Coaching Culture with Ben Herring

How to Grow Leadership in Players who Don't Talk

• Ben Herring

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Welcome to Coaching Culture Reflections, the midweek spark for anyone who loves leading teams and growing through that journey. I'm Ben Herring and I've been loving this side of the game for bloody ages. Each week I'll break down key components of leadership from culture building to communication, from mindset to motivation, all to help you lead with more impact, heart and clarity. And level up. Let's get into it. We had a question come in this week, team, and it's coming a couple of times, so I'm gonna answer it. The question's this: how can I develop leadership in players who don't naturally speak up? It's a brilliant question. And it's one that sits sort of in that cross-section between culture, communication, and potentially player development. I love it. Fits this coaching culture podcast superbly. So how do we do it? I've got three approaches with some practical steps that you can trial pretty much straight away on your team, and it's not gonna take too much out of it. And it's important because it helps your quieter players step into leadership without forcing them to be something that they're not. So before I get onto these three though, I've got something, just a bit of an awareness thing for us as coaches. It's a common coaching thing to sort of cuss it. I don't have leaders on my team. The leadership is not there, we're immature, whatever it is. I often hear that when I'm mentoring coaches or myself, that we just don't have the leadership. But then I'll put it back on you as how are you actually growing leadership? Because it's a skill like any other. How are you growing it as a coach? We spend a lot of time showing someone how to catch and pass correctly or tackle tech or being in the right place on the field or your structures and your set plays. But are we actually devoting any time at all to growing people's leadership? And the answer I would say for the majority of people was not much. And we might say something like, we just don't have the time for that sort of stuff. They have to probably do that on their own, or they're just not naturally that not true. You can grow someone's leadership outstanding. I know myself, I've grown out through the roof in my leadership. I remember when I was a young player, I turned down capstancy because I just didn't know what it was, for example. And as I've gone along the ways uh through my own journey through this wonderful sport, I've actually discovered it and grown it and like a skill I've grown any other. So it's definitely possible. And as coaches, our responsibility to help grow this. So here are three things we can do to actually help those quieter players develop leadership. Rhighto, number one, first and foremost is redefine what leadership looks like. Now, this is cool because not all leadership is vocal. I'll repeat that. Not all leadership is vocal. That's just the one we hear. Some players lead through all sorts of things: consistency, work, ethic, emotional stability. So by broadening a team's definition of what leadership is, you're actually creating room for quieter players to actually lead authentically. So how do you do this? Well, I think this is this is a cool thing. You can ask your team, right, team, what does leadership look like here? You can get them to answer or you can get it to write on the board. If they do write on the board, you can circle the good ones. And you'll find that once you start this sort of dialogue, you'll get people talking about things like someone who sets standards, someone who shows up early, someone who stays calm under pressure, these sort of things. And once you've raised it publicly and made that awareness there, people in the team actually realize leadership isn't just about how loud you are, if you're the loudest in the room. And I love that. So what you can then do, once you've highlighted this publicly to the whole group, you can actually make sure that you highlight these micro leadership moments. So when a quieter player models some of those trades, you call it out publicly. Hey, look at that. Look at that leadership. Didn't say a word, but the actions there lifted this group. And that gives such confidence to that player. It actually redefines their thinking around what leadership is. And to be able to do that in a group setting is important because you don't need everybody in the team to be the loudest. You need some people that have just got that fan, the lead by work ethic. You've got to have those people, the glue in the team, those sort of people. These are big points. What you can do is you can actually raise this, and this is something every coach can do, whether you're at amateur level or professional, is you can have little theme weeks. Right, oh, we talked about, for example, that showing up early was a great leadership trade. So this week, we're gonna theme it. It's show up early week. And you can do that, reward it, praise it when you see it. And you can say, okay, this person turned up first, bang, prize for that. This person was first to the line out, this person was first to training, this person was first to pack up the kit, this person was first to on the line for the extra fitness we were gonna do. Like you can you can reframe it and you can you can highlight that these things are leadership too, and it just breeds so much confidence and gives so much choice for players to not just think they have to be the vocal person to be a leader. They can be a leader in a number of different ways. So do that and promote it. It takes up no time. You can slip it into your training as easy as you like, and it just opens a whole world for a lot of players. It's a beautiful thing you can do as a coach. Number two is building confidence. Quiet players can often stay quiet because they fear saying the wrong thing. It's that fear of failure. Now, this is a big thing, and certainly um in my time in Japan, for example, where that's the schooling system as well, you don't get many hands up. You don't get people shouting out what they think because they're worried they might be wrong. So, how can you get around this? Well, what you can do is give structured moments that actually help the safety of that environment, building confidence through low risk situations first. And the easiest way of creating a lower risk in a big group is to smallen down the groups. Nearly every single professional team around the world has mini-teams in their team. So you might have 36, 40 players, you have four mini teams or less, and you can split the team up by position or unit or just a random mix, and then you just dilute the audience, which you're having to talk to. So players that don't like putting that voice up in a big setting are more likely to do it in a smaller setting. And that's amazing. If you are in a big setting, I love this little trick. I do this regularly, is you have the first voice to someone that I call it the first voice. And what I do is if I'm gonna be talking to a group, I pre-prepare some of the questions I'm gonna ask. And then I tap people on the shoulder that I want to grow as leaders, and I say, hey, I'm gonna be asking this question, um, and this is the answer I'm looking for. When I come to you, are you able to answer that like that? And if you want to add anything yourself onto the end of it by your own discretion, go for it. And they'll pretty much always say, Oh, yeah, I can do that. And they've got time and they know what's coming, they can have real confidence because you're not trying to stitch them up or catch them out. You're giving them the answer. You're giving them the question. So they can have real, it's like an exam. If you know what's coming, you walk into that exam, confidence has, and it's easy and it's fluid. And when the rest of the team, and when you say, Little, little Tommy, what would you be doing in this situation? And they go bang with the answer, clear, confidently, big voice, because they know it. The rest of the group goes, Wow, listen to him to it, wow. And they have confidence in him or her, whoever it is. And that feeds the cycle of confidence in that player. And then over time, you keep doing that, you can probably drop down some of the queuing up you do and go, right on, mate, you're you're answering really well at the moment. I might come to you with a random question today. Are you confident enough to answer that? Yeah, bring it on, coach. I reckon I'm ready. How good? So there's nothing wrong with giving people the answers. In fact, not giving people the answers when you know them is often an old school coaching trait. You keep things in your back pocket and you try to draw it out of them, and it's sometimes it's horrible. Just give them it, build the confidence first, and then they get the answer as well. Love that. In fact, here's another little thing we did when I was in Japan. I love this because we use the technology which was around. And as I talked about Japan, they don't often put their hand up and answer questions. So often we would get everyone with their phone and an app in a meeting. And I'll say, which one of these three choices do you reckon would have been right for us in this situation? And they can tap on the answer and it all comes up on the screen. And I can say, right, oh, 80% of you thought this one. I agree. And here's why. Now I'm interested in what some of these guys that said the other two options, but I'll talk, come to me later on and I can sort of talk about why they might not have been the best. When you've got that sort of anonymousness, like an app like that, which gives you a little survey which comes up instantly on the on the screen, that anonymousness gives people confidence to answer what they truly would answer. A lot of people don't answer what they would answer because they're not sure if it's going to be right. And the more you get used to answering questions, right or wrong, the confidence will build and build. Number three, pair with a mentor. Love that word, pair with a mentor. Quiet players often need a model, not a microphone. Pair them with a senior player who can show them how to express in a better way or in their own way, for in fact. Through sort of one-on-one mentoring, as I like to think of it, they can get they can get number three. Pair players with a mentor. Now, a mentor I mean a senior player in the team. So if you've got a player that you think is a quiet player and you want to grow them, pair them with a senior player. That senior player tags up with them and is their kind of buddy, you know, their big brother or their big sister. And this is a cool concept for that mentor too. You can cue them up. You say, I'm pairing you with this junior player because I want to grow their confidence. I want you to be their sounding board. I want you to give them confidence. I want you to be with them, shoulder the blame, you know, help them out. And you'll often find those senior players love that side of things and it's it's a growth area for them. But what it does is it gives that junior player a shoulder to lean on. And sometimes when you share a load, you half a load. So if there's pressure or unconfidence, when you're with a senior person in the team, you're more likely to have a bit more springiness, step and confidence. And how you can do it is by creating reflective prompts. So after training, you might grab those two. You could even do it publicly or quietly, and you can say, You two, what did you think about our communications in the huddle today? And if you did that to just the quieter player, they would probably shy away. But because they're with a senior player, it doesn't even matter which one of them answers, they feel a lot safer because they they got their mentor by their side. And then you can do it one-on-one and say, hey, hey, let's let's go through a lot of these points that happened today and they've got someone to lean on. The other aspect of this, which I think is a cool one that we often forget as coaches, is you're a mentor too. Like you are a mentor to all of the players in the team. So taking that time to have those little one-on-one check-ins goes a long way for confidence. When someone knows that you're checking in and asking about them, done well casually, it just creates this great connection, this great vibe, and a real confidence. So you are a mentor. Often we forget that we are that. And just taking those little moments to have those sort of one-on-one conversations is awesome. So that's my point, people. Three points then how you can develop leadership on players who don't speak naturally are these. One, redefine what it looks like, what leadership looks like. Number two, build confidence. And number three, use mentors, pair them with senior players to lessen the burden. Love those. Give them a crack. You can do it anywhere you want, and I will see you next week.