Category Archives: Leadership

Leadership 2: I Did It My Way

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Previously, I discussed the results of my LPI and the context that I don’t often consider myself a leader, but rather someone who is doing his own thing. I have not diverged from this belief much since the last blog post, but I have learned and experienced things along the way. One of the most significant events actually happened at a recent tournament, the 2017 Pan American Championships. As I have previously written about it on my athlete blog, I will simply give the highlights here. If you want the full background context, you can find it here.

At the event, on the day of the finals, it was a Canada vs. Canada match up in 3 of the 5 events, which meant that the National Team coaches could not coach. To make this more intriguing, my mentor for this class was one of the National Coaches, so perhaps we can get a full-on discussion in the comment section later on to get his side of the story. There have been situations in the past where this has happened, and the coaches forbade anyone from coaching, but I thought about it and well… knowing me, I decided to ‘Challenge the Process’. The key points here include that my partner and I were in the Mixed Doubles final, which was to be the last match of the day. Furthermore, she was in the Women’s Singles final, which was the first match of the day. Her opponent in the Women’s Singles final also happened to be our opponent in the Mixed Doubles final, which gave me even more purpose to act on that. I think it would be generally easier to play with a partner who has won her first final than someone who lost, especially as Women’s Singles is actually my partner’s primary event.

Despite the coaches recommendations, I went to coach. I was asked to leave by the tournament referee however, because they said that Badminton Pan Am did not allow players to coach. This is the first time I encountered this rule, as I played and coached my teammates one month previously at the Jamaican International. As a result, some other players in my situation at this tournament have taken it all the way up to the Badminton World Federation. I did respect the ruling after that, so I really only coached 1/6th of the match. In the end, my partner won the singles, and we won the Mixed Doubles. I thought that was the end of that, but the case is still open apparently to see what the consequences are from my actions. Maybe some day it will be resolved.

So, what am I? I leader? A rebel? A millenial who feels entitled to do whatever he wants to (we may be onto something here…)? If only we could do the LPI in this situation, I wonder how I would be rated. The National Team coaches and tournament organizers would probably score my leadership poorly (except my favourite, “Challenge the Process”), and my peers may not score me very high either (especially my opponents). But I would like to think my partner would give me a high score. If we averaged all the scores, I would probably score terribly, but would that really matter to me? Perhaps I can say that this time, I was truly “person-centered”. Everything else just becomes noise…

The past weekend I was at the High Performance Coach Advance at PISE, in which we spent a lot of time discussing coaching development and ‘pathways’.   One of the exercises we had to do was to answer the question: “Who are you?” The exercise was meant to help us consider our different identities and how much weight we put into different roles. At the beginning of the year, I was torn between considering myself as a player or a coach, but thankfully, Dave Hill helped me see past it and I have embraced the concept of being both. I have taken it a bit further and responded to the question, “Who are you?”, with:

“I am who I need to be, in that moment. 100% of the time.”

I consider my identity to be a human being, 100% of the time. That will be the only label I will attach myself to, because I think defining ourselves with labels can ultimately restrict us by forcing us to live in the standards of those labels. How can we optimize ourselves if we are constantly labeling ourselves with different things? I can see that there was discussion with coaches that take very good care of their athletes and ensuring they are properly rested, but the coaches are often not taking care of themselves. Why is that? Perhaps it’s in the ‘label’ of what coaches are supposed to do. But who defines that?

I also brought up the concept of the difference with being a teacher, and simply someone teaching. It is similar, yet very different. Perhaps we can borrow the idea of an athlete’s self-serving bias, where successes are attributed to the athlete’s own actions, whereas less successful events can be attributed to external events. Perhaps we somewhat do this naturally, but the identities we live may not be the ones that mean the most to us, but rather what takes the majority of our time. I feel that dedicated coaches are often stuck in that situation because of the long hours full-time coaching demands.

Maybe that is why I continue to compete, because I have lived the athlete identity for so long. I would even go far enough to call it “athlete life”, which is also my most-used hashtag on social media. The only reason I bring this up is because there are times I have had more of a coaching role, and I started using #coachlife. Afterwards, in an attempt to be funny, I sometimes write: “#lifelife. But as the aphorism goes: “Many a true word is spoken in jest“. Perhaps this is a bit of the realization that no matter what kind of “life” I choose (e.g. athlete, coach, family, work, etc.), it’s just “life” in the end. Maybe I am not a badminton player, but a person playing badminton. Maybe I will not be a badminton coach, but a person who coaches badminton. These are just things that I do, but not necessarily who I am. Perhaps this type of detachment can be a strength, but it can be a weakness as well if we are too far removed. Why do I really care for something if it’s not who I am? But that’s a very personal question that each one of us has to answer on our own.

So to tie together the situation at the Pan Am Championships this year, perhaps I was only being myself. There was an opportunity to act on something and I chose to do something. Another adage is to “choose your battles“, and I chose to battle. If I had to pick an identity, it would be that of an athlete, but more specifically, a partner. I have not been the best partner to other players in the past, and perhaps a part of me was hoping to change that. That’s just part of the learning process. A similar situation happened at Nationals earlier this year, but due to the known coaching policies by Badminton Canada, there was nothing I could do. This time, I had a chance to do something and I did.

#life

Leadership: I Can’t Swim, So How Do I Lead A Ship?

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Leadership is a bit like being “cool”. It is difficult to describe at times, although people can often tell who is and who is not. It is awkward to label yourself, but normal for others to use the terms as descriptors. Unfortunately, I believe many people get it wrong, because we filter reality through our own perceptions. We are “cool” and “leaders” in our own ways, and it often changes in different roles. As an athlete, leadership is optional, but highly recommended for those who wish to achieve their potential. Especially in a system that does not favour those who do not take their own initiatives, I have taken leadership roles as an athlete as often as I could. However, as a coach, leadership is necessary because it is part of the job. Whether it is just a job, a career, or a calling, leadership is necessary in coaching.

As I am fortunate to have extensive competitive experience as an athlete, I have worked with many coaches over the years. This is a benefit as it gives me a dual perspective: 1) as a player, what I want from a coach, and 2) as a coach, how can I best develop a player in the current competitive context? I have had some great coaches over the years and some that have not been as strong. However, I feel I can still learn something from anyone, and this is simply another life lesson from sport as it happens in many different contexts in life. With that said, I can also learn from the mistakes of others in hopes to prevent making the same mistake in the future. From a coaching perspective, when working with young athletes, I first try to find their goals. Without goals, we cannot establish accountability, and it makes it hard to move in the right direction. If goals are set and we are on the same page, then my focus is to try to get them to the level of badminton I have achieved, with the intention of getting them there in a shorter timeline than it took me. That way, there is room to grow the athlete to become better than my former achievements. Should another coach be more suitable for that player, then our journey together ends. Perhaps it is a bit like having children: for some families, they work hard so that their children can have a better life. As a coach, I want to work hard so my athletes can enjoy a better competitive career. It does not always end up that way, but at least it is the intention.

Returning to my perceptions of leadership, I think of leadership as taking the initiative to do something. Context is always important, as a person can be a leader for starting something, yet another person can also be a leader for discontinuing. Leadership to me is a neutral, and can be used for both good and bad things. For example, from the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), “Challenging The Process” is one aspect of leadership which can have positive effects in the long run, but often seen as a negative thing in the short term. This was my highest scoring practice on the LPI and is quite unique to me in my situation, as I play a dual role of athlete and coach. As I am not in a high performance coaching role (which would be an immediate conflict of interest), I have smaller coaching roles at the moment, with minimum conflicts. It then becomes difficult for my Observers to rate me as a coach, and I believe most have rated me as a player, which is the best I can do at the moment. Despite the difficulties, the LPI has offered some insightful feedback which I will elaborate on with a bit more depth than in our assignment.

The results of the LPI are mixed, with some high and low scores, but in the end, the trends are the same. Using the graph from our results (see below this paragraph), the curve generally stays similar in shape and is simply translated higher or lower, which means that most of my Observers rated me in a similar fashion with respect to each practice. The first 3 practices (Model the Way (MTW), Inspire a Shared Vision (IASV), and Challenge the Process (CTP)) are my best, with CTP being the highest rated, while the last 2 practices (Enable Others To Act (EOTA) and Encourage The Heart (ETH)) were the lowest. Based on the results, the “Observers” that I chose to be “Managers” were my coaches and sport administrators, while “Co-workers” were fellow athletes. The Managers were the largest group and their answers were almost identical to the average of all the observers. Answers from the Co-workers were the lowest, even lower than my own ratings, but there are probably some good reasons for that.

Based on the sample of “Co-workers” I have selected, some are current partners, training partners, former partners, and opponents. I have likely competed against most of these athletes one way or another, and my track record against most of the players have been generally positive. With that said, I do believe that each athlete has their own interpretation of what it means to be successful as a Canadian badminton player, and I have disagreed with many of them one way or another. As Dr. Van Neutegem would say, “Show me the evidence.” I believe in accountability and I know my own goals and how I hope to get there. I have seen many athletes succeed in the past, but I have seen more of them fail. To me, leadership often means to lead by example and not be caught up in the little things, such as trying to get recognition or informing others that I am “leading”. Perhaps high achievers are not actually intending to lead, but are simply working hard on their goals. Leadership for me as an athlete is just a byproduct of finding ways of becoming successful and achieving my personal goals in the sport. It is not too surprising if other athletes rate me low, because as an athlete, it is not my job to help them develop. Exceptions are made in training, as I will always give others my best as I expect the same from them, but the directions we choose as athletes are our own. Recently, I realized that I need to take care of my own tasks as an athlete before worrying about what my partner needs to do (to prevent blaming others). I am still evolving as an athlete, which constantly shifts my perspective when I switch to a coaching role.

The intial reaction from the written feedback in the LPI was a bit of anger and frustration, but when I change the context from a coach back to an athlete, the feedback makes a lot more sense, except the comment about giving less time to my social life (because I have practically no social life already). A lot of the feedback in things I need to do more is to be more positive, supportive, and encouraging. As a coach, I would agree with the feedback and I would like to think I do these things as a coach, which is why I felt offended initially. However, as most of the Observers know me best as an athlete, it starts to make sense because I can have a pretty nasty competitive edge on some people. I guess there are both pros and cons to being both athlete and coach because I almost have to juggle two different characters. But in the end, isn’t that just part of life where we juggle different roles in family life, work life, sport life, and other life?

Some of the changes I hope to make based on the results of my LPI are to ask for more feedback and communicate with others better. Despite the fact that communication can have a chicken and egg conundrum (i.e. who communicates first?), as leadership involves taking the initiative, I will initiate if I have to, because I will always reap the benefit for asking, whether I get feedback or not. Although many people feel I lead by example, I am simply on a journey for personal growth: how can I become a better person? What works for me may not work for someone else, and to judge my leadership based on what I do is not “fair”, but since that is someone else’s perspective, I am not one to judge, nor am I one to care. People often succumb to the Halo Effect, and often one particular trait overrides everything else in positive or negative ways. For example, being an Olympian, some people can give me halos that I am competitive, hard working, and athletic, despite not knowing whether I am or not outside of my sport. For those who believe I am an influence to younger players, I am grateful, but I must also heed a warning best quoted by Bruce Lee: “Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own.” And as a new coach, I want to do exactly that. I want to learn from the best, but I don’t have to be exactly like them. I can model their coaching ability, use their best techniques, but also discard their vices and improve on their weaknesses. As an athlete, I always try to find a better way to reach my true potential. As a coach, I don’t think it’s any different except I have to start at the bottom. With experience as an athlete and being part of an incredible coaching program at UBC, I’m definitely on the right track.

Maybe I don’t need to swim to lead a ship.