Leadership Development: Generations Past & Present

This post is mostly geared toward coaches, but I would be very interested to hear what parents and players think about it.

Many coaches believe that finding well prepared leaders is becoming harder and harder. Some coaches and researchers believe that it has to do with the changes over time. My generation and those prior will remember spending time after school and summer days out at the park or the ballfield. No parents, just neighborhood kids getting together to play baseball, basketball, soccer, etc. Many leadership skills were developed those days. Kids would pick the teams, make the rules, and resolve their own conflicts. Those times are no longer with us.

Today's athletes do not get the same advantage of developing leadership skills early. Not many parents will allow their kids to head off to a park on their own in today's world. In order to ensure that kids will still have an outlet for energy and sport, parents have formed many leagues or activities for their kids. What has happened is that kids are now in an adult dominated environment. The adults pick the teams, umpire the games, tell the kids where to play, and so on. This has decreased the amount of players that come into programs with "natural" leadership ability.

I am far from saying that parents are disabling their kids, nor am I saying that they should allow their kids to go off to the park unsupervised. I know that I wouldn't consider letting my son run around on his own. What I am saying is that, as a society, we have found ways to allow our children to play in safe, supervised environments, but have not found a way to supplement for the loss of leadership and problem solving situations. Coaches, parents, and those that work with young athletes need to train them as well as give them opportunities to make decisions and problem solve. Many athletes want to be leaders. They want to step up and help move a team past its potential. They just do not know how to do it. We need to feed their hunger to lead and not assume that they know what we are talking about when we ask them to lead.

My plan for Helias is to put a leadership training program in place so that our leadership base will reciprocate year to year. Many coaches believe that a team with great talent and no leadership travels a shorter distance than a team of talented athletes with great leadership. I am among those coaches.

"To every man there comes in his lifetime that special moment when he is figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered a chance to do a very special thing, unique to him and fitted to his talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds him unprepared or unqualified for the work which would be his finest hour." Winston Churchill