By: Murray McLeod-Jones

Murray McLeod-Jones — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:52:53 +0000

Duncan, really interested to read this as I think there has been some confusion within the coaching world generally about what coaches do and how they should behave. I hold the view that the coach is a leader and as such has to be very careful about how they behave with the group of athletes. But their behaviour is rooted in their Values and how they feel about those values, in simple terms Think, Feel, Do. Your values are the moral compass that guides your behaviour throughout your life and when making difficult decisions I always judge what I am going to do against my value set. That way I seldom go far wrong. The orgnisation that I work for has a leadership development programme called ‘Values Based Leadership’ which deals in leadership and performance. We started it some time ago as there was a training gap in our leaders who were instinctively trying to do the right thing but needed a framework to help them. There is also mention of setting the vision and being inspirational. How key those points are, without the vision how does anyone know what they are trying to acheive ? Without being inspirational how to do you get an athlete to buy into the overall vision and give their all to acheive it? With difficulty. I think we as a sport should spend time developing the leadership attitudes, knowledge and skills of our coaches so they have more Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and can really get the best out of the athletes. Whilst none of this is startlingly new, it amazes me that the sport have not invested in this aspect more heavily. How many people have been put off a sport by a poor coach? Not someone with a low techincal ability but someone who does not understand people. Anyway food for thought, hope the rest of the conference is as thought provoking. Regards Murray

Comments on: Spracklen at the NZ Coaches’ Conference

By: Murray McLeod-Jones