(Editor’s Note: The article is adapted from the upcoming book Cornfields to Gold Medals: The Story of Coach Don Showalter and 15 GOLD Lessons from a Life of Leadership)

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Coach Showalter glances at his phone as he and his coaching staff circulate across the dormitory. The digital display read 2:55 AM. At 3:00 AM, in unison, each coach knocks on a door and in their coaching voice shouts, “Get-up! Get-up! Time to rise!” Within a few seconds, teenagers appear; eyes squinted as they adjust to the light; brows furrowed, perhaps an annoyed expression but likely more in an inquisitive nature, curious about the early wake-up call. The coaches hand them a piece of paper with directions to follow, but no explanation. The youth retreat to get dressed as the coaches made their way to the commons area, a large open space outside the dormitory.

It was 2018 and the USA Basketball Junior National Team was in the middle of an eight-day training camp at the United States Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO in preparation for the U17 World Championships in Argentina. The teenagers are 16-17-year-old elite-level athletes, the best in the United States. The directions on the piece of paper state to be outside in the commons area by 3:10 AM in full workout gear. As the athletes converge on the commons area they are met by the coaches and another gentleman, unfamiliar to them. At 3:10, Coach Showalter orders all athletes present into a plank position, a core strength exercise. The athletes stay in the plank position until all their teammates are present, as a few stumble in late.

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In the past few months, I have worked with student-athletes that are now interacting with their sport in ways that are unfamiliar – having their competitive seasons cut short, working out without their teammates, having remote team meetings, and even worrying about the potential cancelation of their upcoming campaigns. The trying situation in which athletes currently find themselves is ripe for growth. The extent to which they will learn is heavily influenced by coaches and how they help athletes under their direction engage the current sport experience.

Reflection is crucial to the process of generating new knowledge from an experience. In other words, if coaches want athletes with whom they work to learn and develop, it is necessary to be intentional with how they attempt to facilitate athlete-reflection. The term “reflection” is often used to describe a range of practices (Cushion, 2018). In order for an individual to effectively help athletes reflect, the mental processes that are encompassed by the term need to be understood.  Schön (1983) detailed three distinct mental processes of reflection: Reflection In-Action is principally about evaluating your thoughts and sensations while an event is occurring – “thinking on your feet”; Reflection On-Action is a deliberate use of logic and reason to gain understanding when there is a stoppage in action but also when there is still an opportunity to impact the action-present, and Retrospective Reflection-On-Action is a deeper process used after an event that can include an attempt to fully reconstruct the experience, think abstractly about potential future actions and even experiment. These types of reflection are actually different mental processes and need to be treated as such (For a full model of athlete reflection see Lott, 2018).

I recently studied the manner in which coaches at the collegiate level attempted to facilitate athlete-reflection and I noticed something very interesting. Coaches in my study primarily used the same strategy regardless of the mental processes available to athletes in different contexts. Coaches proved quite capable of creating initial awareness about something and then taking advantage of a stoppage in play to bring attention to a particular issue with positive or negative reinforcement. This often involved telling or showing the athlete what they did or did not do. There was almost no attempt to get athletes to reflect in-action nor an attempt for a longer-term deep engagement with an issue.

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Walk into any school, gymnasium, workplace, or search education, business, or coaching on Twitter, and odds are you’ll quickly encounter messages and quotes extolling the virtues of leadership. As coaches, we seek leaders to stabilize our teams in pressure situations, to shoulder the responsibility of making plays, and for setting the competitive tone at practice. Hence, we designate captains and form leadership councils. But, as much as we want to develop great leaders, success and maximum growth truly lie with our followers, in the form of followership.

With our team, we define followership as the ability to recognize successful ideas and behaviors outside of ourselves and willingly follow them for the greater interest of the group or team. Followership requires humility to accept that someone else’s idea or method may be more valuable and essential towards achieving the group’s mission than our own. Successful followership also requires discipline to wholeheartedly act in concert with the current leader.

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I knew I always wanted to coach. Just like so many other people, I grew up loving sports from a young age. Being a coach has put me in a position to help athletes grow and develop. I often joke around with my athletes that I am much closer to their age than most coaches at our school.  I know that I do not have a lot of experience and need to keep learning.  All young coaches need to do that.  Right now, I cherish the opportunity to work with experienced coaches every day and learn from them. One day I hope to take that knowledge and guidance and be a standout “experienced” head coach myself. I often reflect on the qualities that I like to think I bring to the table. Doing so has allowed me to come up with a few tips that I believe any young coach can use to better themselves as leaders.

Do Not be Afraid of Change
This might not come as a surprise to anyone reading this, but I think this is easier said than done. It is a bold move to come in as a young coach and try to “shake things up.” I recognize that not all of my thoughts or ideas are correct. However, it does not mean I have nothing to contribute. I do think it is possible for a novice coach to bring new and innovative ideas that might be overlooked.

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Youth sport coaches are tasked with the difficult job of taking the abundance of knowledge they have and delivering it to athletes at various developmental stages in a way that makes sense. One way that coaches often deliver information is through offering feedback for both positive and negative behaviors. Feedback is used to increase the athlete’s performance of a movement and can come in many forms. However, not all types of feedback are created equal. While the purpose of feedback is to increase an athlete’s skill level and confidence, feedback given at the wrong time and in the wrong way can do the exact opposite. The remainder of this article will present best practices for giving feedback when teaching new skills.

To begin, it is important to understand that there are two main types of verbal feedback. The first type of verbal feedback is called supportive feedback. Supportive feedback is used to reinforce components of a skill that an athlete performed well. The second type of feedback is named change-oriented feedback. The purpose of this type of feedback is to provide an athlete with information about how to change their behavior to increase their performance. While both types of feedback are essential, they can either increase or decrease confidence and skill-based on the coach’s delivery. Feedback that is specific, directed, goal-oriented, and frequent is generally viewed as most effective.