Leadership tips for aspiring captains and coaches

What is Leadership

• Honesty – players respect it
• Guiding and directing
• Empowering others to lead
• Making your team or individual better
• Learning from mistakes and working towards eliminating them

Leadership Qualities

• Understand yourself and your role
• Showing faith in players allowing them to be natural / themselves
• Ability to mould players into a working unit
• Create an atmosphere where players want to come to you
• Create pride in team and individual performances
• Make the game interesting for your players

Type of Leaders

1. Leads from behind: empowers the team from behind
2. Leads from the front: pulls the team with him – follow me

Role of a Leader

• LEAD your way
• Perform don’t conform
• Forget likes and dislikes
• Assess your players strengths and weaknesses
• Know your players personalities – time spent off the field with players will reap rewards on the field

Captaincy

• LEAD your way
• Don’t captain by committee
• Look for leaders within your team
• Accept not everything will work / win
• Don’t ignore gut feelings – act on it straight away

Good Captains

• Stay ahead of the game
• Have the ability to read the game
• Understand bowling / ers
• Focus on winning from ball 1
• Treat all players equally

What Leaders Look for in Players

• Competitors – they perform in the big moments and under pressure
• Players who hate losing not fear losing

“players who hate losing will do everything to win”

“players who fear losing won’t do everything to win”

Enjoy the challenge of leadership, it can be extremely rewarding – FitSport Cricket