Leadership: What is it and how do we as coaches help foster a positive environment for our teams to embrace it?

Last fall, Bryn Mawr worked with student-athletes to explore and develop new ideas about the complexities of individuals, of group dynamics, and of the challenges of leading groups in the achievement of common goals. Two coaches developed and coordinated the project, and two athletes from each of the college's 12 sports participated in the three-part program.

The first part featured a Bryn Mawr professor who helped participants examine the actual neurobiology of learning. The student-athletes were challenged to think about how groups work. Leading is a process of learning as well as teaching. There are no road maps or "how-to" guide books for a leader. The reality of understanding the complexities of teams is through trial and error, open communication and a willingness to explore the differences and the similarities in the members of the group.

Insights from studying the brain relate to ongoing discussions of educational theory and in this case, leadership theory. Among the findings were:

* Hierarchical systems, in which one "leader" has a blueprint detailing the optimal performance of all team members and directs all team members in terms of that blueprint, do not exist in the brain. This is one among a number of reasons to suspect that such systems will not work well in most real-life situations. Various forms of more distributed leadership characterize biological systems -- the most successful forms of complex organization known -- at all levels of scale from microbes to ecosystems.

* A "leader" may in some cases be any member of a team who shares with other members information about what they themselves are doing, and acts in ways that reflect what others are doing. "Leadership" can be diffused across a team, and move without notice from one team member to another.

* In a team characterized by diversity, one in which individuals have different strengths and weaknesses, a "leader" may, like other team members, be "specialized." In this case, a leader is not a director who tells other team members what to do, but is instead someone who has a distinctive ability to monitor the performance of most or all other team members and relate individual performance to group performance. Their role is to facilitate information flow among team members and make suggestions based on overall group performance. Leadership of this kind has some architectural similarities to that found in hierarchical systems, but it is profoundly different in important ways. Because of the bidirectional information flows, the group objective is no more that of the leader than it is of any other member of the team. The leader should be respected for what he or she distinctively contributes, just as any other team member, and should have no more "status" than any other team member. Perhaps the term "leader" should be redefined as "integrator" or "synthesizer."

The second part of the project involved personality types and group dynamics. The student-athletes took the Myers-Briggs test to determine their personality type. Two Bryn Mawr professors then led the student-athletes through a discussion about the different qualities of each personality and how each personality was an asset to their team's dynamics.

As those who have taken such personality-profile exams know, results fall into four primary dichotomies (extrovert/introvert; sensing/intuition; thinking/feeling; and judging/
perceiving) that combine in different ways to create 16 basic personality types. Our results showed that thinking/judging was the most common leadership combination group for coaches, yet only seven of our 23 students-athletes exhibited those as dominant personality traits. What does that mean for the student-athletes we chose? That to be a leader at Bryn Mawr is different than elsewhere? Or do we just not have a lot of thinking/judging personalities? There was no more than four of any combination when we looked at the group's diversity; however, there were more extroverts than introverts and more intuitive athletes than sensors.

The student-athletes were then put into five groups to see how their "type" worked with people of various other types. The session provided much discussion and laughter about team dynamics. One of the participants said, "What struck me most during the seminar was the idea of each teammate having her own role/function without which the team on a whole would not succeed. Each teammate needs to perform her task in order to win. Although this seems like an extremely obvious and simple concept, it decreases the necessity of a single leader." Another student said, "Every type of person helps the team function, even people you least expect. Being a leader is not just a coach's role -- it can be that of anyone who gives advice, helps out or takes initiative."

The final part of the program featured the student-athletes producing a five-minute skit on leadership using a digital video camera and the I-Movie technology. The student-athletes were divided into four groups of five and asked to watch the movie "A League of Their Own." The theme of this movie is based on the "chance of a lifetime," an opportunity for women (in the 1940s) to play professional baseball. It also focuses on the competition between two sisters who are members of the first professional women's baseball league.

Each group chose a scene that they thought exemplified leadership, and then proceeded to make their own version of the scene. Each member of the group picked a character from the movie and put a slight twist on the character development and dialogue. During a rainy Saturday night through Sunday morning the groups toiled to tape, produce and edit their skits. After breakfast, the group viewed all the skits. It was fascinating to see the different interpretation of the same theme. Each group's personality type came through in the final project. The athletes did a great job of blending all the lecture information and putting it into real-life situations.

Some objectives of the project were to gain a deeper understanding of group dynamics and the application of leadership skills in a group setting. The students really enjoyed discussing personality types and why people react differently. Another objective was to increase personal self-confidence, trust, and mutual respect in a team through the telling of and listening to stories.

In the end, the students were able to work well within their groups and really enjoyed getting to know one another through the production of the skits. They did a great job of creating a positive environment in which to produce the skit.

The last objective was to create, through video, a narrative that describes what the participants have learned about leadership and their perception of a leader's role. The final viewing of the skits showed how different each one was with the same topic.

Not only was the project a team-building experience for the coaches and the student-athletes, it also was a practice session -- perhaps a very important practice session -- that will pay off for the participants down the road, not only as they learn to perform together as teams on the fields and courts, but also as they progress through life's leadership lessons.

Jody Law is the head tennis coach and a lecturer in athletics and physical education at Bryn Mawr College.