Ductus Exemplo
Think about your favorite coaches or anyone you consider to be a leader for a moment. What qualities, good or bad, do/did they have? Now I want you to think about how you mentor, coach players, clients, or lead a team. Which of your leadership qualities line up with those your favorite coaches or mentors used? I’ve been incredibly lucky to have been exposed to so many amazing leaders in my life. Most people try to use those best qualities and remember not to emulate the ones you didn’t like.
Being a leader, mentor and coach have several qualities in common, but the most important one to me is respect. The phrase respect is earned, not given is one that comes to mind when I think of the many individuals I look up to as leaders. I also think about those few leaders who I didn’t respect as much because they expected me to just give them my respect. That is not to say I am disrespectful and do not give credit where it is due. All I mean is that somewhere along the way, they strayed off their path and forgot about the reason why we were all there. In athletics specifically, this can be detrimental. Teams ride the lows and the high together, but like individuals, every team has its breaking point. It’s for that reason; teams must choose their leaders very carefully.
When a team elects a leader, that person is chosen because they represent the best qualities needed to succeed in their specific setting. It is not always the biggest player or the strongest. It just needs to be the right player. During my time as an athlete, I learned that someone in a position of leadership should always lead from the front. I still remember my high school lacrosse coach sitting me down and telling me that he was going to announce me as one of the team’s captains. My coach talked about his expectations for the year but then began telling me his expectations for me.
The very first thing he said was Ductus Exemplo (Latin for Leadership by Example). This also happens to be the motto of the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School, which he said for that exact reason. My coach had been an officer in the Marine Corps and knew I was also interested in going down the same route. He began explaining what it meant to lead by example and how much it mattered while part of a team. He ended with another phrase which I also use with the players and clients I coach; Discipline breeds fear. In other words, doing something properly shows you take pride and have a sense of commitment in whatever it is you’re trying to accomplish. In my case, it meant doing everything with purposeful aggression when attacking towards the goal, even if I was gassed. It didn’t matter if it was in a game or in practice; this was the expectation he had. That relentless effort to stay disciplined caused opposing players to feel uneasy when I would fight to use proper form and still try to succeed at what our bigger plan was. Playing hard during practice showed other teammates how committed I was and, in turn, caused them to step it more. It only takes one person to spark that fire. With the right group of players, it can spread like wildfire. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I now know I was also modeling the behavior.
I had no idea that I would think about that phrase constantly for the next seven years of my life. This was the first time I had truly been given a lesson on leadership. This was also the lesson that opened my eyes to what you are able to accomplish as a team when you have leaders that do things the right way. That’s one of the best lessons I learned from my coach. You have to get the job done the right way, the first time around. Not your way, the right way. The way that benefits everyone. And while this might seem more difficult, it is often that much more rewarding in the end. When you lead by example, you show everyone else around you that the task is worth doing. You show that the task is worth doing right because it will be beneficial to all. Ductus Exemplo.