The Biggest Reason Why Your Captains Often Struggle...

By Jeff Janssen, M.S., Peak Performance Coach

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What’s one of the biggest reasons why your captains struggle to be effective leaders? Interestingly, it is not a lack of desire. The vast majority of captains I talk with sincerely want to be effective leaders for you and your team. 

The biggest reason why captains are not as effective as they should be is most often a lack of awareness. They lack an awareness both in terms of what it takes to be an effective leader, and just as important, they lack an awareness of their strengths and weaknesses as leaders. This fact has become painfully obvious to me as I ask captains to evaluate themselves as leaders - and to have their teammates and coaches evaluate them using the Team Leadership Evaluation.

This captain’s evaluation is available for free online at  http://www.jeffjanssen.com/coaching/evaluation2.html

Here’s an example...

One athlete rated himself at a 115 out of 120 on the Team Leadership Evaluation. This athlete essentially believed he was a superb leader and was highly confident that he was doing a spectacular job as evidenced by his nearly perfect self score. 

However, the ratings from his teammates told a completely different story. His coaches rated him at only an 87, which is night and day difference (28 points) from his viewpoint. The coaches rating of 87 meant the coaching staff did not even consider the young man to be a team leader whereas the athlete somehow believed he was in the top 5% of all leaders. 

Worse, his teammates had him rated even lower at an 85, effectively corroborating the coaches’ views. His teammates too had little respect for this athlete’s “leadership” skills.

Now the major problem is unless this athlete becomes aware of how his teammates and coaches actually view him, he will continue to exhibit the same “leadership” skills he thinks are exemplary. This situation is similar to walking around with spinach in your teeth, a big ketchup stain on your shirt, and your fly open and no one is kind/brave enough to tell you... 

Without the honest and helpful feedback from his coaches and teammates, this well-meaning, yet clueless athlete will remain painfully unaware that he has some significant shortcomings and fatal flaws as a leader that must be improved.

In sharing this far too common example, my hope is that it sheds some light on the problem of why your captains often struggle to be effective. More and more I’m discovering that many of them think they are doing a great job as leaders, yet they don’t receive any substantial feedback to realize that their coaches and teammates do not see them as the effective leader they think they are. 

My research shows that three out of four captains (74%) rate themselves as better leaders than how their coaches rate them. How about your leaders? Are they too under the assumption that they are leading effectively when you and your athletes have some/several concerns?

Typically, a mere 10% of captains rate themselves in the same ballpark as their teammates and coaches. This obviously means that roughly 9 out of 10 leaders are “awareness-challenged” when it comes to self assessing their leadership skills in comparison to their coaches’ and teammates’ views.

The remaining 15% of captains rate themselves lower than how their coaches and teammates rate them. 

These leaders are often overly self-critical and/or lack the confidence to step up and take charge. Once these leaders receive the affirming feedback of their teammates’ and coaches’ higher scores, they quickly gain the confidence necessary to step up as Vocal Leaders and speak out knowing that they have the support and confidence of the team.  

My latest statistics also reveal that the average captain, without any leadership training, rates herself at a 97 as a leader on the Team Leadership Evaluation. The coaches rate these same captains at an average of 87 (below the Vocal Leader threshold) - and their teammates have them at a 90. Clearly there is a discrepancy.

However, with leadership training the numbers improve considerably in two ways:

1. After undergoing leadership training the average scores for the captains rise to the following - self average rating of 105, teammate average rating of 100, and coach average rating of 98. This means that a captain’s leadership skills are rated as better by themselves, their teammates, and their coaches following leadership training. 

2. The additional benefit of the training is that the leader’s views of her leadership skills becomes more in line with how she is evaluated by her coaches and teammates. Rather than blindly leading with no understanding of herself, she becomes more aware of her strengths and shortcomings as a leader and in closer alignment with how her teammates and coaches see her.

To promote better awareness on the part of your leaders you must invest the time to do two things:

1. Teach your captains what it really means to be a leader as well as train them to develop the necessary skills and insights to become an effective leader for your team.

2. Provide your captains with regular, quantitative and qualitative feedback from their coaches and teammates on their leadership skills. The Team Leadership Evaluation is obviously a potential tool to help you do this.

One important thing to consider: Anyone who has ever received anonymous feedback from others on their skills knows it can be a scary and challenging process. Hopefully your leaders will have the courage to put themselves out there to see how they stand.  While I encourage captains to get feedback, I don’t make it mandatory and encourage you to utilize the same policy. The best you can do is to encourage them to get the feedback and let them know how valuable it would be for their development. Getting feedback from others is consistently rated as one the best and strongest aspects of a leadership development program. 

Finally, as a challenge to you as a coach or athletic director, remember what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Just as you hope your captains would be open to receiving feedback on their leadership skills, I challenge you to be open to receiving the same kind of helpful feedback from your athletes and staff.

Check Jeff's Site out here!