Teaching Leadership to Captains

[machfu2001]

Struggling with this one boys.  I'd love to hear ideas on how to improve leadership on a team!  I'm sure we are all guilty at some point of saying "I wish Johnny was a better leader" or "we need better senior leadership."  I'm tired of saying that!  I want to do everything I can to train my players to be the best leaders I can. 

I'm searching for:

1.  real life experiences that actually have worked for you
2.  books that may help (I've already purchased a couple books by Jeff Jannsen)
3.  programs or curriculums that have already been created on this topic

Thanks ahead of time!

[HitTheJets]

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin is really good. It's written more for a business application but I'm planning to use it this summer for our leadership academy. Each chapter is broken down into 3 parts: 1) Story from their deployment to Ramadi, Iraq as commanders of a Navy SEAL task force that explains the principle from a real life perspective 2) Breaks down the principle itself 3) Gives a specific example of how the principle was applied in a business setting from their current consulting business..

[Coach H]

Coach,
Teaching Leadership is truly key to your success in your program. I've done it in several places. It's a must do. How you do it is up to you.
1. Leadership Council-Group Situation
2. Beyond Football-Leadership Developement

Thanks,
Coach H.

[realdawg]

Contact your local FCA director and see if he has a curriculum. Ours is great and started a leadership program with our kids yesterday during our Wt lifting classes.

[lions23]

We started last year and had exceptional success with our teaching. We followed Urban Meyer's model. We developed a curriculum taking pieces from Dr. Rick McGuire from Mizzou, their former track coach and Urban Meyer's Above the Line book.

We assigned a "unit leader" from each position to train in leadership. We did a coach's seminar on the weekend. All coaches were trained over one day so we would all be familiar with the language and curriculum.

Then myself and HC met with Unit leaders met 1 to 2 times a week during our homeroom period. We discussed the principles we took from McGuire's Positive Coaching (there is a great video) and Meyer's Above the Line. We focused on one principle a week and encouraged the unit leaders to apply to their life, school, relationships, and other sports.

After that each Monday during the summer and before our workout myself and the Unit Leaders presented the material again to the entire team. I used them to share anecdotes of how they had already applied the principles.

We also took some ideas from Jon Gordon's "you win in the locker room first," especially the parts about connections. We took time throughout the summer for the individual units to make connections with their position group. We modeled all of these connection activities within the Unit Leader meetings during the off season. The the Unit Leaders were able to run the connection activities on their own before or after practice.

There were tremendous positives. Anytime we had an issue with the team we just took it to our unit leaders. They talked with their units and solved the problems on their own. It helped develop tremendous autonomy and success dealing with adversity before the season even started.

I was at the same point as the OP where we had some difficult off the field situations a couple of years ago and it was clear we did not have a plan to deal with adversity other than "tough it out" football mentality. With the severity of the incident that was not going to cut it. We had plans for 3rd down, for special teams, blitz concepts, offense and defensive philosophies, but we did not have a real philosophy or concept to deal with adversity.

I don't see us ever leaving that out again.

[ander02]

A lot of good things above. We've been using Jeff Janssen's Team Captain's Leadership Manual for the past six years and have had great results. We structured some of our stuff in a similar way that lions23 did. My biggest take-a-way from the first year until now is that you have to empower your leaders privately and then in front of the team to lead. As one example, anyone that goes through our leadership training is eligible to be voted onto our Leadership Council by their teammates. When that process takes place I tell our kids that they are voting for someone that they trust, that they think has their best interests at heart, and are giving those people permission to lead (and I explain what that looks like). Not only do your leaders have to know how to lead which is the training, but your team has to understand your expectation of leadership and "followership" in your culture so that those kids can and will lead.

[jgordon1]

Feb 9, 2017 9:25:48 GMT -6 lions23 said:

We started last year and had exceptional success with our teaching. We followed Urban Meyer's model. We developed a curriculum taking pieces from Dr. Rick McGuire from Mizzou, their former track coach and Urban Meyer's Above the Line book.

We assigned a "unit leader" from each position to train in leadership. We did a coach's seminar on the weekend. All coaches were trained over one day so we would all be familiar with the language and curriculum.

Then myself and HC met with Unit leaders met 1 to 2 times a week during our homeroom period. We discussed the principles we took from McGuire's Positive Coaching (there is a great video) and Meyer's Above the Line. We focused on one principle a week and encouraged the unit leaders to apply to their life, school, relationships, and other sports.

After that each Monday during the summer and before our workout myself and the Unit Leaders presented the material again to the entire team. I used them to share anecdotes of how they had already applied the principles.

We also took some ideas from Jon Gordon's "you win in the locker room first," especially the parts about connections. We took time throughout the summer for the individual units to make connections with their position group. We modeled all of these connection activities within the Unit Leader meetings during the off season. The the Unit Leaders were able to run the connection activities on their own before or after practice.

There were tremendous positives. Anytime we had an issue with the team we just took it to our unit leaders. They talked with their units and solved the problems on their own. It helped develop tremendous autonomy and success dealing with adversity before the season even started.

I was at the same point as the OP where we had some difficult off the field situations a couple of years ago and it was clear we did not have a plan to deal with adversity other than "tough it out" football mentality. With the severity of the incident that was not going to cut it. We had plans for 3rd down, for special teams, blitz concepts, offense and defensive philosophies, but we did not have a real philosophy or concept to deal with adversity.

I don't see us ever leaving that out again.

very interesting..how were the coaches trained?

[veerwego]

To piggyback on Lions 23, I have always wanted to try something similar. I have never been a head coach and never had a coach that I worked for on board enough to implement this, but...

I think at the HS level, you have the players & coaches determine your captains, then assign an asst. to each captain. Draft the team from oldest to youngest including JV/9th grade if you have it. Have the squads do what many already do which is, compete and hold each other accountable. (ex. one is late they all get punished) The idea of having the group itself handle punishment is interesting. I wonder if one group handled the same situation in a much "easier" fashion than another if that would cause any problems? Or do you have your captains work to keep their "punishments" in line with each other?

Anyway, the part that I would like to try is to have these squads stay together year after year. As the seniors move on you select a new captain from within each group and they draft the upcoming freshmen. The extra thing I want to do, is have these groups meet (w/ their asst. coach present) once a week to just discuss life. Really get to know each other, share their personal stories, and support each other. They also could plan their own community service project for the summer. This would be be a big ask for asst. coaches if you are at a school without an athletic period where your coaches are present (which I know most are).

[lions23]

Feb 9, 2017 19:32:56 GMT -6 jgordon1 said:

Feb 9, 2017 9:25:48 GMT -6 lions23 said:

We started last year and had exceptional success with our teaching. We followed Urban Meyer's model. We developed a curriculum taking pieces from Dr. Rick McGuire from Mizzou, their former track coach and Urban Meyer's Above the Line book.

We assigned a "unit leader" from each position to train in leadership. We did a coach's seminar on the weekend. All coaches were trained over one day so we would all be familiar with the language and curriculum.

Then myself and HC met with Unit leaders met 1 to 2 times a week during our homeroom period. We discussed the principles we took from McGuire's Positive Coaching (there is a great video) and Meyer's Above the Line. We focused on one principle a week and encouraged the unit leaders to apply to their life, school, relationships, and other sports.

After that each Monday during the summer and before our workout myself and the Unit Leaders presented the material again to the entire team. I used them to share anecdotes of how they had already applied the principles.

We also took some ideas from Jon Gordon's "you win in the locker room first," especially the parts about connections. We took time throughout the summer for the individual units to make connections with their position group. We modeled all of these connection activities within the Unit Leader meetings during the off season. The the Unit Leaders were able to run the connection activities on their own before or after practice.

There were tremendous positives. Anytime we had an issue with the team we just took it to our unit leaders. They talked with their units and solved the problems on their own. It helped develop tremendous autonomy and success dealing with adversity before the season even started.

I was at the same point as the OP where we had some difficult off the field situations a couple of years ago and it was clear we did not have a plan to deal with adversity other than "tough it out" football mentality. With the severity of the incident that was not going to cut it. We had plans for 3rd down, for special teams, blitz concepts, offense and defensive philosophies, but we did not have a real philosophy or concept to deal with adversity.

I don't see us ever leaving that out again.

very interesting..how were the coaches trained?

Coaches went through the same lessons but instead of 2 times a week for a half hour we did it one Saturday. Then they could use the same language and piggyback on lessons as they organically come up in school, personal life, or other sports. They all read above the line on their own or listened to audio.

[groundchuck]

I agree with a lot of the above. I'll add that my players read some Jon Gordon books:
Hard Hat
The Energy Bus
Training Camp

[seabass]

I'm trying to get my guys to understand that it's pretty damn hard to lead if your aren't respected, very few will respect you if they don't trust you and they are unlikely to trust you unless they believe you care about them. At a minimum they have to believe you have their best interest in mind. 

People are usually willing to follow but resist being pushed.

[dbcoach19]

This might not exactly develop a leader, but it's helped us recognize the leaders and our communication a lot..

After conditioning we will do what we call a communication drill. The team will line up on the sideline and we will give them a list of commands to follow. For example, on the first whistle start chopping your feet, second whistle drop to ground, third whistle roll to your back (doesn't matter which side, but everyone has to go the same way), next whistle roll back, next whistle to your feet and chopping, etc. It will be some variation of things like that, nothing too crazy. We usually have 8-10 commands. We don't repeat the steps after the first time, it's up to them to do the exact steps, in order, together, with no mistakes. Any mistake starts the drill over. A lot of kids don't listen at first so the drill is restarted a few times and the kids begin to yell at each other. Usually after a few more rounds of mistakes and them going off on each other, a few kids will gain their composure a bit and start to yell out instructions or how to fix what they are doing wrong to each other. In my experience it helps your leaders communicate better (while tired, it's after conditioning) and the rest of the guys listen and think a little more as it goes on.

It's nothing huge, but it helps in games during long drives or 4th quarters. The guys that take leadership in that drill, tend to be the ones on the field that will be the most vocal and are maybe a little better at getting through to their teammates. We use it more for teaching are guys to keep their cool and think when they are tired, but can help with leadership skills a little bit.

[joris85]

I think many of the above suggestions are great, but:

Whenever I see a leadership topic coming up, I always see a grab bag of solutions, but not really a streamlined idea.
Like any other teaching subject, I believe that you should be able to convey a clear message, without too much "clutter".

The guys at NFA are great at doing that for QB's.
The guys at BFS are great at doing that for S&C.
Steve Jobs was great at that with Apple.

Whenever we talk about Leadership, it sometimes is hard to see the forest through the trees.
Maybe that is because we're not as lectured in it and it might be more abstract than other football related items, such as position fundamentals or strength and conditioning.

Here's what I suggest:
Pick ONE of the following books and follow it to the letter as it's layed out inthere.
- Above the line (Urban Meyer)
- Captain Leadership Manual (Jeff Janssen)
- Any other book that does lay it all out for you

Don't add anything else, as it will probably only add clutter.
(unless you really, REALLY know how to make leadership less abstract)