Building Greatness-Leadership & Softball

Applying the Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS) to my own athletes was an interesting task.  Not surprisingly, each athlete responded differently to what she preferred her coach to be.  But, generally, they agreed that they wanted a coach who was proficient in the technicalities of the game and also supported them as athletes and people.  I interpreted the results to mean that athletes want to know that the coach is invested in them, but not to the point where you become their “buddy” or friend.

When contrasted with my LSS, I did not seem to care as much about whether the coach was invested in me or helped me with my personal problems.   I wanted someone who was going to score high on the training and instruction domain of the questionnaire.  While it was not important to me that my coach let me make decisions, my athletes seemed to want some say in what they did. 

I was flattered that one of the surveys had an asterisk on it that noted that if she were to do this exercise about me and not her preferred coach, I would come as close as possible to being her preferred coach.  She felt that although some of the questions did not pertain to an assistant, I would be her ideal coach.   Overall, it was very interesting to see how different four of my athletes were and how they compared to my experiences and coaches I have had in my career.