The Power of Intentional Coaching

8/9/2017

She hit the ground running and hardly stopped to catch her breath.

Educating and enlightening, you see, is Pam Herath’s passion. Preaching the gospel of intentional leadership, connections, positive tone, and professional fulfillment bring fire to her eye, animation to her voice, and sparkle to her countenance.

So discovered a crew of Collegiate coaches yesterday as Herath, lead facilitator and director of curriculum and programming for the Washington, DC-based STRIVE, delivered a mile-a-minute, five-hour workshop in the Oates Theater to kick off the 2017-2018 term.

“We’re very intentional about teaching our kids about sports and life,” said athletic director Karen Doxey. “Our coaches do a really good job of incorporating the school’s core values on a daily basis. It’s all encompassing. It’s training good citizens of the world. It’s how you treat others. It’s caring for your teammates. It’s having empathy. All of those things help you, help the team.”

STRIVE is an organization that promotes character-driven leadership through workshops, coaches’ institutes, and summer residential programming.

Herath, who served for 22 years in a variety of capacities (including basketball and volleyball coach and AD) at the Edmund Burke School in Washington, DC, joined STRIVE full time in 2012.

Since then, she’s traveled the country spreading the message of positive leadership and challenging coaches to look within themselves to improve their skills and connections with their athletes.

“We believe,” she said, “that character-driven leadership is a lifelong practice that requires the same grit and rigor that an elite athlete applies to sports. It also requires skills which can be taught and practiced and are accessible to all.”

She spoke of inspiring grit, perseverance, and resilience. She spoke of developing a growth mindset. She spoke of fostering optimism and the power of “yet” (as in, I’m not proficient at this skill yet, but I will be). She spoke of and facilitated discussion of the parallels between Collegiate’s core values – honor, love of learning, excellence, respect, community – and individual, team, and athletic department ideals.

She spoke of intentional culture creation. A culture in which athletes thrive, she explained, is one that values positivity, challenge, continuous learning, and candid communication. By her reckoning, a positive culture should be “tank-filling” and encouraging. Humor and fun should be the order of the day. Energy should be contagious. Listening skills are paramount. Challenges should be age- and experience-appropriate. The leader should empower everyone whom he (or she) leads. Mistakes should be viewed as opportunities. Communication should be direct, honest, respectful, and helpful.

“Everything falls under culture,” she said. “It’s the way of life of an organization. It’s traditions, rituals, and power structure. It’s shared values and beliefs as reflected in repeated behavior. It will happen whether you create it or not. It’s based on what matters to you as the coach. Culture doesn’t just happen. It’s intentional.”

During a break, Herath fielded several questions.

If you had only five minutes to do this workshop, what would your message be?

To really figure out what matters to you as a coach and figure out how to intentionally build your culture around that.

When you were coaching, what mattered to you?

It would be a different answer my first two years and in the end. At the end of my career, my core values were work hard and have fun. A lot of time we believe that they are mutually exclusive. I had a high bar. I wanted my athletes to work hard. I wanted them to know what that looked like, but I wanted them to enjoy it along the way.

But early on?

I probably put more emphasis on the work hard and effort. I was a lot more process-oriented, i.e. winning. I absolutely didn’t understand the research around mistakes. I had a lower tolerance for them. There’s a fishbowl of people watching us. I think early on, a lot of what mattered was those things I thought were a reflection of me. If somebody was performing poorly, then I’m not a good coach. So look good out there. If you don’t look good, then I don’t look good.

Times change. Society changes. Some would say kids have changed. How has coaching changed?

You ask yourself, Why am I doing what I’m doing? Does society support what I’m doing? I want to have disciplined and committed kids. If society right now is having kids who are pulled in a million different directions and are overloaded, does that jive with what I’m doing? If it doesn’t, why am I doing this? If the variables – the obstacles, if you will – don’t align, should I go into another profession?

What qualities should today’s coaches have to be successful in rapidly changing times?

We have to understand the mind of the teenager. We have to understand the forces that they’re being pulled with. We don’t have to acquiesce to them, but we have to understand the variables of technology. Are they bad kids versus good kids? No. Do they have the same systems in place to support what we think matters? It’s understanding the brain and understanding the research. It’s empathy. It’s having conversations one-on-one. It’s eye contact. It’s not part of their world these days because they’re doing this (and she mimics pushing the buttons on an iPhone). It’s knowing where they are, getting the skills to deal with it, and saying, Does this make me happy anymore?

You present some great ideas. You bring tremendous spirit and heart to your presentation. What invigorates you?

To me, it’s the human condition. It applies to every aspect of life. I get jazzed when I hear things for the first time. It inspires me to know that people are hearing (what I’m saying) and they want it and they’re jazzed. It’s energy. Once I start, it carries itself. It builds. It’s living what I preach.

-- Weldon Bradshaw

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