“The intangibles I built a 13-year career on—the glue guy stuff that never made the box score—are exactly what Jerry and John teach in Captain. Setting standards. Reading the room. Doing the thankless work between the coach and the locker room. Most leadership books treat captaincy like a personality trait. This one treats it like a skill, which is the whole point. Every coach should hand a copy to their captain candidates. Every player who wants to lead should read this book twice.” - Shane Battier, 2x NBA Champion, Miami Heat, 2014 NBA Teammate of the Year
Being a team captain is about much more than an armband and a coin toss. Leadership is a skill that is always in demand, and team captains are the foundation of championship teams. Leaders are not born; they are made through hard work, dedication, the development of specific qualities, the acceptance of certain responsibilities, and the courage to face difficult challenges. Coaches are always looking for leaders, the best of whom earn the title of Captain.
In Captain: The Athlete's Guide to Being an Exceptional Team Leader, Jerry Lynch and myself share wisdom accrued from decades of consultation with well over 100 championship teams, dozens of Hall of Fame coaches, and hundreds of interviews with Olympic, world champion, and professional athletes and team leaders. The lessons in this book will help you start leading in a positive and constructive way, stop certain behaviors before they destroy your team culture, and face the many challenges of being a team captain. Through numerous stories of well-known leaders such as Tim Duncan, Steve Kerr, Carla Overbeck, Abby Wambach, Carles Puyol, Richie McCaw, and Simone Biles, as well as lessons from Eastern philosophy and Western psychology, this book will help you become a respected leader and a trusted bridge between coaches and teammates, and will instill you with leadership skills to use in every season of life.
Below is a preview. You can purchase your copy today on Amazon!
Chapter 20: Mentor Young Players and Future Leaders
Leaders are made; they are not born. —Vince Lombardi
When Sidney Crosby went #1 overall in the NHL draft to the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2005, he wasn’t just joining a pro team—he was tasked with saving one. When we think of Crosby today, we think about a player who has won three championships in the NHL, as well as multiple gold medals in the Olympics and world championships in a career that has spanned over 20 years.
Crosby has been recognized over the years for being an exceptional leader as well. He has twice been awarded the NHL’s Marc Messier Leadership Award for his positive leadership on the ice, motivation of teammates, and contribution to his community. Yet what many people forget is that when he was drafted in 2005, the Penguins had been stuck in the basement of their division for three straight years, and the stakes were higher than just a losing record. Rumors were swirling that if they didn’t get a new arena, the whole franchise was leaving for another city.
Crosby was expected to be the savior of a storied franchise, but he needed help. To handle that level of pressure, Crosby leaned on the only person who had faced the same type of pressure two decades earlier, Mario Lemieux. Lemieux wasn’t just a legend on the ice for the Penguins, having amassed three MVP awards and two NHL championships in his Hall of Fame career. He was the owner of the team, who’d recently bought the Penguins to keep them from going bankrupt.
If Crosby was going to save the Penguins, he needed to be developed as a leader, and Lemieux knew just what to do. He opened his home to the rookie. Crosby actually lived with the Lemieux family for his first few seasons, proving that even the best prospects need a solid support system and a veteran mentor in their corner to reach the next level.
So do the young players and future leaders on your team.
One of the most important jobs you have as a team captain is to identify and then mentor the younger players who have the potential to be future leaders and captains. How do you do this? First, pay attention, and look at the athletes in your group that other team members naturally gravitate toward. Identify which players are having an outsize influence on their teammates, whether it be in their grade or in their position group.
Next, ask yourself these questions: Do these athletes model the team’s core values and display the type of work ethic and competitiveness needed to inspire and lead their teammates? Are they the first in the weight room and the last to leave? The first to arrive and the last to leave practice? Do they sweep the shed and serve others? Are they willing to be coached, and do they have the ability to coach others in a positive way? Do they even want to be a future captain at this point, or ever? Most importantly, do they walk the walk or just talk the talk? Lots of athletes want the title of captain, but they don’t want the work and responsibility that goes along with it. The next generation of leaders must have the potential to hold their teammates accountable for the standards, just like you have.
Once you have identified potential leaders in each class, you must start bringing them into leadership discussions. Give them a taste of what it’s like to be a leader. Encourage them to first lead their classmates and their position group before they worry about leading their team. Teach them that leadership is not about an armband or a position. Leadership is about influence.
As your teammates continue to grow in their influence, start to delegate leadership tasks to them, with the small ones first. Can they organize cleaning up the locker room or make sure all the practice equipment is ready to go before training starts? Invite them into your leadership meetings with the coaching staff so they can get a taste of what goes on behind the scenes.
As Jenny Levy, the head coach of the 4x NCAA champion University of North Carolina women’s lacrosse team, told us, she brings a player from every class into every leadership meeting, at first, rotating through players to expose as many as possible and then starting to identify the leaders. They participate in reading books or watching leadership snippets and the discussion that goes on behind the scenes. They get a taste of leadership before they get responsibility.
Finally, you must mentor them. You are now their leadership coach, and it’s your responsibility to provide them feedback, to share your own experiences growing into a leader, and to help them work through any difficult challenges or situations they might be facing. You know how hard it is as an upperclassman or senior player to hold people accountable. Don’t forget how hard it is when you are a new member of the team or a younger member trying to hold older players to the standard. Your support is critical as they navigate these challenging situations.
It is so important as an upperclassman and a team captain to identify and mentor the next generation of leaders. This can be challenging, as they may be athletes who are competing for your playing time and your spot on the field. They may be vying to take the place of your good friends and fellow upperclassmen. They may even already be a bigger contributor than you are, but great leaders put their ego and self-interest aside when it comes to what is best for the team.
Remember, as Vince Lombardi reminded us at the beginning of this chapter, “Great leaders are not born. They are made.” Hopefully, someone poured into you to help you become a great captain. Now it is your turn. You must pour your heart, your soul, and your knowledge into your younger teammates, so that, when your time is done, there is a seamless transition to the next generation.
Optimize Your Leadership
- Who are the younger members of your team that possess the qualities to become future leaders?
- What can you start doing to mentor and develop the next generation of leaders on your team?
- What do you need to stop doing in order to allow the next generation of leaders to emerge?
- How can you start incorporating them into leadership discussions and teaching them what it means to be a leader, and which responsibilities can you start delegating to them?
- How can the coaches help you start developing next year’s leadership and future team captains?
