AFM Home | The Staff Report | Sept 2004

By Jeff Janssen, M.S.
Peak Performance Coach
www.jeffjanssen.com
1-888-721-TEAM

Your team captains can make or break your season. When you look back over your coaching career, I’ll bet that you had great team leaders during your most successful seasons and poor leaders during your most frustrating seasons. Your team captains have a huge impact on your team’s success, your sanity, and your satisfaction as a coach. Here are some points you should consider:

1. Look for leaders when selecting your team.
Of course you will look for talent when you are recruiting and selecting athletes for your team – but also be on the lookout for leadership ability. Look for athletes who were team captains at other levels, involved with student council, or voted class president. It is much easier to help athletes further develop their leadership skills than to start from scratch.

2. Acknowledge the importance of your leaders.
Let your leaders know how important they are to you and your program’s success. Don’t be afraid to the let them know how much you will rely on them to set the standards, keep the team focused, and handle conflicts. You may even want to tell them that it is “their” team.

3. Explore your leaders’ definition of leadership.
Ask your leaders to describe their philosophy of leadership and what it means to be an effective leader. Their experience of leadership might be quite different from yours. Talk about the leaders whom they respect in their lives and why. Also ask them about leaders they don’t respect and why. This will give you tremendous insights into their model of leadership.

4. Discuss what you expect of your leaders.
Sit down with your leaders to discuss exactly what you expect from them. Let them know their responsibilities and how you expect them to conduct themselves. Clarifying your expectations and their roles ahead of time will greatly minimize problems down the road.

5. Discuss the risks and hazards of being a leader.
Talk frankly about the inherent challenges and problems your leaders are likely to face. They will have to deal with conflict, they won’t always be liked, and they are always being watched. Be sure they understand that these challenges go with the territory and that they have to be willing to handle them.

6. Provide captains with opportunities to lead.
Look to provide your captains with various opportunities to lead the team. Let them run warm-ups before practice. Let them make any announcements that need to be made for the benefit of the group. Have them call their teammates to inform them when you have changes in your schedule.

7. Give captains input on decisions.
Solicit your captains input on decisions that affect the team. These can be with minor choices like where to eat after the game to major decisions like giving their input on how to handle discipline situations. The more responsibility and input you give them, the better leaders they will become.

8. Encourage your leaders to build a relationship with each
teammate.
Encourage your leaders to invest the time to build a working relationship with each of their teammates. Just as you need to know each of your players as a coach, so too must your captains be able to relate to each of their teammates.

9. Confidentially discuss the psyches of each team member.
Once you have built a sufficient level of trust with your captains, confidentially discuss the mindsets of each of their teammates. Which teammates are fragile and which are mentally tough? Which athletes are lazy and which are committed?

10. Discuss various approaches to conflict.
Talk with your leaders about potential conflict situations which might arise as well as some potential ways to handle them. This could range from ignoring it to an all out confrontation. Your leaders need to know they have a choice in how they handle conflicts on the team – and the likely consequences of their choices.

11. Have frequent discussions, chats, check-ins.
You and your leaders should communicate frequently. Whether you designate specific meeting times or check-in with each other informally, you will need to continually be on the same page to be effective.

12. Encourage your captains to share their insights with the team.
Your captains will often share their insights and opinions with you in individual meetings. When appropriate, encourage them to share these thoughts with the rest of their teammates. Rather than you doing all the communicating, encourage your captains to tell their teammates things that you both feel they need to hear.

13. Support your captains - be there for them.
Since being a captain is an extremely challenging job, especially for teenagers and young adults, you need to be there for them. They will have internal and external struggles throughout the season. They will be torn between meeting your expectations and their desire to be liked and accepted by their teammates. Understand this and help them work through it. You also will need to watch their backs and back them up when they confront their teammates. They need to know that they have your complete support and trust.

14. Give your captains leadership roles in school and in the
community.
Nominate your captains for positions where they will be seen as leaders by others. You can have them to run for Student Council, nominate them for the Student-Athlete Advisory Council, get them involved in a Captain’s Council, and encourage them to get involved with community service opportunities.

15. Start early grooming future leaders.
Start early to identify athletes who have the potential to develop into future leaders for your team. Give them some small responsibilities to see how they handle them. Also, encourage them to learn what to do and what not to do from your more experienced and established leaders. You must continually look to develop new leaders to put into your leadership pipeline so that you don’t have a leadership void when your current leaders leave the program.