Coaching – An Essential Leadership Tool
By Lt. Colonel (Ret.) Thomas Bowen
Coaching your followers, whether they be US Army Soldiers, West Point cadets, or civilians, is an ideal way to cultivate their involvement in solving their own challenges, engage them relationally, and exercise your leadership.
Although the term “coaching” could connote athletic drilling by your football or softball coach, here we mean it to be impromptu, one-to-one interactions between a leader and his or her led. Alternatively, “coaching” could conjure up visions of a long-term mentor-protégé relationship; in this context, we will confine the term to mean preemptive, informal, in-the-moment interaction between a leader and a subordinate. A coaching interaction can take place on the side of a Stryker infantry vehicle, on the parade field, or in the aisle of a warehouse. As a leader, you take advantage of a coaching moment when you see a follower struggling, or potentially struggling, with a task. Out of pride or embarrassment your follower may not approach you with his or her problem, whereupon you approach that person to avoid a potentially disastrous situation. Continue reading → Coaching – An Essential Leadership Tool
One of the most successful groups in the NFL is a tribe called the “Legion of Boom (LOB).” The LOB is the self-named Seattle Seahawks defensive secondary. Its most well-known members are cornerback Richard Sherman, strong safety Kam Chancellor, and free safety Earl Thomas III. Despite your personal opinions on their attitudes on or off the field, their success and results are undeniable. The LOB was indispensable in the Seahawks’ Super Bowl XLVIII victory. Sherman, Chancellor, and Thomas alone have 12 Pro Bowl selections between them, and Sherman was the NFC’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2014. Now, the defense and LOB are well on their way to being the league’s best defense for the third year in a row.
