The 3 Elements of Leadership — Part 1

Hi Coach,

Before you dive in, two quick notes:

In today’s issue…

Coaches are leaders.

Effective leadership is one of the essential ingredients in effective coaching, which is why it’s one of the eight slices in the Better Coaching Wheel (see visual above).

Effective leadership contains three elements.

Know Yourself ➡️ Lead Yourself ➡️ Lead Others

Today, we’re going to look at the first of the three elements of effective leadership: Know Yourself.

Before you can lead yourself well, you need to know yourself.

Three steps to knowing yourself:

Know Your Story

This is about understanding your own personal story.

I’m not just talking about in sports or coaching. I’m talking about your life story from the time you were a child.

It’s taking an introspective look at the experiences you’ve had, both positive and negative, that shaped who you are.

Here’s a simple, powerful exercise you can do to help you understand your own personal narrative, I’ll call it the Know Your Story Exercise:

The above exercise will likely be a bit uncomfortable, but I’d encourage you to do it.

There’s research behind the importance of knowing your story, or what research calls, “Narrative Coherence.”

One study found that there is a significant negative correlation between narrative coherence and the authoritarian parenting style. Authoritarian parenting is characterized by being strict on rules and often lacking relational connection, which correlates with poor child behavior.

This suggests that as a parent's ability to tell coherent stories increases, their likelihood of using the less effective authoritarian style decreases.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that those same authoritarian tendencies are likely to show up in our coaching if we don’t know our own story.

Authoritarian leadership stands in opposition to transformational leadership, which I know is what we all aspire to in our coaching.

It’s essential that we know our story to be transformational leaders.

Define Your Values

To lead well, we need to know what matters to us.

Knowing our values helps us navigate hard things, fills us with a sense of purpose, and provides a compass when we must make tough decisions.

Brené Brown’s “Living into Our Values Exercise” is an incredibly helpful exercise if you don’t know your core values.

I’d encourage you to download the PDF below and complete the exercise.

My core values are integrity and excellence. Hit reply and tell me what yours are, I’ll read and reply to every response.

Write Your Own Eulogy

Live with the end in mind.

This idea was popularized by Steven Covey in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

The most powerful way I’ve found to make this tangible is to write my own eulogy.

Considering what I want people to say about me at the end of myself puts life into perspective and shapes the decisions I make in the present.

Here’s the eulogy exercise…

I’ve done this exercise several times. It’s powerful every time I do it. At one point, I was in the habit of reading my eulogy each morning before I began my day. Maybe you would benefit from doing the same.

Our lives are short, and we’re all going to die one day.

Embracing that reality and living with the end in mind is a key to living into our values and living a rich, meaningful life.

To know yourself:

Topics include:

🎧 Listen Now 👉 Spotify | Apple | YouTube

📝 Download the Notes (located inside the Better Coaching Community) 👉 Free PDF

Thanks for reading, I hope this serves you on your journey.

To your growth,

Luke Gromer, RYG Athletics | A NIKE Sports Camp Provider

P.S. If you’re interested in becoming one of our NIKE Sports Camp directors, reply “NIKE” to this email, and we’ll get on a call! You can see testimonials from over 100 athletes that attended our camps last summer.

Here are a few ways we can help you grow as a coach.

Join the Better Coaching Community to connect with and learn from 450+ other like-minded coaches!

Listen to any of the 125+ episodes of The Better Coaching Podcast.

Get detailed notes on every episode of the Better Coaching Podcast and other free coaching resources.