16 Team Principles Leadership: a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. Quote 1 – “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” ‐ John C. Maxwell
1. What does this mean?
2. How important is it for the leader to lead by example?
3. How can a good leader show the way?
Quote 2 – “A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader; a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.” ‐ Unknown 1. What does this mean?
2. Why is confidence so important?
3. Without confidence, i.e. effective leadership – what happens to the team? 4. How do we become good leaders? Quote 3 – “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.” ‐ Warren G. Bennis 1. What does this mean? 2. Becoming yourself involves positive self‐expression. a. What does positive self‐expression mean? i. Know who you are ii. Know your strength and weaknesses iii. Know what you want and why you want it iv. You can communicate what you want to others in order to gain their cooperation and support v. You know how to achieve your goals 3. Understanding who you are is key to learning – Explain Self‐Esteem: Your opinion of yourself Quote 1: “Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self‐esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.” ‐ Sam Walton 1. What does this mean? 2. Why is believing in yourself so important? 3. Why is confidence, being happy and motivated so important to success? 4. What does success mean? Quote 2: “To establish true self‐esteem we must concentrate on our success and forget about the failures and negatives in our lives.” – Dennis Waitley 1. What does this mean? 2. How can we go about forgetting failure and negative feelings? 3. How can concentrating on our success help us succeed long term? Quote 3: “Nothing builds self‐esteem and self‐confidence like accomplishment.” – Thomas Carlyle 1. How does accomplishing something improve self‐esteem/self‐confidence? 2. What are you (personally) and the team trying to accomplish? 3. What do you need to do to accomplish that? Attitude: feelings with regard to a person or thing Quote 1: “My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.” ‐ Michael Jordan 1. What does this mean? 2. When can we work on improving any perceived weaknesses? 3. Can you acknowledge your weaknesses and make needed improvements? 4. Is this on an individual basis or can the team as a whole work on its short comings? Quote 2: “Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.” ‐ Ralph Marston 1. What does this mean to you?
2. If you hate doing the work, is it the fact that the work sucks or is it your attitude towards working hard?
3. How can we positively affect the attitudes of others to reach excellence as a team?
Quote 3: “My attitude is never to be satisfied, never enough, never.” – Duke Ellington 1. Is it ok to be satisfied and stop there?
2. How often do you need to re‐evaluate your goals?
3. Is this a healthy attitude to have?
Motivation: providing with a reason to act a certain way Quote 1:“Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” ‐ Raymond Chandler
1. Do you have the ability, motivation, and attitude to succeed? 2. How can you improve on these characteristics? 3. Can the team succeed if ability, motivation, and attitude are not stressed? Quote 2: “Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal ‐ a commitment to excellence ‐ that will enable you to attain the success you seek.” ‐ Mario Andretti 1. What does “commitment to excellence” mean to you? 2. How can teammates help each other in their “unrelenting pursuit”? 3. Can you name what it is that is motivating you? Quote 3: “Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.” ‐ Lou Holtz 1. Do you know what the rule of 33% is? 2. How does the rule of 33% relate to Coach Holtz quote? Organization: to have structure or character Quote 1: “In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves … self discipline with all of them came first." ‐ Harry S Truman 1. What is self discipline? 2. How can it be used on the field and in the weight room? 3. How can we work to improve our discipline? Quote 2: “A large part of getting organized is learning to act from a place of self‐esteem: knowing what we want and don't want to do, knowing what we can and can't do, and taking good care of ourselves.” ‐ Marilyn Paul 1. How can this quote be interpreted for athletes? 2. How can we use what we know about ourselves and teammates to be a well organized team? Quote 3: “If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up somewhere else.” – Yogi Berra 1. What do you think of this quote? 2. Where are you planning on going? 3. How can you get there? Perseverance: maintain a purpose in spite of difficulty, obstacles, or discouragement Quote 1: “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful men keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit” – Conrad Hilton 1. What kind of mistakes have you made? 2. Do you think that your reaction to the mistake was a good one or a bad one? 3. If bad, what do you need to change to make sure your attitude is changed the next time you make a mistake? Quote 2: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts” – Winston Churchill 1. What is different in our reactions to winning and losing? 2. Do we prepare differently for the next contest depending on the outcome of previous contests? 3. Where does the “courage to continue” come from? Why do you continue? Quote 3: “Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting” – Napoleon Hill 1. What are your thoughts on this quote? 2. How can you relate this to the saying, “a punchers chance”? Resiliency: the ability to recover from adversity Quote 1: “Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.” – Gilda Radner 1. If you don’t know what is going to happen next how can you prepare for it? 2. How do you handle an unexpected occurrence? 3. As a teammate, how can you help someone who seems to be upset with their performance or the outcome of a game? Quote 2: “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them” – Albert Einstein 1. What does this quote mean to you? 2. How does its meaning apply to what you do in sports? 3. How can you improve our knowledge and/or thought process to overcome any problems that arise? Quote 3: “Don't give up. Don't ever give up.” – Jim Valvano 1. Who is Jim Valvano and where does this quote come from? Focus: a central point of focus and activity Quote 1: “The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire, not things we fear.” – Brian Tracy 1. What is it that you desire? 2. What must be done to achieve those things? 3. How can focusing on fear detract us from succeeding? Quote 2: “We just want to win. That's the bottom line. I think a lot of times people may become content with one championship or a little bit of success, but we don't really reflect on what we've done in the past. We focus on the present.” – Derek Jeter 1. How can resting on what has happened in the past hurt future outcomes? 2. How would you define your “present”? This moment? This game? This season? 3. What needs to be focused on to have a successful day/season/year/career? Quote 3: “Focus is a matter of deciding what things you're not going to do.” ‐ John Carmack 1. To be successful you need to put others things into prospective, do you know what is needed from you to help your team succeed? 2. Have you learned from past decisions that may have put you in a bad situation? 3. As an athlete, do you feel as though you have a strong understanding of the things that you should not be doing and how those things could affect your athletic performance? Excellence: to surpass or be superior Quote 1: “Success is about having, excellence is about being. Success is about having money and fame, but excellence is being the best you can be” – Mike Ditka 1. What does this mean? 2. According to this quote, do you think you can be excellent even if you lose? 3. What do you look for in yourself and in teammates when you think of excellence? Quote 2: “If you aren't going all the way, why go at all?” – Joe Namath 1. (answer the question) 2. What is your “all the way”? 3. Do you have everything that you need for the trip you are going to take? (mentally, physically, teammates, etc…) Quote 3: “I have always struggled to achieve excellence. One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle it's not going to be satisfying.” ‐ Greg LeMond 1. Have you ever achieved anything without a struggle? 2. Were those things as satisfying as succeeding at something that you had to put a lot into? 3. Are you setting your goals to low if you are succeeding without really trying? Fear of Failure: never attempting anything difficult, because you don’t want to fail Quote 1: “My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure” – Abraham Lincoln 1. What does this mean to you? 2. You set a goal and you fail to reach that goal, what’s your next action? Quote 2: “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” – Michael Jordan 1. Have you ever been scared just to try something? 2. What did these fears arise from? (self‐esteem, injury, mocking, etc…) 3. Have you overcome those fears, or how could you work to overcome them? Quote 3: “Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparations for their victories.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson 1. What does this quote mean? 2. How does it apply to you personally? 3. How can it apply to a team with so many different parts to it? Life/Sport Balance: being able to know when it is important to focus on one or the other Quote 1: “Life is like riding a bicycle ‐ in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein 1. How does this apply to your academic and athletic life? 2. Think about times that you felt a little weighed down or off‐balance, how did you correct yourself? 3. How would you go about helping a teammate who may be going through a tough time? Quote 2: “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” – Vince Lombardi 1. What does this mean to you? 2. Do you find it hard to give a complete commitment to everything that you need to do? 3. In what ways could you change to allow yourself to make the kind of commitments that would help you succeed at your endeavors? Quote 3: “Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self‐discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility, and commitment.” – Ross Perot 1. Do you tend to agree with the first sentence? 2. If so, why do you think people tend to slack after achieving their goals? 3. How do you go about keeping your self‐disipline and setting new goals for yourself? Fundamentals: the basic parts of an action Quote 1: “All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is surrender.” – Mahatma Ghandi 1. What does this mean to you? 2. What are your fundamental beliefs when it comes to your life in athletics? 3. How have these fundamentals shaped the type of player/teammate you are? Quote 2: “I had to spend countless hours, above and beyond the basic time, to try and perfect the fundamentals.” ‐ Julius Erving 1. How much time do you think you have spent working on the fundamentals of your sport? 2. Do you think you will ever master these? 3. How important do you think drilling the fundamentals of each movement are to your success? Do you think you would learn better if all you did was see the movement once and never again? Quote 3: “It's not necessarily who has the most talent but what team sticks together and executes their fundamentals the best.” ‐ Tony Dungy 1. What are your team’s fundamentals? 2. How do the fundamentals play into everything that you do on the field? 3. Is there any type of negative affect for a player or for the team when the fundamentals are not concentrated upon? Mental Toughness: being able to overcome when you are mentally taxed Quote 1: “Most people have the will to win; few have the will to prepare to win.” – Bobby Knight 1. Where does mental toughness come from? 2. How is mental toughness related to your preparation to win? 3. Do you think that mental toughness can be trained or does it come naturally? Quote 2: “Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles.” ‐ Alex Karras 1. What does this mean? 2. What is toughness? 3. If another player starts a fight or an argument during a game do you think that player is tough? Quote 3: “Mental toughness is to physical, as four is to one” – Bobby Knight 1. What does this mean? 2. Can a team that is not as talented physically still win based on their mental toughness? 3. When can mental toughness come into play on the field/court or in the weight room? Awareness of Self (33% Rule): Quote 1: “If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.” – Michael Jordan 1. Have you ever had someone say that their expectations of you were negative? How did you feel? 2. What expectations do you have for yourelf and for your team? 3. How can you overcome the negativity that some might bring to you or your team? Quote 2: “Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.” – Steve Jobs 1. What does this quote mean to you? 2. Do you understand your goals and what you need to do to accomplish your goals? 3. How have you been able to concentrate on yourself and not let others affect your choices? Quote 3: “It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.” ‐ Andre Gide 1. What is your opinion of this quote? 2. How are you different then the person next to you? How can those differences help you and your team succeed? 3. Do you feel like you are in a situation that you can be yourself and not have to pretend to try and fit in? If not, what steps do you think need to be taken to improve the environment? Playing with Passion: Quote 1: “A person can succeed at almost anything for which they have unlimited enthusiasm.” – Charles M. Schwab 1. Where does your enthusiasm come from? 2. Have you ever questioned your enthusiasm for what you are doing? 3. How do your teammates play into your enthusiasm for the game? Quote 2: “When you set yourself on fire, people love to come and see you burn.” – John Wesley 1. What does this mean? 2. Do you allow others to see the passion you have for what you are doing? 3. How do you feel when you see a teammate who has passion for what they are doing? Quote 3: “Without passion you don't have energy, with out energy you have nothing.” Donald Trump 1. Where do you get your energy from? 2. What do you do to get your teammates excited for what you are doing? 3. What is your least favorite part of what you do and how do you get through that and on to the good stuff? A Winner’s Aura: Quote 1: “We're going to play like winners, play the game the way it's meant to be played. Don't get full of yourself if something good happens. Don't get too depressed when something bad happens.” – Steve Spurrier 1. What does this mean to you? 2. When do players tend to get full of themselves and how can you correct that as a teammate? 3. How do you turn around someone who is depressed over a bad play or a bad call? Quote 2: "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you are right." – Henry Ford 1. How does this quote play into the belief of a winner’s aura? 2. Where is confidence come into play? How does it differ from being cocky? 3. How can you try and stay positive throughout an entire season? Who has the ability to keep the team positive? Quote 3: “The winner's edge is not in a gifted birth, a high IQ, or in talent. The winner's edge is all in the attitude, not aptitude. Attitude is the criterion for success” ‐ Denis Waitley 1. What does attitude mean to you? 2. What kind of attitude to you bring to your team? 3. What kind of attitude is needed to bring success? Can there be a combination of attitude on one team that would work?