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 dispariging 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 the field of play, often in silence:
When considering the behavior of the coaches and the fallouts that occurred, the question arises, why did these coaches fail as team leaders? Researchers have found effective leadership of sports organizations and teams hinges on the authenticity of leaders. There are four key characteristics of authentic leadership:
- Self-Awareness: This refers to how well an individual is aware of their own emotions, feelings, desires, and how well they understand their strengths and weaknesses related to these concepts. The key component to self-awareness is the willingness of the individual to challenge their own self-beliefs and seek information and experiences to improve themselves.
- Relational Orientation: This is the degree to which a person is open and truthful with others, and if they are willing to share information that exposes the real “you.” This characteristic is important because it leads to healthier relationships and increases transparency, and subsequently high levels of trust.
- Balanced Processing: An authentic leader is able to process information without being distorted by personal biases, emotions or other self-aspects. These leaders avoid being defensive and prevent their ego from impacting their objectivity and self-awareness.
- Internalized Moral Perspective: The values a person internalizes are important, yet their ability to act in accordance with these values determines if a person stands for what they claim to value. The more consistently a person aligns their internal values with their external behavior, they diminish external threats and coercion, increasing their authenticity.
The reasons why the coaches in the NWSL, and Coach Jon Gruden were fired can be summarized as a lack of authentic leadership. The character deficiencies of these coaches erroneously made them believe that their behavior would be tolerated, and the mechanisms of the teams and leagues to curb their behavior were not strong enough to hold them accountable. Ultimately these coaches did not meet the thresholds that are required of responsible and effective leaders at the highest level of sport.
To be an authentic leader, these individuals needed to engage in introspection, thinking of others, identifying one’s values and acting on them. The erosion or absence of these characteristics ultimately led to why these leaders failed, and the irresponsible behaviors that undermined their capacity to lead the teams and organizations. As these organizations move beyond their leadership crisis, prioritizing mechanisms that encourage coaches and staff to engage in authentic leadership practices will strengthen both a team’s and organization’s bond.
Takos, N., Murray, D., & O’Boyle, I. (2018). Authentic leadership in nonprofit sport organization boards. Journal of Sport Management, 32(2), 109-122.
