#037 Intangible Qualities of Exceptional Coach Leaders

In this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show, I discuss several qualities that exceptional coach leaders possess. These qualities are often hard to distinguish on resumes, but in my opinion, are a make or break element differentiating world-class coaches. I think you are going to take away some great advice that you can apply to your coaching immediately.

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Key Takeaways

• The qualities that separate world-class coaches rarely show up on a resume.
• These intangibles are a make-or-break differentiator in coaching leadership.
• You can start applying these qualities to your own coaching immediately.

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Episode Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated. While we strive for accuracy, some words or phrases may be misheard.

[00:00:00] Sport science, strength and conditioning, high performance coaching. Welcome to the Decoding Excellence show. Hey everybody it's your host Adam Ringler and today for this episode rather than advertising for some sport performance technology company about whatever latest gizmo that they may have. I want to remind you of two things. Number one, I have a monthly newsletter that goes out, chocked full of great research articles, interesting tidbits, quotes, books I'm reading, things I'm

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[00:02:01] Into the hosting fees for both the website and the Decoding Excellence show. So we can continue to bring this show to you via iTunes, Spotify, whatever podcast player of your choice. So check it out. Buymeacoffee.com forward slash AdamRingler. Hey everybody, we have a great Decoding Excellence show for you today. Today I'm going to be covering some of the qualities that I think make up phenomenal coaches. And these are things that everybody should be able to relate to. And I think everybody has the opportunity to improve on these

[00:02:38] Qualities. And I thought for this show today, we'll just quickly go right through them, whether it is your ability to make connections or to form, you know, a charisma relationship with somebody, your willingness to share, uh, preparing for otherwise black swans or embracing sort of off the grid opportunities. This is a podcast show. You do not want to miss because it should help your coaching. Hey everybody, welcome to the Decoding Excellence show. As always, I'm your host Adam Ringler

[00:03:12] And got some great material to cover. And I am going to recite a lot of the, uh, the article that I wrote earlier this year, right? And it's the five qualities of world class leaders. It is an article that I wrote either I think it was actually on the road. I might have been traveling with our women's volleyball team to, uh, NCAA's when I actually first started writing this, this article. And the reason I wrote this article was because there was some commonalities that I've seen across great coaches, um, just having worked with them

[00:03:45] Or in their proximity. And I was trying to relate this article with the qualities that I've recognized and great coaches to the qualities that I think great CEOs and great leaders whether it's military or private or public interests. Um, and I started to sit down and I started to jot these notes down and there were some things that I thought, uh, would be worthwhile sharing. And, uh, and thus I began the, uh, essentially the premise of this article, the five qualities of world class leaders. And so I wanted to expand

[00:04:24] There in some of these qualities and obviously put a strength conditioning perspective to it because I think as strength coaches, we can, uh, uh, we live in a world that we don't always necessarily think, uh, transcends, you know, the weight room and it does. It can leave the weight room. The qualities that you learn within a strength conditioning facility or center or wherever, uh, certainly has a large carryover to other industries. So, you know, while this article was certainly wrote in the perspective, in the context of a

[00:04:54] Strength conditioning coach, I think the lessons expand much further than just the weight room that, uh, that we exist in. So, uh, without further ado, let's, let's get into it. The number one quality that, uh, you know, world class leaders do is they, they can create a bond with everyone. And what I mean by that, I don't, I, I don't mean like they can relate to everybody and they're their best friends to everybody. Uh, not at all, right? I think sometimes the, the world class leaders that I know all have a certain factor to them.

[00:05:27] There's some level of, you know, charisma that these leaders have and at some primitive level, it allows for them to relate to anyone and everyone inside the company. So, it really doesn't matter whether the other person is a Fortune 500 CEO or the office custodian and a administrative assistant. I think the best leaders inspire, they motivate, they can create an awe-spiring connection within the organization. So, the ability to interact with a wide variety of people, all of which may have different ethnicities or cultural

[00:06:00] Beliefs, uh, genders and more while having some level of humanity and empathy and a curious wonder for others, people's experience, that leads me to believe that world class leaders all hold everyone on equal levels and they treat interactions and encounters with both dignity and shared equality. Why I think this is important, especially in a strength conditioning example is because as you know, so often we get athletes that come into our program, right? We, we don't always recruit the athletes, right? So, we have athletes

[00:06:34] From different ethnicities, from different cultural beliefs, from different socioeconomic statuses and it is very important for us to be able to relate and form connections with everyone within our team and with the athletes that we work with. And then going, you know, one layer removed is that obviously, same with the people that we work with, you know, whether it's, you know, uh, beliefs that they might share, whether it's politically or or others, if it is regions of the country, whether, you know, we have, you know, co-workers that

[00:07:11] Might come from the East Coast versus the West Coast from different ethnicities and being respectful and mindful and inclusive to those, I think is really, really important. Wow, this might sound like a soft skill. It's very important because it helps create buying. It helps create a, um, a level of connection and is that it factor, that glue that sort of bonds all of us together. And I think when organizations have people that are bonded together, through shared vision or through shared community or through shared, um, interest if nothing

[00:07:49] Else, right? We are more connected. We are a more tighter Nick group and that allows us to do better work. Number two, charismatic people person. And why I think this is really important is because ultimately at the end of the day, you have to sell the program in which you are programming for, designing and, uh, and coaching is about building a bridge for other people to follow. We establish a plan of action. And while inspiring an internal drive and motivation for the plan until the other person, right, the athlete has the ability to construct their own plan with the relentless

[00:08:24] Pursuit of their intention. So a lot of the times, we are the first initial sort of spark of motivation of encouragement of providing a very tangible plan for these athletes to follow until they have the skill sets to really start to take ownership of what their, their own internal needs analysis drives. So with coaching, so much of elevating others to personal or team success, making great decisions and building a world class program is dependent upon building a world class support team. And that all shares an equal understanding that helping others ultimately helps

[00:09:02] Everyone. It's no surprise in our current coaching landscape that when a coach moves on, right, they take their new job or whatever, that those world class leaders will come and go and packs. People will follow people to other jobs or, uh, you know, vice versa. And one of the many reasons for this, a homework sign of an ability to bring out the best in other people and other athletes or coaches is that person already has a group of people who wants to be in their presence. And so I think we need to recognize that people flock to others who make them feel better and

[00:09:39] Inspire action or provide a clear and concise plan or strategy and ultimately helps others achieve their level of success. And I think when we do that, when we recognize this trait or that an entourage of people who want to be around another person, recognize that they are consciously or subconsciously rather, helping to elevate others. So identify it, champion it, and really let's use them as bright spots in our program and really champion what they do and the benefit that they bring to the entire program or into the entire team of other individuals surrounding that.

[00:10:17] Number three, willingness to share. Many of the world class leaders I've worked with would routinely give credit to other members of the team while all accepting and shielding the criticism and the bullets. So what does this really mean? Well, when leaders end up claiming that the success was all of their own doing, it quickly breaks down teams. It creates organizational chaos. We've seen this time and time again. When you do case studies and you look back at why successful companies or organizations essentially falter and fail. Oftentimes what we see is a boardroom or

[00:10:56] An executive team that wants to take credit for every successful thing and then is afraid to take the credit for the failures along the way. So what we find is that those coaches who spread credit and those accolades throughout their coaching tree and their organization tend to be better equipped for leadership positions. They are the type of leaders that inspire the best work out of others. And as we know in coaching, there are plenty of situations that are completely outside of your control, no matter how much planning, no matter how many sessions you do, the film, things like

[00:11:31] That, that they still fall outside of your control. So championships are one in loss based on the you know, the arc of a free throw or the split second decision of an 18-year-old freshman athlete. And those decisions, whether it is contracted conference referee or whomever, right, those all fall outside of our window of controllability. So it's even more courageous, if you will, and inspiring to witness when leaders actually take credit for those shortcomings of a team. While simultaneously when they spread any of the success, any of the credits, any of the accolades

[00:12:15] That they get for the successful things that they've done to the other people around them, it just creates an environment, a culture where everybody can flourish and everybody does their very best work. And it also, you know, it creates a, you know, a level of accountability from a leadership position. So the, you know, the buck stops here, the buck stops at the leader, right? So at the end of the day, the successes of the teams, the failures are mine. And I think when leaders can stand up and take the heat and do that, it really makes a very cohesive team that's willing to sacrifice

[00:12:51] And work incredibly hard for the mission and the objectives at hand. Number four, prepare for the black swans. So many of the best coaches, similar to world class leaders, have systematically tried to kill their ego. In fact, most of them are pretty quick to admit when they lack an answer. They don't try to know everything, nor could they, if they even want it to. And some of the best advice I ever received was quote, purposely position yourself in rooms where you are surrounded by people smarter than you. Great leaders do not have to have all the answers. Rather, they should

[00:13:33] Have a world class team surround them to help cover their blind spots and their weaknesses. They don't need to have all the answers. But what they really do need is do an assemble and all-star cast of people who can cover a wide breadth and depth of topics while possessing the ability to defer to others for the common good. So what we see is this, right? Your job, what successful leaders do and what they do really well is that they understand they have the self-awareness of what they are uniquely qualified to do, what their strengths are. And then also

[00:14:08] What their weaknesses are. And then rather than trying to always improve on their weaknesses, I think that's important. We want to try commonly to improve on the things that we're not good at. What they do incredibly well is they hire people to help fill out those weaknesses, right? So if I don't know on a subject matter, if I'm not the greatest on VBT or force plate technologies, well, I'm going to hire somebody to be great at VBT and force plates, force plate technologies. Also, if you know what I am really uniquely qualified to do is be, you know,

[00:14:47] To handle confrontation. I love conflict, right? That's the thing that I'm really, really great at. If I need to increase our organizational empathy, then maybe I need to hire people that are naturally really good at empathizing with others, right? And those are just examples that we can use. So what they try to do is they try to prepare for those sort of black swans, those unknown environments. So like, I don't know what's coming up down the road. And I can't predict the future. And I don't need to have all the answers. But what I can do is try to prepare the very best I can

[00:15:22] For those unknown situations. And what those might be is just making sure that I have somebody within the organization, within the environment, who is really, really good at some of those scenarios or some of those points of emphasis that we need. Lastly, embrace off the grid. So in every single industry, the notion of working harder than your competition permeates many conversations. We hear it all the time in athletics, right? The grind, the hustle, work, you know, all that go hard, all of these sort of cliches that we typically say. And it's one of the most commonly

[00:16:04] Prescribed advice actually as well in most self-help books and motivational speeches. And it's in my opinion that all work with little rest and relaxation is a recipe to an early career burnout. And there's been many people not only on this podcast and this show alone, but on similar sort of strength and conditioning centric coaching podcasts that talk about career burnout. So many of the world class leaders and coaches I know all have various activities outside of the weight room that ignites a different passion that excites them in a different way. So I honestly do not think

[00:16:42] That I would otherwise have survived this high-pressure career if I didn't have an outlet to express myself from the regular day to day. So whatever your individual hobby may be, whether it's I would maybe advise trying to find an an additional hobby outside of fitness and weightlifting and the things that actually got us into the strength and conditioning field, it's wise, it's a wise pursuit to have that so that allows you to mentally disconnect and to compress, decompress away from our daily demands. And I think that those that often can disconnect, often return back to their

[00:17:21] Work with a new vigor and an increased effort to their craft. And it's a small investment in your craft, in your professionalism, in yourself and the people that you surround yourself with. So ultimately, just to sort of maybe put a bow tie on this episode, is that what makes all these qualities really special is that they're often hidden on a resume. You can't really see these things, you know, when you're going through resume after resume and you're having these conversations that you can you can't see it's not black and white. But what you can do is that you can easily

[00:17:56] Determine on those resumes, you know, educational backgrounds, coaching experiences and much more from those candidates, resumes or CVs. But what you can't distill are these unique qualities that we talked about in this show. And many of these qualities are subtle, they're not easily seen on the surface. But they are precisely why that individual on that resume, on that piece of paper can be world class and can be a great and phenomenal leader. And that's why those five qualities are both coveted and so unique. Hey everybody, that is going to be a wrap for this episode of the Decoding

[00:18:44] Excellence Show. I want to thank you for tuning in and joining me throughout this show today. I hope that you took something away from the show, maybe one of the qualities that you can try to improve on in this next upcoming coaching cycle, whether it is your ability to connect or form relationships or the charisma and the buy-in that you create in your program. If it's your willingness to share information across different departments or across your other coaching staff or your ability to certainly prepare and to recognize and have some self-awareness of what your strengths and

[00:19:17] Your weaknesses are, or if nothing else, your ability to simply embrace going off the grid and improving your cognitive abilities or your ability to disconnect and get away from coaching so that when you return back, you're motivated, you're excited and you are passionate about what you're doing and getting back into coaching. So maybe finding an alternative activity or an alternative hobby outside of strength, conditioning outside of fitness, outside of lifting, whether it's preserving what you're just doing, you name it, I think it would be a great thing to do. And as always,

[00:19:54] There's a number of different ways that you can support the show, right? The first thing is, I have a monthly newsletter that goes out. It is located at atomringler.com forward slash newsletter and like I said in the intro, it is chocked full of great articles, research papers, sort of daily notes, things I'm finding fascinating and experimenting with and being a human guinea pig with to try to change my own behaviors, my own habits, but ultimately to really try to improve my life and get something a little bit more meaningful out of it. So head over to atomringler.com forward slash

[00:20:33] Newsletter, pop in your email and I promise you you'll get the welcome email and you'll start receiving those monthly updates and you won't regret it. I'm not going to send you a bunch of spam messages or anything like that. I really think that you'll get a lot out of it and check it out. I get questions every single time we publish either an article or the latest update to the Decoding Excellence show and the question I often receive is how do I support this show? Well, we have a new way that the audience and the crowd and everybody else here can support the

[00:21:07] Decoding Excellence show. Head over to buymeacoffee.com forward slash atomringler. It's actually not buying me a coffee. I know the name sounds sort of confusing or misleading if you will, but what it is is it's a platform, sort of a crowdsourcing way of donating to the show. And the idea is that you would donate a coffee, right? Five dollars, four dollars, or whatever to the Decoding Excellence show. And what we do with this is we turn the proceeds directly over to supporting the hosting of the Decoding Excellence show on whether it's on Spotify or on SimpleCast or iTunes and elsewhere.

[00:21:48] And it supports the hosting fees for our website and the Decoding Excellence show. So if you want to support the show, you can buy me a coffee. You can buy seven coffees. You buy yourself a coffee. Otherwise, please head over, check it out. It is buymeacoffee.com forward slash atom ringler. I'll include it in the show notes. And as always, thank you for supporting the Decoding Excellence show. And I'm sure we can all relate to this, right? Like there's somebody probably in your life right now that you just like spending time with, like being with because they make you

[00:22:29] Better. They make you feel better. They have some sort of it factor that charismatic charm, if you will, that allows you to feel like you are a better version of yourself in their presence.