Kenyon Swimming and Diving is recognized as one of the premier NCAA Division III swimming and diving programs for nearly half a century. The Men’s program won an unprecedented 31 consecutive NCAA national championships from 1979 to 2010, and 34 in total, while the Women’s program has won an equally impressive 24 national championships since 1983. In 2022, the Women reclaimed the NCAA title, the first time since 2009. Kenyon has produced countless individual national champions, all-americans, and NCAA postgraduate scholarship winners. IntelliSport Analytics is partnering with Kenyon Swimming & Diving to study the culture of the programs to help it remain one of the best swimming & diving programs in the United States.
When working with a recent National Governing Body (NGB), IntelliSport discovered that integrity and authenticity were significant factors that determined how the NGB’s coaches rated their overall satisfaction with the NGB. IntelliSport recommended that the NGB focus on behaviors, policies and outcomes that would directly improve the integrity and authenticity of the NGB. Integral to achieving this objective will be if the leadership can adopt the characteristics of servant leadership. This leadership paradigm focuses on how leaders can shape the norms and values of an organization and its people by focusing on moral and immoral behavior. This type of leadership takes form in six areas: Empowerment: leaders encourage their followers to be empowered, which encourages self-confidence and a feeling of personal agency. This allows for the free flow of ideas, and self-directed decision making which elevates the ability of individuals to act independently and with confidence. Stewardship: These are leaders who are willing to take responsibility for their own behavior as well as the actions of the organization. These leaders also seek to set an example for others to follow and place a premium on the value of teamwork, social responsibility and loyalty to others. Authenticity- This leadership characteristic is grounded in a willingness of leaders to follow through on promi
In the last few weeks we have witnessed coaching leadership failures across the sporting landscape that resulted in organizations firing their coaches. In the NWSL, over the span of two months, three teams (North Carolina Courage, Washington Spirit, & Racing Louisville) dismissed coaches for verbal and sexual abuse, among other undisclosed reasons. The NFL Oakland Raiders Head Coach John Gruden recently resigned following the revelation he sent emails that included misogynistic and homophobic language disparaging the NFLPA’s union leader. These coaches were fired because they failed to identify and regulate their behavior. What is problematic is that their choices not only led to their dismissals, but also significantly hindered the teams and the athletes they were responsible for, creating unnecessary barriers to achieve high performance on the field of play. The NWSL’s players association highlighted these challenges when they released the following statement on Twitter. It points out how the failures of the coaches led to players carrying a burden of abuse onto