9 things coaching my son’s footy team taught me about leadership

Coaching my son’s footy team was one of the most fulfilling and rewarding experiences I've been lucky enough to be a part of. The opportunity to work with young men at a formative stage in their life and to teach them key life skills like teamwork, competitiveness, respect and discipline is a privilege that everyone should experience. The feeling of seeing the joy on their faces as the final siren blew at the grand final or watching the new player kick his first goal is priceless. While there are many frustrations and it’s a big commitment of your time, I recommend it to anyone who’ll listen. If you’re not actively involved in your child’s sport, you’re missing out on one of life’s great experiences.

I took on the coaching job aiming to make the team more competitive. But working with the young men in the team and the other coaches and staff at the footy club reinforced a lot to me about leadership, lessons which I believe are transferable to project teams.

Though there are many differences between a raggedy bunch of eleven year old boys learning to play AFL and high-performing teams of consultants, in some ways coaching is even more challenging and the lessons of leadership are more evident. Unlike on a project, if the team aren’t playing as you want them to, there’s no stepping onto the field yourself to get the job done (well, not without being quietly asked not to come back anyway). You are completely reliant on the team and the players in it to perform. Here are some of the key lessons that I took away from the experience.

1. Enthusiasm is infectious

This is something which I borrowed from my younger son’s cricket coach. He absolutely exuded enthusiasm for cricket to the point of awkwardness, whether it was oozing pride about how the team played on the weekend, enthusing about the performance of the Australian cricket team or waxing lyrical on the beauty of spin bowling. It really showed in his team and how they played, losing only one game all season (and that was in the second week).

Players quickly take on the behaviours of those they look up to, whether it’s the gun players or the coach. When they see the coach being enthusiastic about the game, even the most disengaged quickly become enthusiastic themselves and enthusiastic players learn faster and play harder.

There’s two lessons in this for project teams. The first is don’t be shy about being enthusiastic. Sometimes it can feel a little over the top, but it’s fundamental to bringing people with you. The second is that enthusiasm can’t be faked. It’s almost needless to say, but if you’re not passionate about the game, you’re coaching the wrong team.

2. Create a team identity

Teams need an identity. For us, the coaching team agreed at the start of the season that we wanted the team to be hard and aggressive and fast movers of the ball. We spoke about these characteristics ad infinitum, but always in the context of we are hard and aggressive, we move the ball quickly, we don’t stop to take a look at what’s upfield; not we want you to be hard and aggressive or we want you to move the ball quicker. The key was making the players believe that they were the team identity.

Because young players are looking for an identity, if you give it to them, they take it on very quickly and play to suit. More than a few people told us that they’d never seen team of eleven year old boys as hard at the ball as ours. This was probably an easier task working with eleven year olds who are still looking to create their identity, than with mature people who have a settled identify of their own, but project teams still need an identity and the leader should actively work to create it.

3. The team identity must be reflected in everything you do and say

Talking about team identity is important, but the principles of that identity must permeate through everything that the coach says and does or it will quickly become meaningless. With our focus on the team and teamwork, we talked a lot about putting the team first and selflessness. The players responded very well, but it would have all fallen apart very quickly if, after the game, we talked up our gun forward’s goal rather than focusing on the player who, instead of going for the ball himself, shepherded the opposition out of the way and gave the goal kicker the space he needed.

The organisational changes I’ve seen fail, often have senior personnel saying one thing and, when the pressure’s on, acting at odds with what they’ve said. People see straight through this.

4. The best results come from working with those who need the most help

There’s no denying that one of the most fun and exciting parts of being a coach is to work with the gun midfielders or dominant forwards in the team and to watch them rip opposition teams apart.

But, as fun as it is, the best results for the team are gained by working with those who are new to the game or who haven’t picked it up as fast as others. They have the most potential for improvement and will make the best gains when shown the way. Every team we play has its own gun players and they can generally match it with ours. It’s the performance of those needing the most development which makes the difference between the winners and the rest.

In our team we had players all the way from those training in the Swans Academy, through to those who picked up a Sherrin for the first time at our first training session for the year. It would have been easy, and a whole lot less frustrating, to focus on the top players, but we worked hard on the skills of our new players and it was those guys who really stood up in the grand final and made the difference against the other team.

The rewards are there as the coach too. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing the gentle guy who you’ve been teaching about controlled aggression stand up and lay an opposition player flat on his back with a big bump; seeing the new player collect a ball on the run and kick their first goal or reflecting on a player who thrived in a new role you gave them.

This principle is all the more important in consulting. It’s all too easy to dismiss under-performers, marginalise them with menial tasks or manage them out. But the best results are achieved by taking the time to coach them to become a more valuable member of the team. No-one turns up to work intending to do a poor job. They just need to be shown the way.

5. Players love feedback

Another lesson I borrowed from my boy’s cricket coach was the extensive and enthusiastic feedback that he gave each week in the match report. When doing my own match reports, I highlighted something positive each player did, as well as setting out the things the team did well and the areas where we could improve next week. While writing the report each week was a lot of work, it was definitely worth the effort. The boys looked forward to reading it each week and it was remarkable how the players focussed on the areas that were highlighted.

But the feedback doesn’t stop there. We made sure the players received regular feedback at training, feedback while they were playing and feedback after the game. When feedback is given constantly, feedback on where to improve is not as confronting and players are clear on what they need to do. One great initiative that our coaching director, Joey Britton, suggested was shaking hands with each of the boys before and after each training session and game. Not only did this create an environment of mutual respect and camaraderie, but it also gave the coaches a great opportunity to provide feedback for the day.

It’s no different when leading teams on projects. Giving feedback, both positive and negative, should be a habit which your team comes to expect. Nothing said at a performance review should come as a surprise to your staff.    

6. Provide challenges for players at all levels

With such a wide disparity of skill-sets in our team, we knew we couldn’t take the same approach with every player, but we also knew that they needed to be challenged. Individual challenges were needed.

For the new players, the challenge was making an effective disposal or catching their opponent with the ball, something which makes them feel that they are contributing to the team and that contribution is valuable.

For the guns, it might be a go at captaining the team, playing out of their normal position or helping the new players to improve. We encouraged the top players to back up and play in the older age groups where the opposition was bigger and faster and they needed to be smarter to compete. What constitutes a challenge changes from player to player, so it’s important that you provide that tailored approach.

Again, the same principle applies when working with a project team. Every team member is different, so you need to make the effort to identify what a challenge is for them.

7. Be clear about what you want from your players

When you’ve been playing sport for years, it’s easy to forget what young players don’t know. They don’t really know what a captain is meant to say in a huddle because they haven’t been in hundreds of them. They know you want them to communicate with each other on the field, but they don’t know what it is they’re meant to say. From the time you step onto the field for your first game, you have countless lessons to learn. It’s an easier path to walk if someone shows you the way.

When giving someone something new to do, it’s important to remember what it was like the first time you were in that situation. They may not be confident in what they’re doing, but aren’t comfortable telling you so. On our footy team, when one of the players earned a run as the captain, we gave them a short, two page brief on what was expected of them. This not only made the experience more formal and more of an honour, but gave the player a starting point to learn the new role.

Delegating is absolutely fundamental to managing a successful team of consultants. But when delegating tasks, it’s important to be clear about what’s expected and how they should go about completing the task successfully.

8. Leadership is a team effort

Growing up in Sydney means that a Richmond supporter has more teeth than I have games of AFL under my belt. My rugby coaches taught me much about discipline, hard work, competitiveness and controlled aggression which I could pass onto my young men (thank you Joe Barakat). However, I relied heavily on the assistant coaches and others in the club, for feedback on what I was doing, as fonts of knowledge on all things AFL and as sounding boards on how to deal with the challenges of coaching a team.

Sounds easy enough, but sometimes it’s not. When feedback is invited, sometimes you won’t like the answer and sometimes it can be downright confronting. It’s important to listen, especially when it’s hard to, to engage in the conversation and be prepared to change if necessary. In my case, there were plenty of strong opinions on how best to coach the team as the challenges presented themselves. By listening to them, we became a better team.

The parallels when managing projects or leading teams are obvious. Feedback should be requested regularly, both from the client and project partners. If anything, it’s even more important to listen to what they say and act in that environment, especially when they tell you things you don't want to hear.

9. Plan what you do

Even though I could easily run a training session without planning it beforehand, I found that if I thought through what I wanted to say to the boys and what drills I was going to do beforehand, and put it all in a written training plan, everything was run more professionally and smoothly and the players responded to that.

This approach also allowed me to better plan to develop certain skills or address certain weaknesses over the season. It also allowed me to plan what I wanted to say to the team, which is important when their attention span exhausts itself on the short side of the five minute mark. Each week we would discuss the previous week’s game, next week’s game, and one aspect of what makes a great AFL player. Getting through this in five minutes takes planning.

I’ve found the same principle applies at work. Client meetings go smoother and are more successful if I take the time with the team beforehand to write out what we want to achieve, what we believe the client’s issues are and what ideas the team might have to address them. In both coaching and business development, nothing ever goes to the plan, but both are far more effective for having a starting point.

End of season wrap-up

Leading project teams and footy coaching are both great experiences which are rewarding and satisfying when it all goes well and can even be exciting when things aren’t going well. There are many differences between the two, but the lessons are often consistent. Coaching provides a good comparison for leading a project and teaches some great lessons because the complete onus is on making the team more effective. I encourage everyone to get involved with their children’s sport. It’s a lot of work, but you will benefit too and the memories will be there forever.

Shameless plug: For those living in the inner west of Sydney and looking for a great way for your kids to get some exercise and enjoy some camaraderie in a fun environment, the Glebe Greyhounds is fantastic club for both the kids and their families. Registrations are open for 2016. Simply head to the website and follow the instructions to register. https://www.glebejafc.org.au/

About the author

Daniel Kenny is a Project Director who has worked with Coffey for more than eight years across the Defence, resources, energy, urban development and airfield infrastructure sectors. Daniel is currently leading a $1.5B project for the Department of Defence to deliver a range of airfield, engineering and building infrastructure to support the introduction into service of the new Joint Strike Fighter.

Daniel also coaches the mighty Glebe Greyhound U12s.