The first meeting of the ALC was, what I would call, a general meeting. The goal of the first meeting was to give everyone 'look around' time. What is 'look around' time, you ask. There is a segment of time in all human endeavors when the group first meets, that everyone 'looks around'. You don't completely hear what is going, you are spending a majority of your time trying to figure out who is in the group, whether (at least initially) you are satisfied with the people in the group, and whether or not you think the group has a chance to succeed.
I wanted to get a sense of where our Leaders are mentally. I found it interesting that for a majority of our leaders, they were tired of being the only ones at workouts. They were tired of not being successful, tired of the lack of participation by 'teammates', and tired of the lack of support from the student body. There were a select few who were tired of feeling guilty about missing workouts, which I found interesting. The common underlying theme was that we all want to succeed in our individual programs and find a way to get the respective teams to 'buy in' to what it takes to create success.
The main things that the athletes wanted out of this program are the following (in no particular order):
I wanted to get a sense of where our Leaders are mentally. I found it interesting that for a majority of our leaders, they were tired of being the only ones at workouts. They were tired of not being successful, tired of the lack of participation by 'teammates', and tired of the lack of support from the student body. There were a select few who were tired of feeling guilty about missing workouts, which I found interesting. The common underlying theme was that we all want to succeed in our individual programs and find a way to get the respective teams to 'buy in' to what it takes to create success.
The main things that the athletes wanted out of this program are the following (in no particular order):
- They want to develop positive Leadership Qualities
- They want to learn how to make their teams better
- They want ways to encourage others/ Get them to workouts
- Increase the effort from everyone
- More team cohesiveness, less cliques
- Better seasons all across the board
- More involvement from team members/spectators/students
Finally, I just want to share some thoughts on leadership. Leadership can occur in many different ways (vocally, emotionally, physically, etc . . .). I have heard the line 'what if all of our students were leaders?'. This statement doesn't make sense to me. You can't have all leaders. You see on large and small stages the affects of having multiple leaders in a room (The United Nations/Congress/Etc . . .). One leader will either rise to the top, or you end with a room full of leaders and no true leader. The idea that everyone should lead is not possible. Ultimately, how can you be considered a leader if no one is following? It doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? You need leaders and you need followers. A follower in one group, may be a leader in another yes, but in individual group settings you cannot have all leaders. That begs the question what is a real leader? That needs to be our constant focus.
What does a great leader look like? How do they act? How do they treat their teams? How do they react under stress? How do they handle themselves when not in front of the group?
These are all things we need to evaluate, and use these questions to define the type of leader we want to be.
