Leading Others

By: Jamy Bechler - Athletic Director at Midway University (KY)

Originally Published in: THE LEADERSHIP PLAYBOOK

It is not just enough to lead yourself effectively, you must also have a positive influence on others, John C. Maxwell says, "A leader without a follower is just someone taking a nice walk." If you are a captain or an upperclassman, this will be obvious. However, if you are a player that doesn't have any kind of positional leadership, then this might seem difficult to do. You understand that you have to lead yourself and you are committed to doing what is right. But, lead others? How are you supposed to do that?

Every player has close friends on their team. You might not be good friends with every one of your teammates, but you do have some close friendships. Those are going to be the people that you lead most effectively. We are influenced by people that we like and trust. You might not be able to influence every member of your team but you will be able to lead some of them. Those of the ones that you need to focus the majority of your attention on. Your positive (or negative) influence will be most evident among your circle of friends.

The first step to being a leader is to lead yourself. The next step is to lead others. In particular, those that you are closest to. If you are leading yourself the wrong way, then you will lead your friends the wrong way. You will either be the ringleader of bad choices or you will allow poor choices to be made while you remain quiet and approving of the actions.

Ultimately, you will become like the people that you hang out with the most and they will become like you. The ideal situation is that you and your friends are influencing each other in a positive way. If this is not the case, then the question becomes, who will have the most influence? Even in situations where a group of friends is not all positive influences, there is still some type of influence going on. Either you are influencing your friends positively or they are influencing you in a less than positive manner. You must lead others positively in order to have a chance to create their championship culture on your team that you desire. Granted, you can't do it by yourself.

You also can't lead everyone because you won't have a friendship or a strong connection with everyone on the team. Those you have the strongest connection with are the ones that you will be able to lead most effectively. You might say, "The team won't listen to me" and you might be right. However, your friends will listen to you. The wonderful thing about that is you just might be starting a chain reaction that ends up with the whole team.

Listening to you without them even knowing that. It is rare that a group of friends is completely self-contained and doesn't have strong relationships with others. For example, your three closest friends all probably have at least one other person that they are close to that you aren't as close with. This ripple effect is how your influence can eventually influence an entire team.