used to gain team consensus by focusing the employee on our mission, values, critical target goals, gaps, and performance drivers.

In athletics the alignment model is used to gain team cohesion and cooperation with school, community, parents, and athletes all being aligned with the school and wrestling's values.

Coaches Can Develop and Communicate New Strategies

One way aspiring coaches can communicate their coaching strategies is writing them in the wrestling guide/brochure. Imagine writing your own wrestling brochure and imagine a schoolgirl, schoolboy, a parent, grandparent, your athletic director, principal, superintendent, and alumni's reading it.

You add to the standard records, roster, and schedule etc. by explaining your mission to be the wrestling team that will be noted for rejecting passivity, accepting responsibilities, leading courageously, expecting to win and developing leaders. Next you share your vision' honesty will be our response in everything we do, leading by example with a servant spirit, treating fans as customers and guests, following the 5 basic principles of communication, creating a culture that promotes sportsmanship, following the scholastic NCAA rules, caring for and serving others, doing the right things, and doing things right, and having fun while achieving high performance critical target goals.

In the parents section you honor the mother's, paying value for all they do for the wrestlers and the program's such things as preparing nutritional training meals. Also in the parents section explaining an added value of wrestling for their son or daughter that is the self-confidence gain by most wrestlers. The greatest gift a coach can give a parent's son or daughter is the self-confidence.

Communicating the Benefits and Added Value in Being a Wrestler

In summary, you may want to appeal to parents by listing some benefits and added values of wrestling that prepares the sons or daughters for life:

Socially accepted outlet for aggressive behavior

Self-confidence builder

Atmosphere of support/ Community support

A process of continuous learning and improvement

Self-aware and self-correcting

Leadership training

Nutritional education and learning by doing

Team accountability's striving self-sacrifice for the larger community

Accepting responsibilities for the well being of others

Develops staying power - a persons greatest strength

Can build an honorable name - by displaying sportsmanship and leading by example

Practicing self-disciplines - by delaying gratification, denying pain, and over riding the natural hunger instincts

Reliability - by performing under extreme individual and team pressures

And it is true that women want men who will protect them, not use them, the skills of wrestling have prevailed the ultra fighting ring. And it parents need more assurance if their daughters had self-defense skills? try wrestling.

Your feedback is important please email some additional benefits of wrestling. The next article will focus on self-awareness.

InterMat: Inside info from the N.W.C.A

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