Cultivating a Culture of Creativity, Collaboration, and Captainship

I have been involved in youth football development for nearly nine years as a coach. This past year was spent as the only female, only American, only Christian, and only blonde football coach for the Gameday Academy/PSG Academy in India which brought about a myriad of exciting challenges. Though some trials expected, the development of creativity, collaboration, and captainship in my teams offered challenges unforeseen. 

Often times, I had players that were quick to request the title of captain. Little did they know, the path to captainship development was much longer than expected. If you are striving to build leaders in your team, be certain to assess these fundamentals first.

Creativity

India is such a diverse and rich country that it is simply impossible to accurately generalize in most respects. Little remains constant from one town to the next resulting in a never-ending learning curve as a foreign resident. Of all the differences ranging from language, cuisine, religion, politics, traditions, and culture; one value remains constant in every region of the country that I have visited- educational values. 

There is a reason why we have so many Indian surnamed doctors in the world, India has an education system and a high cultural value of formal learning that encourages so many to become the best in particular medical and engineering professions. I saw time and again my players of age 10 excelling in chemistry, mathematics, and microbiology with the goal of future STEM-related achievement. Between 80-90% of final grades for school children as young as second grade come from final exams in the last weeks of school. The method of learning follows a lecture, test, results, repeat model leading up to a large exam. These children are whizzes at exams and are taught at a young age how to regurgitate information with distinct precision under high stress. Exams are life for the Indian student and the sacrifices made to excel on a test is extraordinary. As the coach of a highly innovative and creative sport with scarce memorization or right answers, this provided massive challenges in our development.

Most of my players expected a standard stand in a line, kick a ball, feedback method. They expected me to tell them how to kick the ball or how to complete a task then instruct them to repeat with accurate precision. During games, players would run, shoot, or pass and then immediately (sometimes before the play was even complete) turn to the bench to look at the coach for affirmation. The team was more concerned about pleasing their coach than seeking satisfaction through personal and team accomplishment. They needn’t personally analyze the success of actions or decisions because the coach was on the sidelines to provide such information. In short, they were not thinking for themselves or their team, but rather they were doing exactly what they had been told by a superior without question. What other organizations or teams fit this description?

My first step was to intentionally give my players vague tasks with little instruction and no correct answer:

“Kick down the cones with the ball faster than your opponent”

“Get three balls in your designated area first”

“Keep your ball in possession and in the circle”

“Kick your ball around three cones the fastest”

These questions were often met with hows and whats and a plea for more instruction and restrictions. I encouraged my players not to ask “what” but rather “why” as they should see the application of their training in game situations. The satisfaction couldn’t come from the coach, but only themselves. 

After initial pushback, players began to accept the situation and experiment. They soon understood that the field was a safe environment to try and fail and revise, and try and fail and revise, and try and fail and revise again. Yudishtir, a U12 player, became excited to show off new inventive tricks and others followed suit in a battle for the most dazzling style on the pitch. Another U10 team excitedly discovered there were 27 different ways to get a ball around a cone quickly and tried variations for efficiency and effectiveness during races. By cultivating a culture of creativity, players began to find their own style of play and ask the question of why as they discovered practical application. Players had the freedom to build upon their strengths and handle their weaknesses.

The foundation of leadership is individual thought. A team, company, or organization cannot cultivate captains if they are not given the freedom to think and act to a degree of autonomy. Leaders typically aren’t found among the indecisive. In India, the manner in which players expected to be coached, and many times were coached by others, was to stand in a line, kick a ball, and wait for feedback in reward or scolding. This is not the best way to inspire innovation. Leaders are cultivated by a culture of individual thought.

Collaboration

There are times I questioned my own methods. As I would hear these lively and heated discussions I would shake my head and think, “What have I done?” The next step in captainship development beyond creativity and individual thought is collaborating all the individual thinkers together in a team (dun dun dun…). When players are all obedient to a coach’s demands there is little room for argumentation or debate. The lessons of how to respectfully disagree, how to collaborate and communicate, and the reason to include others were much more challenging than any technical skills that would be learned.  

Lively discussions sparked as I was coaching at an international school and overheard two of my youngest players at the ripe age of six, one from Dubai and the other French, discussing the best way to kick a ball with the most power and accuracy- laces or in foot. After a shouting debate, the two players came to me and demanded an answer. Who was correct? I smiled and replied that both of the methods of kicking were effective and depended on the player and situation then gave examples. They snarled at the response. After a more lively debate, they decided to try each other’s kicking techniques and indeed found that both methods could be correct. One player while admitted both forms effective and the other utilized both methods in different situations. Confrontations like this were a great indicator of what was to come in the next phase of leadership development.

I allowed my older kids to choose positions and craft formations providing they justify their reasoning. My players would spend time discussing the benefits of the various formations and after several long and heated sessions soon learned how to make decisions efficiently and collectively. I would position drills and tasks that required teamwork rather than personal skill for success. Players found that individual skill meant little without the team and many best players lost session games in the learning process. From small tasks, we began to see team building in its purest form. Players began to guide and coach and support one another. Players went from blaming teammates for losses to supporting teammates in seeking victory. The players were confident in their individual roles, and now saw the complementary effects of working with a strong team. From this, leaders began to emerge as they served and inspired their teammates.

When individual thought collaborates, the limits of possibility is pushed beyond imagination. I must be honest, this was my most challenging and rewarding stage of development as a coach. Lessons of communication, talking AND listening, was probably my most utilized session topic in this period of training. 

Captainship

As I would hear my players eagerly request the title of captain for the upcoming game, I would always meet them with a quick reply, “If you can tell me the job of a captain, I will let you hold the title.” The answer would initially be, “the person who tells others what to do!” or “the person who is in charge!”

Cultural side note: In India, we have actual servants. We have drivers and cooks and maids. Therefore, the term “servant leadership” carries an extremely different meaning than in the US or other parts of the world.

I would explain that a captain is a person who serves others on the team, who puts teammates’ needs before their own, who is a leader, and does what is best for the team. This was not the position of glory, but of great responsibility. Some of my kids stepped back in skepticism and disinterest at this explanation. For others, this fired their enthusiasm to a higher degree. 

It was only at this time, nearly six-eight months after our initial training session, that I allowed a captain to be designated for scrimmages and games. Everyone was given the opportunity to hold the official role over time and it was here that we would discuss the responsibility of captainship. Other leadership opportunities were presented, from equipment manager to chief of drill set up to physical training examples.

A U8 player named Kriteesh, whose skill was equivalent to an age group above him, did not hesitate to mentor, serve, and lead his elder teammates. He inspired others through his prudent work ethic and contagious passion. He became a strong voice on and off the pitch. 

It was here that I saw players like Kriteesh flourish in all three areas of creativity, collaboration, and captainship.

Conclusion

As I was preparing to return to America, I co-coached with my replacement to ease the transition in my final week. This Indian coach is a great friend of mine and has seen tremendous success in India as a player and coach. I hold him in high respect and learned much from him. On this transition session, he was giving a drill and a couple of players were inquiring about the application and asking “why?”. This coach was getting extremely frustrated at the questions and finally looked at one of the players and shouted, “WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING WHY?! THAT IS A STUPID QUESTION!”

The player looked at the coach nervously and began to walk away, then he turned and timidly replied with conviction, “No, Sir. Why is not a stupid question.”

As I beamed with pride, I thought over the past year that led to this point. I had been criticized that my coaching methods weren’t the most efficient. That it was much faster to simply tell the players what to do. This is true. It is more efficient and less challenging to simply tell others what to do.

Creativity, collaboration, and captainship building can be messy, shake-up, and worthwhile processes. As a coach, I believe that my job is to teach players skills that can be used on and off the field. I believe that, like captainship, it is more of a responsibility than a title. If my players knew exactly how to run and kick but didn’t know how to be respectful, problem solve, and lead then I would have failed as a youth academy coach.

I have coached for nearly 9 years in different capacities and the first US youth players I have coached are now in their collegiate years. Some are scholarshipped athletes for the NCAA, others are leading organizations, others are conducting research to forward the medical and environmental fields. I believe youth soccer has helped them to lead as the lessons can be easily applied in any situation or organization. If you are looking to build leaders in your team, department, or organization; start by creating a safe environment to be creative, allow opportunities for collaboration, and then provide captainship development and watch your team exceed goals.

Amber Vanderburg