Intentional Leadership for Players

"Leaders make leaders." Use 'distributed leadership' as a tool to develop leaders.

The best teams have leadership that is player driven. Coaches shouldn't need to enforce:

• Punctuality
• Equipment setup and deployed properly
• Individual pre-practice stretching/warmup
• Player-led drills
• Post-practice or game equipment storage and area cleanup
• Leave the gym in better condition than you found it. 

Japan's locker room after the World Cup showed who they are. 

The greatest team in the history of sports, the New Zealand All-Blacks rugby squad has a motto, "sweep the sheds." Everyone keeps the locker room orderly.

Everyone can lead. Coach Jack Clark of Cal rugby expects a team of leaders, including freshmen. Lead through effort, study, and never be a distraction. Embrace your role while working to expand it. 

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's father told him, "It's not enough to be right. You have to be effective."

Nelson Mandela's father always spoke last to provide more thoughtful answers to the group. 

Abraham Lincoln wrote "Hot Letters" to subordinates, especially generals, about his displeasure with their actions. But he filed them and wrote, "never signed, never sent" to assuage his angst. 

GM CEO Alfred Sloan tabled final decisions if consensus was too easy. Great decisions usually beat fast ones. 

Jocko Willink, SEAL team leader, and author of "Extreme Ownership" had a mission fail tragically. He took full responsibility. His superiors counseled him to do better and kept him on. 

Women need women's success stories. "Be nice; speak up." My younger sister Laura began her retail career after graduating from BC. She advance to become CEO at BJ's Wholesale Clubs, a Fortune 500 company. She has been Board Chairman at the Pine Street Inn and served on the boards of prominent area institutions such as Massport, Mass Mutual, the Boston Ballet, and Dana Farber Cancer Center. She noted, "I've always found that I get way, way more – I get way more back than I ever give."

Inc. profiled former Facebook COO Cheryl Sandberg among successful women in business. She emphasizes responsibility. "Take responsibility. Don't say, 'The project didn't get finished because my colleague didn't do his part'; say, 'The project didn't get finished because I didn't set up a team in which my colleague wanted to do his part.' When you take full responsibility, you are empowered to achieve."

Lagniappe. Shorter players must block, too.