Leadership

How do you cultivate a dynamic personal brand?  Many coaches think that focusing  on personal branding is unnecessary.  They shy away from engaging in personal branding–viewing it as self-promotion.  However, the reality is that we all have personal brands, whether we focus on them or not.  We should be aware of how others view us, ...

As a leadership educator your main task is to create a psychologically safe environment in which your players want to learn how to become team leaders.  This is not a trivial distinction. A learning climate characterized by trust and openness is critical to encourage young people to respect and appreciate their teammates, coaches and the ...

  Teamwork Intelligence Conversational Exercise The following questions are intended for leadership conversation involving coaches and players. The deeper your conversation goes the closer and clearer you get to understanding the heart and mind of each team member. The deeper the better; adverse incidents happen daily—it’s a guarantee.        What Can You Do When Something Unfair Happens?   Let’s Talk About ...

The number one priority of every coach, player, and administrator is building the team’s culture—not winning. And if you get that right, most of the other stuff—such as tactical precision, selfless behavior, teamwork intelligence, and mental toughness—will happen as a natural by-product of the culture created by the team. This is how culture works: players ...

    Beyond IQ: How Grit and Reflection Can Change the Way You Coach Dr. Cory Dobbs (7/29/21)      (3 to 4 minutes reading) Angela Duckworth has been one of the leading researchers and voices on the topic of “grit” –something  she defines as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”  Duckworth has found that grit can be a powerful predictor ...

Have you ever coached a team that was talented but something was just missing and as a result it simply underperformed? If the answer is no … then either you haven’t been coaching long or you are one of the all-time great coaches. The truth is a lot of teams fall short of expectations. But why? According to Dr. Cory ...

Submitted by Dr. Cory Dobbs of The Academy for Sport Leadership. Dr. Dobbs is a regular contributor on coaching for leadership to The Coaching Toolbox. Three Reasons Every Coach Needs a Mentor Most coaches enter the profession with a vision on building a career.  Simply stated, anyone who is building a career will need help along the way. ...

Cory Dobbs, Ed.D. The Academy for Sport Leadership Time and again, through my own eyes and those of student-athletes, I have seen the impact of poor leadership. Leadership from the ranks of the players and leadership from the coaching staff, when not actions of character, almost always turn out badly. Teams underperform, players drift from the team, ...

By Dr. Rob Bell Dr. Bell is a Mental Toughness Coach and Certified Consultant of the Association for Applied Sport Psychology.  He consults with hundreds of athletes, coaches, and teams and has served as the mental coach for PGA tour winners, USTA Champion, and Olympic Medalists.  He is also the author of several mental toughness books. ...

This article is republished with permission. The original article appears at How to Prepare for Pressure in Volleyball. Using Visualization to Overcome Pressures in Games How well do you perform during a volleyball match when the game is on the line? Are you able to focus when under pressure or does your performance fall off dramatically? Have you ever ...

The R.E.A.L. Man Program is a strategic and progressive character development program designed to help middle school, high school, and college-aged students to reach their full potential, in every aspect of their lives. The 20-lesson program is a blueprint for success, which is aimed at helping students understand and live out the principles of a positive and ...

This article is also posted  on The Coaches Toolbox, a collection of free resources for coaches of all sports Answering the question “What is leadership?” begins by grounding it in these 7 core assumptions By Dr. Cory Dobbs The Academy for Sport Leadership Excerpt from A Leader in Every Locker (2016) “I’m not used to supposing. I’m just a working man. My ...

This article can be found at The Coaches Toolbox, a collection of free resources for coaches of all sports. By Cory Dobbs, Ed.D. A maxim of team building is that the biggest wins start small.  This too is true of the biggest losses.  Recently, I was called in by a successful coach to help him save his ...

By Dawn Redd-Kelly If you’re not happy with the culture of your team, how are you working daily to change it around?  As was said over at Leadership Freak, “Toxic environments are the result of neglecting culture-building and tolerating toxicity.” When we find ourselves with a negative team culture, it’s easy to blame the athletes, but we hold some ...

This article is also found on the Coaches Toolbox, a collection of free resources for coaches of all sports. The success of any institution, organization, group, or team, is grounded in the effective application of leadership. By Cory Dobbs, Ed.D. Lessons from the Art Studio “Students who are truly student-athletes have a chance for a life-transforming, life-shaping experience. I can ...

This post was provided by InnerDrive, a mental skills training company How do we become better leaders? An effective leader is someone who can create an inspiring vision, motivate and inspire their team, manage the delivery of that shared purpose and then coach and improve that team in order to achieve that end goal. So what ...

What to do after a tough loss? Ask these three simple questions after a tough loss and/or a disappointing performance What went well?What needs work? What did we learn? By John  O’Sullivan, Founder of Changing the Game Project,   a site that is your one stop shopping for  the latest and greatest information, research, and best practices regarding high performance, ...

In order to be successful coaches must do more than accentuate the positive. The must eliminate the negative. Here are some tips. By Dawn Redd-Kelly Being a great head coach means success in competition. I don’t know that we coaches can be successful if we don’t manage our team’s culture. While we certainly have to guide them ...

Everybody wants to be somebody. Once this becomes a fundamental way of viewing your teammates, classmates, and everyone you meet, you will become a person of influence. Dr. Cory Dobbs Homelessness is a complex problem. Not just because a person without a home needs money and other essential resources—but because the psychological consequences are crippling. A homeless ...

Dr. Cory Dobbs “It’s not enough to know how to lead; you need to know how to build leaders too.” On a scale from one to ten, how important is having a positive culture to your team’s ability to reach its potential? When I ask coaches this question, most of them answer in the nines and tens. ...

by Dr. Cory Dobbs, a national leader in providing leadership resources for coaches and student-athletes. The most recent resources include Coaching for Leadership and Teamwork Intelligence: a workbook for the student-athlete along with a facilitator’s guide for the coach. Excerpt from “Coaching for Leadership” Are you a talented coach on the rise? Do you want to be an “A‐Level” coach? ...

  This article was written and submitted by J.P. Nerbun of Thrive On Challenge Sports Forget about setting uncontrollable mid-level goals this season. Make these six commitments and build a transformational culture in your program that values people. Commitment 1: Be authentic and vulnerable with your team. Start the process to become a transformational coach AND open up with your team about ...

Dr. Cory Dobbs Academy for Sport Leadership Why is it that student-athletes fear leadership roles and responsibilities?How then can you change the outcome of inaction? Practice, practice, practice.  Just as you practice your offensive and defensive systems, you must practice your leadership system. One of the deepest needs within people is belonging.  If you’re a coach you belong ...

Many student-athletes are reluctant to take actions or to speak up or speak out for fear that their actions may be held against them by teammates. To neutralize such fears it’s in your best interest to create a psychologically safe environment. By Cory Dobbs, Ed.D. It didn’t dawn on me that there might be anxieties and risk ...

This article may also be found at the Coaches Toolbox, a collection of free resources for coaches of all sports. by Dr. Cory Dobbs To help lift your team’s performance look for ways to infuse your team with passion. Help teammates believe in themselves. Build their confidence and self-esteem. Check out these 8 Principles to Infuse your Team with ...

The Team Leadership model creates an environment in which members are accountable not just to the coach, but to the team as a whole. If you are willing to give up some control, and believe that all team members can inspire each other, your team will reap the benefits This article can also be found on ...

Help your emerging and existing leaders recognize, value, and act on the many tiny opportunities to lead every day.  Take a look at this simple 12-point checklist created by Jeff Janseen. By Jeff Janssen, founder and president of the Janssen Sports Leadership Center Jeff directs cutting-edge Leadership Academies for high school and college coaches and all across ...

This article is also found on Coaches Toolbox, a collection of free resources for coaches of all sports. Do you want more team unity and trust? Start by eliminating distrust and create cohesion in your coaching staff.  Unified teams have unified staffs. How can you build trust among members of your staff? By Stephanie Zonars. You can ...

This article was provided by Coaches Network How do you deal with an athlete that is slumping? Far too often when high-performing athletes begin to lag in their success rates, speed, or concentration in games or practice, coaches just don’t know how to handle it. First they think it’s just a temporary hiccup and that the athlete will ...

By John O’Sullivan, founder of Change the Game Project “My daughter and I had to miss her grandfather’s funeral when she was 12 for a cheerleading competition.” I had to read that twice to be sure what I was reading. This was an actual comment we received recently on Facebook. We receive a lot of heartbreaking stories ...