Stop Expecting Your Captains to Lead Without Training Them How

This episode breaks down how to build a Leadership Core that actually develops leaders, not just ceremonial captains. Grab more coaching must haves → https://coachfreetraining.com  

If your captains' biggest responsibilities are coin flips and jersey selection, you're not alone. Most coaches give athletes titles without training them how to lead. I made this mistake for years. 

I expected captains to hold teammates accountable, manage equipment, and handle conflict. They didn't know how. What teenager does? 

👋🏼 I'm Coach Bre - a mental performance coach for girl athletes, Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, and a long-time head volleyball coach and 4-time state champion.  

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How to create an application process for your Leadership Core (not a popularity contest)
• The 3-4 summer leadership development meetings that train athletes before the season starts
• How to assign squad leaders with specific roles like Energy Leader and Connection Leader
• Why having 6-8 trained leaders beats having 2-3 ceremonial captains
• How your Leadership Core can facilitate mental training and solve peer conflicts 

This system creates sustainable leadership that doesn't depend on you micromanaging or starting over every season when your captains graduate.

🕓 Key Moments:
00:00 Introduction
00:19 My Coaching Mistake
01:53 Building a Leadership Core System
03:17 Element 1: The Application Process
05:01 Element 2: Leadership Development
06:50 Element 3: Squad Leaders & Real Roles
09:59 Championship Program Membership
10:58 Handling Team Drama

 💬 Coaches - how do you help train leaders on your team? Comment below.
 
READY TO BUILD YOUR LEADERSHIP CORE?
Inside the Championship Program Membership, you get the exact template I use to create your Leadership Core (application, summer plan, leadership roles). Then we hop on a live coaching call together and BUILD your version. Every month = new template + live coaching call.

Join here → https://champions.elitecompetitor.com

📌 Free Tools & Next Steps
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🔹 Follow us on IG → @elitecompetitorcoach
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P.S.A few stats worth knowing:

• Student-athletes who participate in structured leadership training programs demonstrate 23% higher rates of positive team behaviors including accountability and peer support. (Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 2021)
• Teams with distributed leadership structures report 34% fewer conflicts and faster conflict resolution times. (International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 2020)
• Coaches who implement structured leadership systems report spending 40% less time managing team drama and interpersonal conflicts. (NFHS Coaching Survey, 2023) 

The Coach Her Game YouTube channel is hosted by The Elite Competitor and is dedicated to helping coaches of girl athletes strengthen their mental game and team culture in order to develop a competitive edge.

Head to coachfreetraining.com to grab our free training for coaches to quickly level-up your team's mental game!

Transcript

1:04

If your captain's biggest leadership responsibility this past season was doing the coin flip or picking the practice, your colors, and then standing in the middle of a team photo, and meanwhile, you're putting away all the equipment, locking up the gym, dealing with every little bit of team drama that comes around and wondering why no one else seems to care. Then this video is for you. Here's the problem. You gave'em a title, but you actually didn't develop them as leaders. And if you're tired of being the only leader on your team, then we need to talk, and I've learned this the hard way. Early on in my coaching career, I've been coaching for 14 years. I chose captains and I gave them the title. I made them feel them. Hor and all those things, and then I expected them to lead. I expected them to hold people accountable. When someone wasn't giving effort, I expected them to make sure that the equipment got put away and the doors were locked and the gym was cleaned up. I expected them to step up when drama started to brew or when energy was flat, but they didn't, they showed up to do the coin flip. They picked the practice, your colors. They stood in the middle of the photo and that was pretty much it. And I remember feeling so frustrated, like, why? Aren't they stepping up? Why do I have to do everything? Why I'm the only one who cares about this stuff? But here's the truth that I didn't really want to admit. It wasn't their fault it was mine because I never actually taught them how to lead. I never gave them a clear picture of what leadership actually looked like. I never trained them on how to hold people accountable or handle conflict or manage the behind the scenes stuff that makes the program run. I mean, what teenager actually knows how to do all of that? I handed them a title and I expected'em to figure it out. And here's the other problem. I was only developing a couple of captains instead of building leadership across my entire program. Because the truth is, your team doesn't need a couple of captains. You know, varsity leaders who can lead. It needs a program leadership structure where multiple athletes are trained and equipped and empowered to lead in different ways, and people can grow into that system. So before we go any further, let me be clear about what we're talking about and what I'm gonna dive into. To inside this video, this isn't just about fixing your captains. This is about building a program-wide leadership structure that develops multiple leaders, not just two or three seniors with a title. Because when you only have the captains, leadership becomes really dependent on just a couple of people. And when those people graduate, then you start over from scratch every single year. But when you have what I call a leadership core, you're actually building a system that trains leaders, gives them real roles, not just the coin. Flip people and creates sustainability in your program. So if your leadership team isn't leading the way you want them to, the question isn't what's wrong with them. The question is, what system am I using to develop them? And if the answer is, uh, nothing, that's where I was, don't worry then let's fix that. Okay. So after years of being disappointed by captains who maybe weren't really captaining, if that's a word, um, finally I figured out what was missing. My athletes didn't need a title. They. A system and the one that I'm gonna teach you below is called the leadership core. It's not just naming people and magically hoping that they step up as leaders. It's actually a structured system that gives them roles, gives them responsibilities, and it's across your Hope program. So here are the three elements of the leadership core that I have used for several years to develop leaders across my program. I coach volleyball, but this works for. All sports. Okay. Number one, the leadership core actually starts with an application, so it's not a popularity contest. So most teams choose leaders based on seniority or who the team likes, and that's not really how you build leaders, okay? So in my program, leadership is something you apply for and not everyone gets in. Here's how it works. You get to apply for the leadership core program if you have been in the program for at least two years. So juniors and seniors can apply now. This doesn't mean that freshmen and sophomore don't get some leader, sophomores don't get some leadership development. I'll talk about, um, that in a second. And some juniors and seniors don't apply and that's fine. That's actually good. That means the system is working because here's the thing, leadership should just be for the athletes who want to lead, and there's other ways to lead in the program as well. Okay? So it shouldn't just be the people who happen to be the most talented or the seniors, okay? So the application process does two things. It makes leadership feel important because it is. And it ensures that you're developing the right people. And the leadership, uh, application is very simple. Just ask some qualifying questions and helps them kind of like think about why they wanna do this. And before you ask, what if everyone applies? What if all your juniors and seniors apply? Great. That's awesome. That's actually the most ideal situation because you want all of them to lead, but then also you get to choose based on readiness if you want. But your leadership core could be as big as or as small as you want. For me, it typically ends up being like six to eight people across my program, and I have about 36 players in my program. Okay. I'll talk about why that ratio is important in a second. Okay. But here's, um, the key. I'm not just choosing two or three people. I'm selecting a core of people. That's the foundation of the leadership. Of my program. Okay. Now this creates this team of leaders and um, so that they can carry the load and it's not just like two people. Okay? So that's element one is they apply. Element two of the leadership core is leadership development. And usually I do this over the summer because, um, I have a fall sport, but a lot of this carries over into the season as well. So I usually, with that leadership core, I select them early on in the summer or the spring. And then over the summer, there's three or four meetings that I have with that leadership. Core, and I use these meetings to teach some very foundational leadership skills. I've used a bunch of different materials over the years. Bruce Brown's Seven Ways to Lead Your Team is a great starting, uh, point, but honestly I've done so many other things like, um, Abby Womack's book, Wolf Pack was good. Um, Brene Brown has a lot of materials as well, and then we also include them as, um, stakeholders and key decision makers in making sure that we're, we're, we are reviewing our. Core covenants for this season and what that looks like and what we need to improve on from last year. So they're part of those conversations as we head into the fall season. But other things that we cover, how to hold teammates accountable without being bossy. How to lead by example when things get hard, how to have tough conversations, what to do in team drama pops up. Like all of these things that like teenagers don't really know how to do. This is where they're learning how to do that. And this isn't just a one-time meeting, it's multiple things over the summer. So three to four meetings. And I do ask that they commit to those three or four meetings. I give them the dates ahead of time. Um, I say, in order for you to be on the leadership core, you need to make at least three of these four meetings or two of these three meetings so that there is some. Commitment there. Okay. And so that is, um, element number two is that there is some leadership development and for us it's leading up to the season. But I also, there have been seasons where like the summer wasn't really working out. Like people were kind of all over the place and they couldn't commit to the meetings. And I'm like, I really want, I. Them to be a part of this, um, you know, leadership core. So we still did element three, which I'm gonna talk about in a little bit. But element two of this leadership development can also happen in the season. So you could do like a biweekly leadership core meeting as well. Okay. Element three is your leaders are squad leaders. Okay, so we actually, um, put these leaders in charge of a pod of athletes. That's why I said six to eight is good for the ratio because then that gives each leader a group of like five to six people that they're in charge of. So over the summer, I find this really important because we have a lot of summer development. Things that we do, and having them on a squad, especially the incoming freshmen, connected to like a leader in the program, they're in a group message together so that they're reminding them of when the workouts are and all of that. We make it a little competition between the squads. They get points for. How many people show up to the workouts. And if they're on time and we do little activities, then we do like a little ceremony at the end of the summer to, um, award the squad that has the most points, things like that. And it's fun because the incoming freshmen, um, also just get connected right away. It's a point of contact that's not used so they can ask their squad leaders as well. And it gives the squad leaders an opportunity to practice their leadership skills that they're learning in these meetings. So the squads also carry into the fall season. We have that same structure. As well, so that those are some of the things that are really important. The squad leaders also, these leadership core members who are also squad leaders, also have jobs. They are not just like, okay, you're the leader. As we learn more about their personality and, and things like that, they actually choose a leadership role that they carry on into the fall. Some examples are like the energy leader or the connection leader, and so now they just don't have. A title, they have like real jobs. Um, I give them like a whole job description on what that means. And it's really important because they're like, oh, now I actually have like a role, a job, something that's really clear that I can do. Okay. The other cool things that like the leadership core and the squad leaders are in charge of, um, they're deeply ingrained in our conflict resolution process. Um, we every week. During the season have little check-ins where the program can bring their concerns and they, there, there's some stipulations and some guidelines around what these concerns are. They have to like document or say like what they've tried before or some solutions. I vet those and then I bring'em to the leadership core to solve so that they can have some problem solving opportunities. Um, they're also in charge of part of our mental training that we do. So we do a lot of mental training in our program. It's one of the cornerstones of a high performing program is are your. Are, are your players mentally tough, mentally strong. And so we use our, um, system called Plug and Play Elite Mental Game for teams that, um, basically I show really short three to 15 minute videos to my teams to help develop mental strength. It's not a lot of prep for me, and I use my leadership core to lead the discussions after that. So they're also in charge of that. So they have like. A real tangible role. If you wanna know more about plug and play Elite mental game for teams, if you're like, yeah, we need some mental strength on our team, um, head to coach free training.com. That's where I break down exactly what I do to develop mental toughness on my team. So they have other jobs that they're, that they're doing. Um, so that. It's not just, oh, I'm on the leadership core. Like they have actually things that they're doing. They're in charge of people. And, um, and that's how you can actually build a system that supports leadership across your program and helps with problem solving and actually developing skills. Now this system called the leadership core is something that I go in depth into, um, with our championship. Program membership. This is a membership of coaches, mostly high school coaches. We meet once a month, every month we work on a new template. So one of the months is the leadership core. So I give you the leadership core template, the application, the roles, all the things that, um, are included inside the leadership core, and then we hop on a call that month and we build yours so that you actually have a system and a template to use. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. And inside this membership every month is a different topic. So we also go over in another month, like one-on-one meeting structure or player impact plans, how to give your players roles and communicate that and communicate it with their parents, um, fundraising, parent volunteers, like all the things that make your program run. So if you're interested in that, we are actually doing a founding members special for the championship program membership. You can find that below in the description. You can hop in, get those templates, and we hop on a call to build. Your version of it. All right. One other thing that this leads to when it comes to leadership is team drama. And I don't wanna be the only one dealing with team drama on my team. I want to stop it before it starts. And your leaders, um, are so connected and they're kind of like, they get the pulse of what's going on on the, the team and in the program before coaches do. And so. One of the ways that I equip our leaders to be able to do something about this is through something called our Open Circle method, and I explain what the Open Circle method is in a video that you can dive into. Um, it's really easy. It's something that we do once a week for about 15 minutes, and my leadership core members run that as well. So if you wanna know more about that to stop drama before it starts, then head into that video. It can really change how much drama is happening throughout the season, which we all know. If you know, if we can reduce that, then it's a win. So I will see you in the next video.