May 09, 2018   |   Tagged Coaching

The Voice, the face and the heart of leadership

Great basketball teams need great leaders. Can you describe a good leader? Take a look at these key leadership qualities for basketball teams, families and business teams.

The Voice of Leadership
Encouragement : the key to building a good team. To encourage means to build courage into the heart of your teammates. Look at all the words you say to your team (sport team, family team, friends)

Good leaders have 10 positive statements to every 1 critical statement. If you put all the words you say to your teammates or family in a jar and looked at them—how many would be ones that build them up or how many are words that tear them down, and how much in there is just silence instead of positive words?

Encouraging or bossy? Teams hate bossy people who think they are leaders. A bossy person is always telling everybody what they are doing wrong or what they should be doing. A true leader doesn’t boss people around

Good communication: the key to team health. Strong leaders know how to communicate.
They can say what needs to be said in a way that makes the team stronger and more unified. A team or family that has words full of anger, meanness, gossip, sarcasm, cuts, and criticism will be unhealthy and toxic. Bitterness, jealousy, apathy, or anger are signs the team or family have no clue how to communicate in good ways. Good communication always clears up toxic and unhealthy teams and families. The health of the team or family is found in the way they communicate.

TR quotient (A leader who takes responsibility): the key to team unity. TR means to take responsibility. When mistakes are made, good leaders don’t pass the blame and accuse other people. Instead their TR quotient is high and they work hard to see what they need to change. A team and family with strong unity has members who don’t blame and who can ask forgiveness. They recognize their faults instead of only seeing someone else’s faults, and they are very clear on what needs to change.

The Face of Leadership
Skill level and Confidence: the key to team respect. Team captains, leaders on the court or field have skills their team members can rely on. Team members need to know their leaders have the skills to get them through tough situations. Respect is earned. Leaders who want respect must have the skills to back up their leadership.

Calm under pressure: the key to team success. Tough situations come to every team and every family. Strong leaders remain calm when the stakes get high. They don’t lose their temper, they don’t lose their confidence, and they don’t fold under pressure. When life gets tough, strong leaders get better.

The Heart of Leadership

Willing to serve: the key to creating the right team atmosphere. Don’t be a leader if you don’t want to serve. Being a good leader means willingness to be the hardest worker on the team. A team that doesn’t like each other is one that doesn’t have leaders who are willing to serve. Families are the same way. A family that doesn’t get along doesn’t have members equally serving each other with joy and thankfulness. Change this pattern and you change your team or family atmosphere from poor to great.

Ability to inspire and motive: the key to team greatness. A team is only as great as the leader’s ability to motivate everyone to work hard to achieve greatness. Proverbs in the Bible says, “Without a vision (a high quality goal), the people perish.” Strong leaders move people, in a quality direction toward a quality goal. Great teams and families have purposeful, challenging, and beautiful goals and most importantly the ability to turn those goals into reality.

About NBC Basketball

NBC Camps began in 1971 with the mission of building a program that focuses on training the whole athlete, mentally, relationally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. NBC Camps focuses on the importance of great leadership and training leaders who make those they lead better on and off the court. Getting better at basketball requires intentional skill building, the same is true for becoming a quality leader. For more information about NBC Basketball and the many programs available check out our travel teams, camps, clinics and programs.