Too Quiet Can Lead To Losses


Often poor performance is a symptom of the best voices being too quiet. If you are only leading by example you are showing poor leadership. The truth is that a quiet gym is almost always a losing gym!

Obviously sometimes losing is just the result of playing against competition that has a much greater level of talent. But more often, your team success or failure is the result of how loud and passionate your team leaders are willing to be. A team that has comparable talent to its competition may underperform for one of these two reasons: 
  1. The entire team is too quiet, and there is little to no verbal leadership at all. 
  2.  The wrong voices are the loudest ones, and the team is suffering because the people who should speak up have chosen to remain too quiet. 
 If the entire team is refusing to speak up, that silence may be evidence of something more significant, such as players lacking a personal investment in team success or lacking belief that their voice can truly influence others. If your leaders are standing quiet and not confronting negative comments from teammates, there may be a lack of support or clear expectations from the coach. 

Being a great team leader is more than about leading by example. A great team leader is willing to speak up and clearly define expectations and be unpopular in the short run in return for enjoying more success and respect in the long run. Sometimes all it takes is a little motivation to help your people grow to where they feel ready to lead from where they are. 

 —Adapted from The Coaching and Leadership Journal


Comments

Post a Comment