Leadership Lessons From The Soccer Field
From the Voices on Project Management Blog
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by Dave Wakeman
I’ve been doing some reading on leadership. I don’t know exactly what brought the topic to mind, but I think it’s a combination of coaching my 9-year-old son’s soccer team and seeing institutions struggle to get people to take responsibility for their actions.
As project managers, you are leaders in your organization and your team. That’s why I wanted to highlight a few leadership lessons I learned coaching a bunch of 9-year-olds—lessons you can apply to your teams.
Simplify Your Message
When we were coaching our soccer team, the other parent coaching with me came up with the 3 Ps that symbolized what we wanted our kids to learn over the course of the season.
Those Ps were:
- Passing
- Possession
- Pressure
Each P represents a principle we wanted to teach the kids about life and soccer. Passing was about being a good teammate and recognizing that you have to work together.
Possession was about paying attention to what is going on around you and making the proper decision.
Pressure was about taking action and initiative.
You can see how much these things apply in life. What would happen if you broke your own message down into a simple format? Maybe even 3 Ps for your project?
Be Decisive
In a lot of businesses and teams, people love responsibility but never want to make decisions. In coaching youth soccer, you learn pretty quickly that if you don’t have a plan and you don’t act with intention, the kids will run all over you. I think the same happens in projects without strong leadership.
If you aren’t acting quickly and decisively, your team can start taking actions that are inconsistent with your goals and ambitions. But how do you act decisively, especially when you are operating in situations with little clarity?
Four steps stand out to me:
- Have a plan for what you want to achieve.
- Gather information about your decision.
- Consider your options.
- Be confident and fake it if you have to.
Recognize the Buck Stops With You
The most important thing in coaching and project management is that you have to be responsible—win or lose, succeed or fail. You have to take ownership of the outcomes you produce, no matter what.
Why is this so important? Because when a team doesn’t have a strong talisman to identify with and look to for support, it can create a situation where the team underperforms, has a lot of disagreements and doesn’t meet its goals.
The best way to accomplish this is to be decisive, as mentioned earlier, be clear in your communications, and be consistent in your demands and expectations.
If you do all of that, you will hopefully find that you are not just a project manager, but a project leader.
Have you found a way to distill your leadership strategy into a simple message for your project teams? Please comment below.
Posted
by
David Wakeman
on: June 27, 2019 12:59 PM |
Permalink
Comments (8)
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Interesting perspective with practical guide. Thanks for sharing.
"People love responsibility but never want to make decisions."
I need to schedule a meeting to discuss when the committee should decide which of the VPs we can present this statement to determine whether or not we agree.
Active listening is a good tool for "Possession" theme.
i will say just one word for this Article "Excellent".
Stephen Alfano
Executive Consultant| KAI Partners, Inc.
El Dorado Hills, Ca, United States
Great share, Dave. Goaaaaaaaaaaal!
JonAnn White
Project Implementation Manager| Trax Technologies
Austin, Tx, United States
enjoyed this. Great perspective. So simple.
Luis Branco
CEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, Ldª
Carcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear David
Interesting is your perspective on the theme: "Leadership Lessons From The Soccer Field"
Thanks for sharing
3 Good leadership tips:
"Simplify Your Message
Be Decisive
Recognize the Buck Stops With You "
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