Rob's Soapbox - Leadership Versus Coaching

<p>Some leaders are great coaches, but certainly not all. Many coaches are great leaders, but too many aren’t. The thing most people don’t realize is how different the two are and how rare it is to find someone who is both.</p><p>Just to confuse things even further, might I point out that sometimes the best coaches are the best leaders by recognizing that they don’t need to do any coaching. </p><p>For example, take the high school baseball coach who is blessed to have a clear and obvious major league prospect pitcher on his team. A great coach will leave that player alone entirely and recognize that all the pitcher needs to do is throw more…on his own, left to his own devices. The player will learn as he goes, on his own, and doesn’t need to be told how to do things because he’s already better than the coach ever was, will, or could be…just let the pitcher pitch. Meanwhile, that same coach, if he’s truly a great one, will work intensely with his three “worst” pitchers…and if he’s really smart, he’ll tell them to watch what that major league prospect does and try as best they can to emulate it. That’s not just great coaching, that’s leadership.</p><p>A lot of amateur golfers decide, after learning the game on their own, to get lessons from a pro. The overwhelming majority of PGA professionals will begin those lessons by completely changing the golfer’s swing in every way, rather than taking what the golfer has created and making it better…these are terrible coaches.</p><p>Therapists are the same way…which is why it’s so hard to find a good one. A great therapist takes the patient and speaks to them where they are, hoping to guide them to a new place. A terrible therapist simply commands that you do what they say, the way they tell you to, and it leads to utter failure.</p><p><br></p><p>Where is this all coming from, you may ask? We get a consistent amount of emails asking me about adding Queenie and Kyle to the show and how the process works, specifically how I “teach” them to be great broadcasters.</p><p