Every Coach’s Dream: Creating the Player-Led Team You Want

I think what you meant when you said you wanted a player-led team was this. You meant you wanted players who understood and embraced your vision. You meant you wanted leaders on your team whose behaviors were aligned with your team values and who extended your influence on the team by holding their peers accountable to your high standards. Not only did you mean that you want these things, you meant that you expect these things.

If that’s not what you meant, then please help me understand. How will your team become a player-led team if they don’t know where you expect them to go?

Well, the answer is, “It won’t.”

At least it won’t become the player-led team you expect. If it does, it will be because you constantly exclaimed to your players, “You’re doing it wrong!” Of course, they didn’t know they were doing anything wrong because you never established expectations in the first place. At least not expectations that were linked to a desired future outcome.

What’s that? Oh, I see. You cast your vision when you declared, “We’re going to be National Champions!” Makes perfect sense.

Winning the National Championship is a goal, not a vision.
A vision is so much more.

Okay. Enough of my sarcasm. But believe it or not, this is really the case on many teams. Coaches become exhausted when they feel like their efforts are not leading to positive outcomes. They get frustrated with their players. They can’t seem to understand why everyone seems to be on different sheets of music. Sadly, there’s no magic wand that can fix it all. You know that. Leading teams to greatness is hard, hard work. It’s the type of work that requires constant communication. It requires a relentless pursuit of excellence and a willingness to correct the smallest departure from your high standards.

Casting a team vision has much more to do with establishing expectations and describing your desired future outcomes than it does with declaring some witty phrase. A meaningful vision has several components. The foundation of a meaningful vision is first and foremost a very clear understanding of your team’s current reality. This understanding is formed with input from your staff, the players, other stakeholders, and your own intuition. From this understanding, you are able to realize your team’s potential and link it to a set of future conditions that you know your team can achieve. I’ll refer to this as your desired future state. So, how do you get from your current state to your desired future state? Well, that’s where all the work takes place and where having a “player-led team” could come in really handy.

Creating a player-led team requires that the team understands its current reality as well as you do. The team must also see clearly the desired future you want to create. Notice that I used the word create. This implies hard work on your part as the senior leader. You, not your players, are responsible for everything the team does or fails to do. You must describe your desired future state in a way that motivates your team to embrace it as their own.

Completing your vision will require codifying your team values and principles (behaviors) it must live by in order to achieve your vision. It also requires that you create the road map the team must follow in order to arrive at its desired future destination. This road map must include a set of goals (milestones), associated objectives. For example, winning the National Championship is a goal, not a vision. A vision is so much more.

Lastly, codify your team standards and clearly articulate the rewards and consequences associated with them. A vision devoid of clearly defined standards will be hard to achieve. Establishing standards of conduct that are linked to your vision and then holding your people accountable for living up to them marries concept with action. You will not arrive at your desired destination if you allow the team to behave in ways that are contrary to forward progress.

Providing your team with a complete vision and team standards will set the conditions for the team to be player-led. But you’ll still have to carry the weight of leading the team and assessing its advance toward your desired destination. You must work to build trust with your team and train your leaders to behave in ways that help extend your influence. Your words and actions will set the example for the leaders and other members of your team to follow. I know that’s what you mean when you say you want a player-led team. Can you get a player-led team without casting a complete vision? Sure, you can. But it probably won’t be a team headed toward a destination you desire. It won’t be a team you created; it will be a team you allowed. How can you tell the difference between the two? Well… “You’re doing it wrong!”