The Edge Coaching

There have been some interesting debates in the media recently about leadership and control, whether the focus has been on the England RU approach to their games or the toing and froing about Gordon Brown’s approach to leadership.

It has all been very revealing in that clearly many people still see a leader as the controlling and dominant one. In the England RU example the suggestion is that the Coaching Team are controlling the way the players play their games and hence interfering with their freedom to flex and adapt within the game.

I am currently reading a book by one of the most successful sports coaches ever, the late Jack Gibson who coached in Australian Rugby League for many years. His thoughts on leadership are very relevant to the whole debate about control:
“Coaches who can’t or won’t delegate authority and responsibility are stunting their own future as well as their team’s. The only job they are capable of handling is a very limited one - small enough so they can personally supervise all the details. Develop your team - don’t try to be indispensible!” Later he quotes Roosevelt: “The best coach is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them whilst they do it.”

I also had a chance last week to talk with Professor Richard Light, who works at Leeds Met University. Also an Australian, his focus is on how sports players and athletes make decisions within the unfolding game or event. The message was the same, coaches (and leaders) need to be able to let go and let the “players” get on with what they need to do to create successful outcomes. Their role is to manage the preparations, the learning, the practice, the recruitment, the planning so that they can then let go and leave people to manage what I have referred to before as the “dislocated expectations” as the game or project progresses.

If you have done your homework and prepared your team, business or project participants well you can let go and let them get on with it. That is a leadership strategy worth practising!