083: How Coaches Build an Effective Leadership Group – and why it's so important for the development of you, your team and your athletes

This week on Brain in the Game, we look at something that is a bit controversial when you're trying to create an organisation or a club or a group that's efficient, effective, and responsive. That is, how do you build an effective leadership group? And why is it so important for the development of you, your team, and your athletes?

Firstly, for athletes, leadership groups can be beneficial in both individual and team sports, because they:

• encourage communication and collaboration, which are critical components of effective athlete growth
• allow athletes to communicate in a safe environment, without being judged or isolated for having an opinion
• teach athletes to work towards collective goals instead of just focusing on their own results
• raise awareness of how an athlete's behaviour impacts the team dynamic, leading to a more positive and developmental environment

And for coaches, what are the benefits of leadership groups over other strategies or formats?

The structure of a leadership group facilitates collaboration in multiple ways. It allows coaches to create multiple layers of communication because their players may communicate differently due to their unique backgrounds and generation gaps. 

And coaches can utilise these multiple delivery systems to maximise the impact of communication. By encouraging teammates to communicate in a peer-to-peer way that coaches can't, ultimately having a team of athletes communicating efficiently benefits the team on competition day.