Transcript
Speaker: Action! Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who will argue with you. John Wooten. Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast. We explore the art and the science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond. We're going to start this episode by jumping into a time machine and thinking back to the first time that you got named captain or stepped into an entry-level leadership position.
Speaker: Maybe it was getting the patch on your jersey. Maybe it was a text from coach saying, hey, I need you to go lead this for me today. Maybe it was your teammates voting you in into a captain role and you got called up in the locker room for the first speech. Maybe it was in your career, somebody you're working under steps away, takes a new job and you got to step into that position without the pay and take on that responsibility until they find somebody to take their place.
Speaker: And in that moment, something happens. You have to figure out how to lead and fast. And nobody hands you a manual. So what do you do? You default.
Speaker: you reach for the closest model you've got. Maybe it's your dad, maybe it's an older sibling who used to boss you around the dinner table or in the backyard. Maybe it's a coach you had from another sport or another school or a captain that you watched two years ago when you were a freshman just trying to survive practice.
Speaker: Here's the problem. Just because that's what you saw, it doesn't make it right. Just because it's the only experience you had of what a leader led you like doesn't mean there are other ways to take this on.
Speaker: So today we're breaking down two models of how leaders actually behave under pressure. One of them keeps you safe and keeps your teammates stuck.
Speaker: The other is harder, but it's the one that actually builds trust amongst the team. Let's get into it. So why this matters for first-time captains and entry-level leaders. Here's the research. Back in the 70s, two guys named Argyris and Scone started studying why people's actions don't always match what they think they're doing.
Speaker: And that's the key idea for this episode. There's a gap between how you think you lead and how you actually lead. How you would describe your actions, decisions, and behaviors, and how your team or the people you're leading would describe your actions, decisions, or behaviors.
Speaker: They call these two things exposed theory and theory in use. Exposed theory is what you say if I asked you, how do you lead? Theory and use is what your teammates actually experience from you.
Speaker: And most first-time captains have never closed that gap between their decisions, behaviors, and what their teammates are perceiving of their decisions and behaviors. And they they'd never had a reason to.
Speaker: So you inherit a leadership style from whoever was closest to you growing up, and you run it on autopilot. Argyris and Scone, they mapped out two patterns.
Speaker: They call them Model 1 and Model 2. Not much for marketing or branding, but that's OK. Great research. And I want you to listen to both of these and ask yourself honestly, which one sounds like you on a bad day or the first time that you took over a team? We're to start with Model 1, the self-protective captain.
Speaker: Model 1 is built on four core values. Number one, define and achieve your own goals above all else. Number two, maximize winning and minimize losing at all costs.
Speaker: Number three, avoid negative feelings. Don't got time for that. Focused on now, the future, winning. And number four, be rational, period.
Speaker: No emotions allowed. Sounds fine on paper, right? Here's what it looks like on the field. As a Model 1 captain, You manage unilaterally.
Speaker: That means that you make the call. You don't invite input and you expect people to fall in line, period, or else. When a teammate pushes back, you don't see it as useful feedback.
Speaker: You see it as a threat. A Model 1 captain avoids negative feelings, which sounds healthy until you realize what it actually means in practice.
Speaker: It means you avoid hard conversations. You let underperforming seniors slide because confronting them feels uncomfortable because they're your friends.
Speaker: You talk about a teammate, their negative experiences, their feelings, their playing, their complaining. You talk about them to other people and never confront them about it or never support their needs because that's easier on you.
Speaker: And here's the belief system running underneath all of that. Whether you'd say it out loud or not, it's not my fault. The problem is the other person.
Speaker: If they push back, that just proves that they're the problem. So if I press harder or I shut them out, that that's that's the solution because that's distracting me from my performance.
Speaker: Does that sound familiar? This is what happens when you inherit a leadership from a parent who ran the house by control or an older sibling who pulled rank at all times instead of earning your respect and looking out for your needs or the family's needs. Or you had a coach who yelled first and explained never.
Speaker: The research is clear on what this produces. Teammates see you as defensive, inconsistent, and selfish. You generate more defensiveness in the room, not less.
Speaker: Mistrust grows. People stop bringing you real problems because they've learned that real problems get punished.
Speaker: That your aggression, you can't handle these problems, that they're going to the The problem, them handling it, is easier for them to find their own solutions than to bring you the problems and deal with your frustrations.
Speaker: And the learning cost is the part most captains never see coming for this Model 1 behavior. Our guy, Rascone, they call it single-loop learning. That means you might fix the surface problem, a missed rotation, a blown coverage, but you never fix the pattern underneath it. Why does that consistently happen?
Speaker: The team gets a little better in a moment or for one spike, one play, and they also get better at hiding mistakes from you. And it doesn't get better at actually solving the problem or understanding the offense, the defense of why this is going on. if it and If any of that stings a little to you listeners, good.
Speaker: That means that you're being honest with yourself right now in this moment. And that's exactly where this episode needs you to be, is breaking through that single loop learning and blaming everybody else for the team's or the business's problems. The term, and here's the good news, Model 1 isn't a life sentence.
Speaker: It's a default setting, and default settings can be changed. Our guy, Riscone, they didn't just diagnose the problem. They gave us a second model, a better one, for us to aim up towards. Okay, Model 2, the open captain.
Speaker: Model 2 runs on a different set of core values. Number 1, information is valid and reliable. no matter where it's coming from. Two, choices are free and informed.
Speaker: We want our athletes, we want the people we're leading and guiding to make appropriate decisions and lead them to responsible decisions. Okay, number three, everyone owns their own behavior.
Speaker: They are accountable for what they do right and what they do wrong. That's how we're gonna learn from our mistakes and learn what good teams do. Number four, openness.
Speaker: Always willing to learn. They're open to feedback, giving me feedback as a leader or receiving my feedback in their particular role. Because we're helping train future captains. We're handing off this team to them in a year or two years.
Speaker: Let's teach them to lead. So here's what that looks like when you're actually a captain of a team. Instead of managing unilaterally, you build joint control of each and every task that the team is responsible for. Similar to a coach handing off responsibilities to a team captain, that would be joint control.
Speaker: Now our team captain can hand off responsibilities that are connected to the strength of each individual. Or... an opportunity for them to grow. There's a lot of power in handing off responsibility. If a kid keeps showing up late, well then we can empower them and make them responsible for water.
Speaker: That forces them to show up to practice earlier to take care of this responsibility. as an example. This doesn't mean that I stop leading or I stop doing specific tasks. I'm handing off, I'm empowering, giving away my power to the team.
Speaker: I'm bringing people into the decisions, the actions, the behaviors, the success of the team, not just taking claim of it all for myself. And when you tell your team you're changing the pregame routine, as an example, you explain why.
Speaker: If I'm making big changes or decisions or big swings to adjust the culture or make adjustments because we lost the last game, I'm explaining why we're doing that, just telling them we're doing it.
Speaker: And we leave room for someone to say, wait, I see a problem with that. Or how is this going to work? Or how is this going to change from x y z where we're leaving open time for ah for that conversation to be had.
Speaker: So instead of avoiding hard conversations, you combine advocacy with inquiry. And that is a wonderful aspect of a team captain.
Speaker: That's a fancy way of saying, you say what you think, and then you ask what they think. In that order, every single time. Leaders lead, and we're open for feedback.
Speaker: Here's what I saw in the last set. Here's what I saw our last possession of the game when it counted the most. And here's why it worries me. What did you see from your side?
Speaker: That's a great sentence. That one sentence does more for your team than a month of silent frustration and you barking and yelling at them for effing up. Model 2 captains test their assumptions out loud instead of privately deciding someone's lazy or they're scared or they'll never step in step up into this role or they're selfish and never checking if that's true. They put a label on a kid, a teammate, and then that becomes who they are for the rest of their athletic career.
Speaker: But then the captain, same time, gets mad if they've got a label put on them. What are we talking about here? Model 2, Captain, test these assumptions at all times. Provide them an opportunity. Remind them that they are a great athlete. Great athletes don't do the behavior.
Speaker: They separate the behavior, the decision, the problem from the person. And they're able to hold the the mirror up and help show them that, hey, you're a great athlete or you're a tremendous leader.
Speaker: That's not what great leaders do. Or I see potential in you. That's not what future team captains do. So the connecting this back to the research. The research shows that this mode, this model, produces.
Speaker: It produces less defensiveness in the room. Relationships that can actually take pressure without cracking. Norms where learning is expected and not punished.
Speaker: And here's the big one. Double loop learning. And I did a podcast on this a while back, but to to reinforce that, this means your team doesn't just fix the mistake in front of them.
Speaker: They start fixing the pattern that caused that mistake. They're thinking outside the box on different solutions rather than one plus one equals two. that's the difference between a team that plateaus and a team that keeps getting better throughout the course of a season and is is ramping up towards the playoffs versus peaking early in the season this is much harder than model one and i'm not going to pretend that it isn't like I've had these conversations and people will default back to these poor ah behaviors of Model 1 even after they've expressed Model 2 growth. I can't get mad at them.
Speaker: I've got continually reminding them or aiming up towards these Model 2 actions. And ah it it takes a lot of courage as a coach to call this stuff out and not label that kid, reminding them of who they are and that those are still poor decisions that they may be defaulting to and how they treat people.
Speaker: Because remember, they default to model one or two when the stress is the highest. So sometimes it's two they step up. Sometimes it's back to one where they they they bark, they react versus respond.
Speaker: So this these are models that we're aim we're teaching and helping them aim up towards. And it's the model that actually earns you the trust. Model two is the model that earns you the trust in your Captain Patch and lifelong relationships that you're going to hold on to.
Speaker: so Winding down here, this is a self-awareness challenge for you leaders out there, captains and coaches. And here's what I want you to do this week. Not the next next month, this week. Seek out these conversations. I want you to pick a moment where you led as a captain.
Speaker: Practice a game, a group text with your team, doesn't matter. Ask yourself these three questions. What did I actually say and do in that moment? Not what I meant.
Speaker: What I actually did. If I asked my teammates to describe that moment, what would their story, would their story match mine? What would their story be and would it match mine?
Speaker: Number three, was I protecting myself in that moment or was I protecting the relationship and the learning? And I experienced this. I may or may not have talked about this in a previous podcast where I led my captains. We had a once a week meeting.
Speaker: And one of my themes, I had it here, was hold the mirror up. And I gave them each this little pocket mirror here. And then they asked me for specific examples of their behaviors where they acted in model one versus what I was aiming to to teach them about, which was model two.
Speaker: And I had to have specific examples ready to call each one of those captains out. Fortunately, the stresses and gains, I had each one of these in my back pocket prepared, and I didn't hold on to them as frustrations. There were moments that I presented to the team that oh yeah, you were right.
Speaker: how And then challenge them, what did the team think that they were responding to in that moment? Even though it felt like they were leading, they were actually being assholes. So that gap between what you think you did and what your team experienced, that's the whole ball game of being a team captain.
Speaker: And closing that gap is what separates a captain who just wears the title from a captain who actually leads. And remember where we started. You didn't choose your first leadership role model.
Speaker: It came from your parents, your siblings, from old ball coaches. Nobody sat you down and taught you model two. But you get to choose it now. Every single day, you get to choose it again.
Speaker: There is a a decision, there is a moment, Viktor Frankl, between the action and your response to that. So let's bring it home. Model one, self-protective, unilateral control, avoids hard and hard conversations, produces defensiveness and single loop learning, doom loops, which means the same problems keep re resurfacing just in different clothes.
Speaker: Model two, open, joint control, advocacy paired with inquiry, produces trust and double loop learning, which means your team actually solves the root of the problem instead of patching the symptom.
Speaker: You will default to model one under pressure. This is what separates the good from the great. Everyone does. The job isn't to never slip. The job is to notice when you slip and to choose differently the next time.
Speaker: And that's easier said than done. I want you to respond versus react in those moments. All right, that's the episode. If you're first-time team captain listening to this, do me a favor.
Speaker: Send this episode to one teammate who's leading leading alongside you. Have a conversation with them this week. Model 1 versus Model 2. Past experiences that you both had last season.
Speaker: Not, yeah, but that's our goal. That's the hardest part that I need you to do is to bring other people into your leadership fold. That is model two. So sports don't teach lessons, coaches too.
Speaker: That's what I want you to hold on to. And neither does a captain's patch by itself. That is not leadership. It's not a label. It's not a title. It's stepping into these Model 2 core behaviors.
Speaker: Cool. Thank you for tuning in. That is the episode. If you want to continue to learn more, I encourage you to sign up for the newsletter, newsletter.captainsandcoaches.com. That's going to be my weekly show notes, lessons, blogs, all the good stuff, highlights from different conversations that I get into it.
Speaker: Summer series continues, got some fun travel coming up at conferences and I'm making the most of those moments connecting with phenomenal speakers and coaches to bring you their insights behind the scenes and lessons and what they've grown when they switch from that Model 1 to the Model 2. It is a process for every single leader. so That does it for the show.
Speaker: Like, subscribe, rate, review, all that good stuff. Thank you for tuning in. will see you next time. Thank you for helping us raise the game. And see you.
