One of the most important factors that go into a successful season is leadership from the players. We see in the pros and in college that teams that have a solid group of leaders “in the clubhouse” tend to have better chemistry and thus have a more successful season. You see teams trade for veterans to provide that leadership. It’s just as important as talent. It’s this “internal leadership” that can make or break a season. Yet, developing leadership on your team is an area that is often ignored; coaches feel that it will “just happen.” Unfortunately, a conscientious effort has to be made by the coach; leadership has to be cultivated and supported. Now, thanks to efforts from Jeff Janssen and his Leadership Academies at UNC, Notre Dame and other top college programs, coaches now have some concrete resources on how to develop leadership on their teams.

In the first segment on team leadership, let’s look at how teams elect their leaders/captains. Being a captain is something that should be seen as a privilege and is earned; not something that someone is entitled to have.

Players Choose
In a typical sports setting, the coach gets nominations from players and then takes a secret vote to see who the top 2-3 vote-getters are. But who typically gets elected? Is it the team leader? Is it the best player? Most popular player? Generally, players choose the best players to be their captains. In some cases, it’s a right of passage to elect the best 2-3 players, regardless of leadership ability. Or they pick the player that has been on the team the longest; the player who made the team as freshmen. There is almost a sense of entitlement that these types of players are typically elected captains. However, experience, talent and ability don’t always equate into leadership.

Coach Choose

There are coaches who will bypass this election process and choose the players they feel are the leaders. The captains are chosen by the coach, not the players. The benefit of this process is that the leaders do become captains. The negatives is that the players’ opinions have been ignored, which can come back and undercut the efforts of the captains. Several years ago I ran into a new coach who took over a team which had already elected the captains who were the 3 best players. However, each was very quiet, introverted and had no ability to lead the team. After a disastrous season, the coach took it upon himself to elect the captains for the next year. He chose the 3 players who were hard workers, very talented and exhibited strong leadership. Sure enough some of the more talented players, (and their parents) felt slighted and the players felt some initial resentment that they didn’t have a say in who their captains were. Fortunately, the captains did their job and instilled a work ethic in the team that had been lacking and things settled down. In the long run, the coach picked the best leaders.

Other Methods

There are some other methods for choosing captains. According to Janssen’s book, The Team Captain’s Leadership Manual, 60% of teams have the players or the coach chose captains. Other teams have players nominate and then the coach makes the final decision. Some teams, like the Nebraska football teams under Tom Osborne, had a Team Council that was comprised of various segments of the team.
And there are programs/teams that don’t elect captains; they let the natural leaders “just happen.” Unfortunately, too many coaches want leadership to “just happen” and end up leaderless through the season.
Our next segment will be about how to create leadership opportunities for your captains and ways that coaches can help to develop their team leaders.