Why wait until their senior year to develop your captains? 🏆👑

Published: Fri, 08/11/17

'The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership' - Harvey S. Firestone

Do you train your captains on how to lead?

Then when those captains move on, do you feel like you are starting all over again?

Here is a way to take your leadership development to the next level:

Don't wait until they are a junior or senior, when they become captain, to start training them. Instead - develop an emerging leader group.

Identify some leaders at each age level, and establish a big bother/big sister mentoring relationship. Work closely with your captains and more elder players to challenge them to teach leadership skills to their younger mentees.

One tip in doing this - eliminate the words 'freshmen,' 'sophomore,' etc. from your team's vocabulary. These are divisive words. These players are your teammates. Nothing more, nothing less.

The most important way your captains and elder leaders will teach them, just like you as a coach, is through their actions, not their words. Carry the water. Pick up the trash. Encourage someone struggling.

Not only will setting up these mentor relationships help the young leaders grow, the elder mentors will typically develop a sense of pride and take on more responsibility as they sense the importance of their role.

As we wrap up our series on captains, do this:

1 - Train your captains on how to lead

2 - Train your future captains on how to lead from Day 1 entering your program

Great captain training curriculum

I don't endorse many products, but the biggest no-brainer of a product I believe in is the curriculum Adam and his team have developed at Lead 'Em Up. In talking with Adam, I wanted to help spread the word, so he offered a discount for Winning Youth Coaching followers - just enter discount code 'wyccoaches' and save 10% off at checkout at leademup.com.

NEW WYC PODCASTS

WYC 125 - Leadership Expert Jamy Bechler

Just released episode #125 (wow that's gone fast!) with leadership expert Jamy Bechler! Jamy brings 20+ years of coaching and athletic administration experience and now travels across the nation training organizations on leadership. You won't want to miss this one!

Go to podcast episode

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Make winning the right way your habit starting today,
Craig

Craig Haworth is the founder of Winning Youth Coaching, a site dedicated to helping coaches and parents make youth sports an awesome experience for the youth and the parents. He interviews coaches from around the world and posts them on his podcast, which currently has over 125 interviews and has been downloaded over 200,000 times. He writes a weekly note to coaches and parents. He is married to his high-school sweetheart and they share the blessing of 3 children and live in Franklin, TN. You can sign-up for his weekly note here, find him on twitter at @craighaworth1, or visit his website winningyouthcoaching.com.

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men"

- Frederick Douglass