Three Pronged Team Leadership
One of the top principles of our man-to-man defense is ‘fronting the post’. This is an intricate part of our defense leading the country in field goal percentage defense in both of the last two seasons. In addition, Coach Hamilton and our staff also were statistical champions in this area in 1997-98 at the University of Miami. As the old saying goes, “the true test of success is the test of time.” We must be doing something right on the defensive end of the court.
For our dead front principle to work, we always emphasize to our team that this is not just an individual responsibility but it requires a ‘three-prong’ coordinated effort of, 1) the man guarding the ball to apply the right kind of pressure on the ball and in the vision of the potential passer, 2) the man guarding the low post potential receiver must get completely to his position and not allow a bounce pass to be thrown to his man, and the 3) the man guarding the weak side offensive player must be a position to steal or disrupt any pass thrown over the top while not losing vision of the man he is guarding. It takes all three doing their job to make our defense great.
I said all that to say this, for any team to be GREAT, it must have a three-prong coordinated effort within the team’s internal leadership. As coaches, we all work extremely hard to teach our system and the little things that make it effective like fronting the post, where at times we fail to realize that the ultimate key to our success is the chemistry building required within the players on the team. It has been my experience that all championship level basketball teams have the following three-prong leadership consistently displayed; 1) Spiritual leadership, 2) Exemplary leadership, and 3) Egotistical leadership.
Spiritual leadership comes from those players whose words inspire others. They have an innate ability to know what needs to be said when it needs to be said. They can sense what their teammates need in high-pressure situations and when things aren’t going well, as well they understand the importance of connecting their words with their teammates that lift them up or calm them down. They are willing to bring the group together when they may be tuning out the coaching leadership and take over the ownership of the team by explaining things to their team from a player’s perspective. This is becoming more of a challenge to find on a team as this generation has their mind space and their ear space occupied by so many forms these days that they feel uncomfortable expressing themself verbally or feeling that their teammates aren’t or won’t listen. But the great teams have this person or people emerge over time.
Exemplary leadership comes from those players whose physical efforts inspire others. They never have a bad day energy wise. And it is obvious that they are totally bought into the program because of the energy level that the display every day. They play through pain. They do the little things. They do more than what is asked. On championship teams, you need at least one of these types of players to be talented enough that their role is significant enough that players respect their position on the team as well as their efforts. What becomes even more effective is when the player with this leadership skill also is a player not afraid to add some spiritual leadership to them team by using his vocal communication to challenge his teammates to raise their games and their energy on those days they don’t seem to have it. This player is usually capable of gaining the most followers the quickest because others can see and almost touch the reality of the accomplishments of this player.
Egotistical leadership comes from those players whose production inspires others. This can be the hardest one for others to follow because of the many mixed messages other players will receive from family and friends in relationship to the production and recognition this player gets. As a coach, you must spend time with this player as this talent emerges in his game. When I was a head coach in high school, I was always talking to this player about how he must serve his teammates and he would see his teammates positively respond to his talents. I would share with them that in games where we were superior, he needed to be the best passer on the floor and make sure his teammates had great opportunities but in the big moments, he should want to and I wanted him to decide if we won or lost.
A great example of this came a few seasons ago when we had Toney Douglas as our senior point guard at Florida State. We had struggled with inconsistency as a team during his junior year and had six new players joining the roster. Toney ended up leading the ACC in scoring his senior year and obviously wanted to become a NBA player but he did two things from an egotistical leader position that turned our team into an ACC championship contender. First, he set the tone on the defensive end of the court which is where you have to be the most unselfish. In fact, he was so good that he was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Year. Secondly, in the first half of games, he got his teammates involved and got the ball in strong spots for them and he averaged a modest 6.5 points per game during the initial twenty minutes as he studied what the other team’s game plan for him was. Once he established his team and his defensive energy, he averaged 15 points per game in the second half and delivered so many big moments for our team including getting us into the ACC championship as well as returning our program to the NCAA tournament for the first time in eleven seasons. The best reinforcement of his leadership came during the second half of our season when one of his young teammates was quoted in the media saying, “We know when it is TD time!” Players respect those you produce as a servant to their team. Truly great players make others around them better and Toney truly led our team in this area.
As an authoritarian leader, a coach must put in much work in developing these forms of leadership on their team. I truly believe the elite coaches at every level have a better feel for doing this than the majority of the other coaches. These are ‘musts’ in terms of leadership evolution in your program:
- Constantly evaluate and identify those with these potential talents either in your recruiting efforts or through your feeder situations.
- Provide leadership materials to your whole team so they may recognize what leadership could look like. They will also learn the importance of a team having it because of your education effort.
- Invest individual team communicating one-on-one with players as they evolve with their leadership. The confidence you show in them will grow their confidence and them knowing they have your total support will help escalate their growth as leaders.
- Find ways to constantly reinforce and subtlety reward their leadership efforts. This will build a championship culture that can perpetuate itself.
- Consistently show what leadership looks like through your example. Your preparation, your mental toughness, your inspiration and how you navigate through difficulties will reinforce those with natural leadership qualities as well as to motivate those who want to learn to become a leader. I remember this wisdom from my father who was a minister who always shared a poem entitled, “I’d rather see a sermon, than hear one any day.” As their coach, show them the way!
--Adapted from collegechalktalk.prestosports.com/
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