by Mandy Green, SFC Recruiting Solutions Consultant

Coaches who successfully recruit players use their leadership development program as a tool to draw in high-potential recruits that otherwise would go to another program.

Why?  Because most high-level recruits understand that they need to develop great leadership skills to be the best college player they can be, and to be successful after college. 

An even more important question: Do you have an established leadership development plan? 

If so, you should sell your leadership training program to recruits by telling them (and showing them) how invested you are in helping them develop as a leader. Recruits that are keenly aware of the importance of self-development will be impressed that you want to make an investment in them.

Don’t have a leadership development plan?  Here four suggestions for getting one started.

1.  Evaluate what you already have in place.  Make a list of what you what you have been doing and what you would like to be doing.  What worked well?  What needs to be changed? 

2.  Develop your definition of leadership. Spend some time thinking about what leadership means to you and what it might look like in your program. With this definition in mind, you are ready to communicate your expectations to those who may be ready to lead.

3. After you’ve defined your leadership expectations, you need to demonstrate these qualities in your daily decisions and interactions. Modeling the leader behaviors that you want to see in others has a dramatic effect on your program by shaping its culture. Demonstrating the leadership values and behavior you believe in lets people know that you take your leadership role seriously and that you have high standards for leaders. Your prospective leaders will take their cues from you when they see you set challenging goals, deal effectively with failure and adversity, respond quickly to opportunities, guide the team through tough problems, or sensitively deal with an upset player.

4. Develop an outline for how you are going to develop your leaders. A mistake a lot of coaches make is that we talk about the need for leadership but don’t teach people how to do it.  Don’t assume your team has the skills needed to be a good leader.  Make a list of the skills needed on your team, then map out a plan for how and when you are going to teach and develop each skill.   

Once you have formed an outline of how you want to develop your leaders and what "success" looks like, you must start implementing the program within your team. Keep in mind that leadership development takes time, patience, and persistence. 

Author Jeff Janssen, in his book The Team Captain’s Leadership Manual, says that effective team leaders impact the most important areas you hold near and dear as a coach: Your success, sanity, satisfaction, and significance. 

Developing the leaders on your team will not only create a more successful culture within your program, it will also establish an environment that will attract future leaders in your upcoming recruiting classes. 

Mandy Green is an experienced college coach who is an expert in sports psychology strategies and team development techniques.  SFC has developed a special one-day training course for college coaches and their current athletes that focuses on team leadership development and using your team to effectively recruit athletes during on-campus visits.  To find out more about this new on-campus workshop for coaches, email her at mandy@sellingforcoaches.com.