The Top 10 Pain Points Coaches Experience

What keeps coaches up at night? Wins and losses? Absolutely. However, it’s more about the process of winning than the actual wins themselves. At Lead ‘Em Up we are privileged to work with great coaches across the globe in all sports. Our heart and mission is to make the life of the coach easier by helping them build the leaders needed to win. In an effort to do that, we are constantly asking questions and seeking feedback from the coaches themselves. Through this process we’ve identified the top 10 pain points the majority of coaches experience:

A Lack of Communication

Does your team suffer from a lack of communication? Have you ever observed a team that is too quiet? Communication is the key to making teams work. Great teams have great communicators. To overcome this pain point we suggest coaches use the Sugar and Salt exercise to teach their athletes the art of communication. Do your athletes ever struggle with speaking with the appropriate volume, clarity, and speed? Use the exercise Voice Activated. Have your athletes ever struggled with listening, receiving, and acknowledging messages? Our exercise Read Receipts will help them engage with, acknowledge, and respond appropriately.

A Lack of Accountability

Do your athletes know what true accountability is? Do they know how to effectively hold themselves and their teammates accountable? Our powerful cornerstone exercise, The Green Team will lay the foundation for what special looks like in your program. It establishes what it means to be special and show up GREEN. From there we teach the concept of Lifeguarding to help athletes understand how to have accountability to their standards and keep their team in the GREEN.

No Fun

Is your team in need of more fun at practice? What’s better than having fun? Having fun while getting better! This pain point can be overcome by taking teams through our fun and engaging Word Pop and The Toaster exercises which teach your athletes the importance of preparation. After going through these exercises your athletes will be ready when their number is called.

A Lack of Energy

Has your team ever struggled with a lack of energy at practice? Our Vitamin D exercise will raise the level of energy in your program and help make everyone feel like sunshine! Using Our 9-Clap exercise will raise the level of energy, engagement, and enthusiasm of your entire team. After experiencing the 9-clap, your team will never look at this “small,” yet powerful component of your team ever the same.

No Confidence

If your athletes struggle with confidence, especially in the area of leadership, use our innovative exercise series based on the concept of Rotational Leadership and Followership. Through these exercises, athletes learn the skill of shifting between the roles of leader and follower while maintaining a high level of performance for both. When athletes “encourage” or as we like to say “put courage into” their teammates who step up to lead, confidence and leadership on your team will soon go viral.

Not Connected

Unfortunately, as many coaches have pointed out to us, building deep connections with one another isn’t a strong skill set many athletes possess. To help coaches overcome this pain point and build deeper connected teams we have the exercise Go For Gold. It’s a powerful exercise that will teach your players how to have deeper, meaningful conversations, leading to greater connections. To build off of lessons taught in Go For Gold, we have a unique exercise concept called The 6. The SIX Program is an intentional exercise giving your players the reps to help a specific teammate grow like never before.

Lacks Urgency

How can we get players to live and play with a greater sense of appreciation and urgency? Our Slippery Stone exercise will encourage your players to live each day to the fullest.  It’ll provide them a perspective allowing them to give all they have to each other and to the moment. No wasted days. No meaningless moments. In the exercise Say Goodbye Today we emphasize the value and importance of not delaying the act of encouragement. How much better would your team have been if people felt a deeper sense of appreciation and connection throughout the season? Find out with these two great exercises.

Lacks Attention to Detail

It is very difficult to become a detailed-oriented player if you’re not a detailed-oriented person. More athletes hurt their ability to lead others simply from their inability to consistently show up as a leader. Our Detail Grab Bag exercise will help get each of us into the habit of becoming more detailed-oriented people which will help us become more detailed-oriented players. We also utilize the exercise Toiletry Bag to help our athletes understand the importance of consistency in leadership and attention to detail.

Lacks Self-Discipline

A lack of self-discipline has a unique way of interfering with progress in all aspects of life. Our classic Bed Start exercise will help engage your athletes to begin pursuing a more disciplined life and begin building that confidence. As our players continue growing as leaders it’s essential they take control of leadership opportunities when they are presented. In our Beat the Coach exercise we present opportunities for athletes to develop and display discipline. Another great exercise to teach self-discipline is Movie Script. This is a multi-faceted, multi-lesson exercise connecting our player’s need to properly prepare and the importance of remaining focused.

Lacks Self-Awareness

This is a hard pain point to address. Coaches want players who want to improve, but how do they improve if they don’t know where they are at? That’s why we created the Leadership Assessment Tool. This exercise helps athletes identify where they are as a leader so they can put in the necessary work to improve. We also recently released the powerful exercises Gray Check and 40 Red Dash with our Coaches Membership. Gray Check will help players get an accurate read on how healthy they truly are. 40 Red Dash will enhance your athletes’ ability to identify when they’re having a “red moment” and how to increase their bounce-back time from red moments. Our Lead ‘Em Up team prides itself on our dynamic digital library of exercises which are team-tested and player-approved. We’ve done the work for coaches so they don’t have to experience pain. We hope Lead ‘Em Up serves as a tremendous resource for you and your team. When the leader improves, everybody wins!