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Developing the Leadership Setting

September 22, 2021 by

How the Learning Context Inspires Confidence, Cohesiveness, and Commitment

It didn’t dawn on me that there might be anxieties and risk involved in team learning until I put a few work teams at a Fortune 100 company under a microscope.  To say the very least, what I observed was a wide-range of defensive and protective behaviors. Ultimately, these attitudes and actions closed off the team’s members from learning.  Instead, the dysfunctions that emerged anchored the team’s collective efforts in the harbor of mediocrity.

As a result of this work I decided to take a closer look at how student-athletes learn in a team setting, and in particular how the context influences the perceived risks involved in learning to lead one’s teammates.  Upon closer inspection it became obvious that many of the risks involved in team learning in the corporate world are mirrored in the athletic world.  Needless to say, learning to lead in any team environment is risky business.

So, how do you get student-athletes to learn together?  There are no simple answers.  However, knowing that the context greatly affects learning is a step (more likely a leap) in the right direction if you’re sincere about your players learning how to lead.

Leadership Development and Psychological Safety

When a student-athlete takes on a leadership role it’s important to understand that he or she will learn primarily through trial and error (which is why I firmly believe in deliberate practice—scrimmage—as a way to reduce perceived risks).  If a student is learning physics she will likely study and learn in private with no one aware of her mistakes.  However, learning to lead teammates requires learning in front of one’s peers, and this is intimidating.  The peer learning environment brings a perceived risk of appearing ignorant and incompetent in front of one’s peers.

Because most student-athletes have little experience at leading, which includes making mistakes in front of teammates, such fears as embarrassment and rejection are always present.  Many student-athletes are reluctant to take action or to speak up or speak out for fear that their actions will be held against them by teammates.  And this discourages young men and women from taking leadership actions.

To neutralize such fears, it’s in every ones best interest to create a psychologically safe environment.  Psychological safety is the shared understanding that the team is an environment where members will not embarrass, disrespect, disregard, or punish a teammate for taking action.  All members understand that a supportive learning environment is necessary to building a psychologically safe team context.

At the heart of the growth of a team leader is the leader as a learner, the learning process, and the context, which together form the cornerstone of leadership development.  Always keep in mind that the team leader is engaging in learning a new mindset as well as a new skill-set.   That is, the student-athlete as a team leader is undergoing a tremendous transformation and that a psychologically safe environment is fundamental to growth and development.

Exclusive: Grab your FREE copy of 10 more top articles from Dr. Cory Dobbs!

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Let me issue a quick reminder, leadership is a social influence process of motivating team members to achieve individual and team goals and the team’s mission.  As such, the norms that emerge from team member interactions will create team dynamics that build a team’s culture.

Your first project as the chief architect of the team environment is to create a psychologically safe learning zone. Ultimately, you have more to do with a team leader’s learning to lead—or not learning—than you probably thought you did.  If you’re not growing team leaders, then it’s likely the problem is not the seed, it’s the soil.

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

We are pleased to announce a new chapter to the second edition of the best-selling Coaching for Leadership. The chapter, The Big Shift: Unlock Your Team’s Potential by Creating Player-Led Teambuilding, connects the previous edition of this book to its origin, as well as to the future of team sports.

The new chapter sets forth a practical and applicable agenda for change and improvement. The reader is introduced to seven vital elements of change; seven shifts of traditional mental models that lead to the new core principles necessary for creating a player-led team culture. Click here for more information about Coaching for Leadership

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cory Dobbs is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership and a nationally recognized thought leader in the areas of leadership and team building.  Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience. Cory engages in naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting.

A college basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition.  After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process.  As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.

 

Filed Under: Leadership

Radical Reorientation: An Intense Approach to Student-Athlete Well-Being

September 9, 2021 by

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 and coaches create each other. The challenge of shaping a team’s culture is that culture is shaped by behavior and likewise, behavior is shaped by culture.

However, most players are blind to teamwork dynamics. The result is team culture of the high-performance variety is more elusive than most of us care to believe. But it’s true. It is very likely your culture is nothing spectacular. To understand changing culture you must engage “leverage points.” Figuring out where to start is far from straightforward; it depends upon where your team is and where you want to go. Sounds simple enough, it’s not. So where might you begin?

In short, a good place to start—a leverage point—is to seek out whatever creates toxicity. So what is the most pernicious poison of culture building? Playing time. Every student-athlete wants more playing time. On the one hand student-athletes are quick to declare “all in” on the team thing. Yet, on the other hand, the world says take care of number one—and student-athletes are all in here too. In the spacious context of self-interest, one can self-justify what one does in the interest of the team. From the perspective of the student-athlete, the needs and wants of the individual player need to be met by some type of desired compensation. Simply said, if a student-athlete pays the price of time, effort, and energy—contributing to the development of the team, they’ll expect to get something in return.

The line that separates the individual’s self-interest from the team’s self-interest is blurred; it’s difficult to see where one begins and the other ends. We know they overlap, spill-over, and interrelate, yet do not know exactly what form the mixture of these two driving forces will contribute to the team’s culture. However, learning how to navigate this messy terrain will help coaches, players, and teams to see more and do more. If done right, the navigation of the messy terrain will give you a new way of looking at the pernicious problem of playing time.

Exclusive: Grab your FREE copy of 10 more top articles from Dr. Cory Dobbs!

Enter your email below to grab your free and limited time offer download of the ebook now!


The greatest and highest reward for one’s effort and toil is not what one gets for it, but who one becomes by it. This small, but potentially seismic shift in perspective—a radical reorientation—is filled with a profound sense of promise and possibility. The rewards are undeniable. Toiling for others on the team is noble, and unites the team. Participation on a team provides comfort and community. By being a part of something bigger than one’s self student-athletes gain meaning and worth. The athlete’s toil and inner struggle are never in vain if the goal is well-being; accessing a higher level being, and redirecting and reshaping one’s inner experience so that they have the freedom of choice on who they want to become.

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

We are pleased to announce a new chapter to the second edition of the best-selling Coaching for Leadership. The chapter, The Big Shift: Unlock Your Team’s Potential by Creating Player-Led Teambuilding, connects the previous edition of this book to its origin, as well as to the future of team sports.

The new chapter sets forth a practical and applicable agenda for change and improvement. The reader is introduced to seven vital elements of change; seven shifts of traditional mental models that lead to the new core principles necessary for creating a player-led team culture. Click here for more information about Coaching for Leadership

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cory Dobbs is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership and a nationally recognized thought leader in the areas of leadership and team building.  Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience. Cory engages in naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting.

A college basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition.  After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process.  As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.

 

Filed Under: Leadership

Beyond IQ: How Grit and Reflection Can Change the Way You Coach

August 3, 2021 by

 

 

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 of academic achievement and, of course, physical accomplishments.  She considers grit to be the behavioral and psychological ability of one to weather adversity and stay the course—willing to persevere in the short term for the longer term outcomes.  In her findings, she argues that achievement is not just a matter of raw intelligence or physical giftedness.  She suggests grit matters a great deal in all that we do. So the question arises can grit, through the practice of reflection, enhance coaching ability to reflect on events, relationships, and performance?

 

Several years ago a group of researchers were interested in understanding the importance of reflection to the processes of adult learning and leadership.  In their paper, “Learning by Thinking: How Reflection Aids Performance,“ the researchers reveal the importance of deliberate reflection to learning and leading through a series of experiments.

 

The researchers worked with small groups through a multi-week training program.  They broke the subjects into three groups.  First, they had a “reflection” group; they asked this group to spend the final 15 minutes of each day reflecting on what they had learned. The Second group was given the task of “sharing.”  This group spent 15 minutes reflecting, and then shared their thoughts with a peer for 5 minutes.  The third group, the control group, did not engage in any reflective activity.

Exclusive: Grab your FREE copy of 10 more top articles from Dr. Cory Dobbs!

Enter your email below to grab your free and limited time offer download of the ebook now!


The results aren’t surprising. The participants in the reflection group performed 22.8% better than the control group while the participants in the sharing group experienced a similar advantage over the control group participants. However, think for a moment about the work that you and your coaching staff do daily. What does the nitty-gritty look like?  Do you and your staff miss out on learning opportunities—those that will only emerge in the course of reflection?  Can you set aside 15-20 minutes for reflection and when possible include sharing in your coaching conversation?  Doing so will make your daily experience more productive and build confidence, individually and collectively, in learning by reflection.

Reflection is a powerful learning mechanism, so make time for deliberate conversation and reflection.  Reflection is an important coaching activity. Reflection is a skill that can be learned, developed, and practiced. If you want a sustainable advantage, take advantage of coupling learning by doing with intentional reflection.

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

We are pleased to announce a new chapter to the second edition of the best-selling Coaching for Leadership. The chapter, The Big Shift: Unlock Your Team’s Potential by Creating Player-Led Teambuilding, connects the previous edition of this book to its origin, as well as to the future of team sports.

The new chapter sets forth a practical and applicable agenda for change and improvement. The reader is introduced to seven vital elements of change; seven shifts of traditional mental models that lead to the new core principles necessary for creating a player-led team culture. Click here for more information about Coaching for Leadership

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cory Dobbs is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership and a nationally recognized thought leader in the areas of leadership and team building.  Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience. Cory engages in naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting.

A college basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition.  After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process.  As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.

 

Filed Under: Leadership, Uncategorized

Creating Teammate Accountability

February 10, 2021 by

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 Dobbs, Founder & President of The Academy for Sport Leadership, teams often become so focused on tasks and strategies and their commitment to the “team” begins to wane.

In the video clip below Dr. Dobbs discusses a case study he conducted with a team that was underperforming.

Exclusive: Grab your FREE copy of 10 more top articles from Dr. Cory Dobbs!

Enter your email below to grab your free and limited time offer download of the ebook now!


He shares the process he used to help them develop teammate accountability and become a more successful team that was focused on transformation, relationships, and harmony.

If you are a coach that is interested in the new science of leadership, teamwork, and teambuilding then you will want to check out Dr. Dobbs’s new masterclass: Coaching for Leadership.

In this groundbreaking course he shares his 3 Big Ideas:

  • A Leader in Every Locker
  • Coaching for Leadership
  • Teamwork Intelligence

*The Football Toolbox subscribers: Use coupon code “Toolbox25” to receive a 25% discount on the course at checkout here: Coaching for Leadership Masterclass*

Filed Under: Leadership

Healthy Coaching Staff Conversations

May 20, 2020 by

Focus on the Coaching Staff

HEALTHY CONVERSATION: THE STARTING POINT

The most valuable resource in any organization is the human resource.  The second most valuable resource may just be the way we talk to one another.  That’s because we spend a considerable part of our work lives in conversation—it’s the way we get things done.  And the way we talk and relate to one another is expressed in conversation.  So it’s appropriate to suggest that conversation determines the quality of our work and our work life—for better or worse.

To that end, while it’s self-evident that we have more tools for communication than ever before, our exchanges seem more fragmented and our relationships more disconnected causing us to miss out on the promise of conversation.  Therefore, we need to get smart about how we talk to one another.

Over the past decade and-a-half I’ve witnessed many dysfunctional coaching staffs.  The primary dysfunction is rarely a result of coaching strategy, tactics, or philosophy.  Rather, it is manifested in the way the staff members talk with one another.  The complexity of coaching a team requires a coaching staff to think together, which is accomplished through conversation.  Unfortunately this is often where the wheels fall off the team bus.

Exclusive: Grab your FREE copy of 10 more top articles from Dr. Cory Dobbs!

Enter your email below to grab your free and limited time offer download of the ebook now!


Think of a conversation as a dynamic, interactive process that unfolds over time among individuals.  For the most part, the objective of deep conversation (we’ll save shallow conversation for later) is to solve a problem—either task related or person and performance.  The implied goal of communication is to “share” one’s reality.  The flaw is that reality is produced by our individual filters and colored by our unique experiences.

To build a high-performance coaching staff necessitates conversational participants connect rigorously (intensity) and relationally (intimately).   Rigorous conversation is communication that is authentic and stimulates a search for reliability, while relational conversation is designed to promote healthy working relationships and a stimulating environment.  The essence of rigorous and relational conversation is not only to share one’s reality, but to create a reality that includes the voices of all participants.

The coaching world resides in a complex setting—mixing human behavior and real-time decision making.  Most coaches (head and assistant) don’t want merely to survive the decision making process; they want to be effective, or even excellent at what they do.  To do so requires the coaching staff to understand that conversational experience is a vital part of the message.  That is, communication occurs from an emotional, ego-driven perspective as much as it does from a logical mindset.

The emotional aspect of conversation often is a trigger to a quick death of communication.  When someone disagrees with us, we get angry or defensive, and, depending on the status difference, we are likely to dismiss the other’s input.  After all, we simply want the other person to see the world as we see it.

I believe we can transform the way your coaching staff works.  I think rigorous and relational conversation is the answer.  I make this assertion because I know that small-scale conversation is the beating heart of any team.  One conversation, moment, or incident, can have a profound impact on an individual or a team.  One comment, question, or discussion can inspire and provoke fundamental change.   Truth be told, rigorous and relational conversation is the only way to build harmonious, constructive, and mutually beneficial relationships that produce high performance.

New to the Second Edition of Coaching for Leadership!

We are pleased to announce a new chapter to the second edition of the best-selling Coaching for Leadership. The chapter, The Big Shift: Unlock Your Team’s Potential by Creating Player-Led Teambuilding, connects the previous edition of this book to its origin, as well as to the future of team sports.

The new chapter sets forth a practical and applicable agenda for change and improvement. The reader is introduced to seven vital elements of change; seven shifts of traditional mental models that lead to the new core principles necessary for creating a player-led team culture. Click here for more information about Coaching for Leadership

About Cory Dobbs, Ed.D.

Cory Dobbs is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership and a nationally recognized thought leader in the areas of leadership and team building.  Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience. Cory engages in naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena within their natural setting.

A college basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition.  After a decade of research and development Cory unleashed the groundbreaking Teamwork Intelligence program for student-athletics. Teamwork Intelligence illuminates the process of designing an elite team by using the 20 principles and concepts along with the 8 roles of a team player he’s uncovered while performing research.

Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs, and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process.  As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with Fortune 500 organizations such as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet, as well as medium and small businesses. Dr. Dobbs taught leadership and organizational change at Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.

Filed Under: Leadership

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