Leadership Development Resources
Check back here for updates to our free recommended leadership development resources and suggested reading to complement your development goals for your team!
Read our articles on leadership development, first published in the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Athletics Administration magazine.
Books
Finding the Coaching in Criticism by Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone (authors of the book Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well)
Have difficult conversations with your athletes now to build a culture of giving and receiving feedback that is crucial to team improvement
Radical Candor by Kim Scott
Not just a trope from Silicon Valley, this is actually a really useful framework to when considering how to be forthright and honest without being a jerk
Leadership Reckoning by Thomas Kolditz, Libby Gill, and Ryan Brown
Seminal work, an evidence-based analysis of leader development in a collegiate setting – what works, and what doesn’t
The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
Great insight into building team culture and the critical elements for success
Legacy by James Kerr
Exceptional perspective on building a player-led culture within a team; pairs well with The Culture Code and can be a great team read
The Culture System by JP Nerbun
Even more culture; an excellent, systematic approach (including the specific tools and methods) that many top teams tend to use to create their culture
Drive by Daniel Pink
Motivation is key, for this generation of athletes more than ever; this book helps to answer the question “how do I get people to follow me?”
Belonging by Owen Eastwood
Great discussion on why creating a sense of belonging on a team is essential to that team’s success, and the role that everyone (especially leaders) should play in doing so; pairs well with The Boys in the Boat
The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntford
Excellent account of the race to the South Pole with compare-and-contrast leadership styles; imagine if Coach K and Bobby Knight were early 20th century explorers instead of basketball coaches
The Captain Class by Sam Walker
Think Jim Collins’s Good to Great, but for the highest-performing athletic teams of all time
Give and Take by Adam Grant
A good perspective on minimizing the self in leadership and instead prioritizing others in a way that is authentic, and that will ultimately benefit everyone
Podcasts and Videos
You Are Not So Smart Podcast on the Dunning-Kruger Effect
Wonderful segment on overconfidence in one’s abilities and how to counteract it
The Knowledge Project special episode on leadership
Best of compilation from TKP’s ongoing focus on leadership and social science for high-performing people and teams; Try also: TKP’s interview with Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman on why you shouldn’t trust your gut
Coach Your Brains Out
Volleyball-focused, but often with general applicability to leadership in sports
Where Others Won’t
No new episodes, but a great archive of conversations, many relevant to leadership
From the Green Notebook
Military-based podcast, but accessible to civilians and with broader applications; Go Navy
Coaching DNA
Good variety of interviews with leadership implications in nearly all episodes; pair with host Travis Wyckoff’s newsletter
Lead ‘Em Up
Enthusiastic Maryland-based company with a podcast that often has good takeaways and tidbits
HeadCoachU
Great to learn from a variety of football head coaches about how they develop their players
Hockey Think Tank
Overall a fun listen with some good leadership learning woven throughout
Hoop Heads
Basketball Xs and Os, but also insight into the human side of coaching and leading a team
Our own Jen Baker on AthleticDirectorU
Articles and Online Resources
The Doerr Institute for New Leaders is an amazing resource for anyone designing their own leadership development program
Unfair Advantage newsletter (now rolled up, but archives are linked above)
Thoughtful, in-depth analysis of organizational psychology concepts (e.g., personality explainers) as they map onto athletics
UPDATE: check out Alex’s new content via his Performance DNA newsletter
The Academy of Sports Leadership free resources page
Thoughtful, in-depth articles for those motivated to dig deeper into their leadership development system
Sloan Management Review article on leadership development programs and their ROI
Geared towards executives at corporations and MBA program directors, but the questions the authors encourage are also great for athletics directors looking to improve or start a leadership development program
TEXL.org An amazing, do-it-yourself resource of validated scales to expand your own leadership development; more focused on managerial settings than athletics – good for coaches and ADs interested in tracking their progress over the long-term within their own departments
The importance of trust
Academics laying out the case for something Coach K knew all along
More academic justification for things coaches and ADs already know
Sorry, we’re suckers for academic articles; skip to the “Practical Implications” part of the “General Discussion” section for the so-what
HBR article on turning a team around
Old-school advice from Bill Parcels
MIT Sloan article on “great” teams
Trigger warning for New Englanders: the Pats aren’t on his list
HBR’s Top Ten reads from sports leadership figures
Including from Kareem and Agassi
*We are not affiliated with any of these authors, we just recommend these materials for our coaches. We receive no compensation for these links or recommendations.
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