How coaching teen sports made me a better leader

Since I was very young, sport has been one of my greatest passions. In my youth I played all kinds of sports, but as I grew older my favorite sport became team handball. The sport is played in 166 countries and in Sweden, it is one of the largest team sports after football (soccer for the North Americans). My formation as a leader comes very much from the roots of being part of a team. Even though I travel a lot I have decided to give back to handball by coaching the next generation of handball players.

These teenagers provide a vastly different working environment from one of customers, government officials and thousands of colleagues looking to you for direction. In that way it’s self-evident that you cannot “manage” a teenage player as you would an organization.

You can learn a lot from teenagers and athletes alike – and if you combine the two, the sheer number of learnings and the complexity of team dynamics, teenage concerns, et al. can be overwhelming.

But what I’ve learnt from coaching always comes back to these three things:

1. Coach to the player, not the team.

In recalling my own teenage years, I remember coaches who enforced the same processes and restrictions on each player. And I hated it – trying to understand concepts from a perspective I didn’t understand, or learning an entire play but not the individual skills that would make it work, then seeing this teammate or that teammate succeed where I was failing.

At that age – at any age – you cannot help but compare yourself to others. The reality is that some will play better out front versus in goal, some will have a natural overhead form rather than underhand. Each player has their own strengths, weaknesses and abilities and it’s up to a good coach to recognize that – to coach to the player, not the team. And with varied maturity particularly among young kids, individual coaching becomes even more important.

2. Encouragement over critique.

Frustration gets the best of me at times – it’s undeniable. And with decades' more experience in handball than these kids, it’s easy to see mistakes I’ve made a million times and to tell the players what they did wrong.

But if you only ever hear what’s going wrong, you’re likely to believe your next attempt will go wrong, too – especially as a young person still learning. As a coach, it’s imperative to balance encouragement and critique, to cheer on what works and explain why it works rather than only identifying problems.

3. Development demands fun.

In the same vein, lack of encouragement and constant critiques make the game dismal and prevent the players from growing. In school these kids are graded on every word they write and number they crunch; at home they’re told to follow certain rules, do certain chores. Handball (as with any sport) is intended as a break from all of that, so having fun is of course expected.

But if your success in one position or the mandate to score X number of goals become yet more things to be graded on, if you’re being seen as a success or failure in the sport based on those criteria – there is no fun to be had. As you get older the pressure will come to perform better in sports, but there is no way you will get there if you did not get encouragement and have fun in the early days of playing.

Realizing these things made me a better coach but also a better leader. I see the same in the kids I coach, the colleagues with whom I work, and the peers with whom we partner – recognizing unique value, encouraging rather than finding fault, and allowing for true enjoyment are all key to success.

For example, we needed to recognize the individual values of Ericsson and Cisco to finalize a partnership like the one we announced in October. And when I speak to the executive leadership team I need to equally weigh all of their insights, knowing that a finance-only approach or sales-only approach will not bring success. Those same realities play out on the court as in the board room.

So some could see handball as a frivolous endeavor for a CEO, but these kids ground me and educate me. My time on the court keeps me humble and undoubtedly has made me a better leader.

And I still hold out hope for handball’s world domination – and the next generation of Swedish handball players will make it happen. I will do my part as a coach and President for the Swedish Handball Federation.