Recently, Jack Han had a great post in his newsletter on transformational leadership with help from Josh Mallory (who also has a newsletter.) By definition:
Transformational leadership is a leadership approach centred around intrinsic motivation, empowerment and inspiration of employees (players) to drive change and innovation within an organization.
I am a subscriber to Jack’s newsletter so I read the post, but it was also sent to me privately by Jack as a potential area for me to discuss on my platform.
I am a big believer in transformational leadership. The opposite of this as mentioned in the post - and the way a lot of hockey coaching had been done in the past - is transactional leadership.
Transactional leadership employs a traditional hierarchy, where the head coach and his/her staff are ‘in charge,’ while the players are viewed as subordinates who are expected to reciprocate pre-determined tasks in a transaction via the coach’s tactical desires.
In my opinion, transformational leadership is far more effective and influential than transactional leadership.
The problem is, I don’t really love talking about this kind of stuff because I believe one of the most important qualities of any leader is being genuine and authentic. I don’t want it to seem like I’m studying all these things and letting them change who I am as a person and as a coach. I am definitely learning, but I don’t ever want to change too much and lose what makes me who I am.
The best part about coaching in my opinion is that there is no playbook. There’s no search engine you can plug a situation in to and it will spit out an answer for you. The ideas behind transformational leadership are definitely things I subscribe to, but I would never want a player to think I was approaching him/her and following some sort of playbook on how to be a leader. Every conversation and every situation I encounter is different, and I like to approach it that way. I would never want a player to think I was speaking a certain way in order to influence them to change their behaviour to my desire. Are there different ways to motivate players? Sure. But ultimately, they have to know that you care about them and believe in them and I would never play any sort of mind games in order to lead a team in the direction I want.
That was kind of a worry of mine when I decided to start this newsletter. I didn’t want any past or future players to think I’m writing a book on coaching or that I’m sitting at home game-planning on how I’m going to lead my team that day. Or that I manipulated them into doing things a certain way. I avoid speaking in certainties as a coach. I will rarely say “You HAVE to do this” or “We NEED to do it this way”. I’ll do my best to give them options on HOW we can do things, let them figure it out and then we can choose collectively what works best for us.
Coaching is a 24/7 thing. You have to be on and attentive every single time you’re at the rink or with your players, and you can’t plan for 99% of the situations you are put in to. You have core beliefs on how you’d like to do things, and I have taken some ideas from the foundations of transformational leadership, but the best part about coaching is that every day is different and most of the time you don’t know what will be thrown at you on any given day.
Which brings me back to what I said at the top. The most important part for me, is being yourself and being completely genuine and authentic. You’ve heard it many times but it’s a cliche for a reason. Players can see through the BS. They know if you’re faking it. All this information that’s out there now - with webinars, books etc - is certainly helpful but it’s just a piece of the puzzle. Take what you want from it and fit it into what makes you a good coach. Never lose your feel. Never lose what makes you unique and a good leader. Be vulnerable and show your players who you are and what you stand for. Lead by example and hope that they follow. Don’t force anything on them or jam anything down their throats.
That’s how to lead and transform lives for the better.