{"id":9109,"date":"2021-09-27T17:43:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T17:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/?post_type=report&p=9109"},"modified":"2025-12-15T05:14:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T05:14:23","slug":"evaluating-your-self-development-as-a-head-coach-or-manager","status":"publish","type":"report","link":"https:\/\/leadersinsport.com\/performance-institute\/reports\/evaluating-your-self-development-as-a-head-coach-or-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"Evaluating your Self-Development as a Head Coach or Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n\t
\n\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t
\n \n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n 27 Sep 2021 <\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>Reports<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

Evaluating your Self-Development as a Head Coach or Manager<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n \n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n \n \n \n
\n

Does a manager have a shelf life?<\/h4>\n
\n

By John Portch<\/h6>\n

It was a question posed to Terry Francona, the Manager of the Cleveland baseball team, in October last year on our At Home With Leaders<\/a><\/em> podcast series. He answered with his own career in mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe there\u2019s a time when a manager or coach has a shelf life and I don\u2019t want that to happen,\u201d said the man who described himself as a \u201cbaseball lifer\u201d having spent more than four decades as a Major League player and Manager. \u201cIt\u2019s not just with the people you work for but the players. So you have to keep the message fresh but you also have to be consistent; that is a wonderful topic and it\u2019s something I think about a lot because I don\u2019t want there to be a shelf life in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the adage that you\u2019re \u2018hired to be fired\u2019 necessarily has to always be true. I\u2019d like to think there\u2019d be a time where I\u2019m just ready to retire and I walk away successfully as opposed to being shown the door because your message got old.\u201d<\/p>\n

What steps can coaches or managers take to ensure that their \u2018message\u2019 never gets old? The Leaders Performance Institute brings you a selection of approaches from across the worlds of soccer and rugby.<\/p>\n

Continuous learning<\/strong><\/p>\n

Earlier in September, Sean Dyche, who is the English Premier League\u2019s longest-serving Manager given his nine years at Turf Moor, has just signed a four-year contract extension at Burnley.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a club we\u2019re about developing and improving players and the environment we foster here is so important to that,\u201d he said in a news release that announced his continuation.<\/p>\n

Dyche gave the Leaders Performance Institute an insight into his mindset when he appeared on the At Home With Leaders<\/a><\/em> podcast in May 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou keep an eye on yourself,\u201d he told co-hosts Matthew Stone and Michael Caulfield. \u201cAre you relying too much on what you think is right from past years? Are you keeping up with those trends? Are you at least keeping in line with what\u2019s going on or possibly pushing boundaries?\u201d<\/p>\n

Dyche was speaking ahead of the Premier League\u2019s Project Restart in the weeks before the 2019\/2020 season resumed, but he has always struck a similar tone when speaking to Leaders. \u201cI call it a state of flux. I\u2019m never quite where I think I should be or want to be, but I\u2019m certainly a long way forward of where I was,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always picking things up, I\u2019m always learning, still going through the highs and lows. I have days where I go \u2018I\u2019ve had enough of this\u2019 or \u2018this is driving me mad\u2019; I also have days where it feels like it\u2019s a walk in the park, it\u2019s beautiful, and the sun\u2019s shining.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hardest thing is to not overthink it; there\u2019s a lot going on and you can start to overthink it and over-analyse everything. It\u2019s keeping that level where you are learning, you are improving, not getting too high with the highs, too low with the lows, taking a few knocks along the way and still believing in what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caulfield asked Dyche how he remains fresh in his work and his response was typically candid. \u201cI\u2019ve gone through spells when I haven\u2019t been fresh, that\u2019s for sure. But then you rely on your staff and just the fact that you do it because you are that guy that does it. Sometimes you are in automatic mode where you think \u2018this is my job and I\u2019ve got to go out and do it\u2019. Luckily that\u2019s not very often. I\u2019ve had spells of it where I have asked \u2018where do we go from here?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve addressed that a couple of times when I thought I needed to through sports psychology. Not in a deep-seated way, just a refresher; \u2018I need a boost, I need to find this or I need to find that\u2019. It happens even as a manager, those moments where you\u2019re dry of thoughts and you\u2019re just dry of what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The right support<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his 2015 book Consiglieri: Leading From the Shadows, <\/em>Richard Hytner<\/a> spoke of the \u2018consiglieri\u2019 \u2013 the seconds-in-command \u2013 liberating, educating and anchoring leaders. That same year, Jill Ellis won her first Women\u2019s World Cup as Head Coach of the US women\u2019s national soccer team, and she repeated the feat in 2019.<\/p>\n

After leaving her post, Ellis came to London to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2019 Leaders Sports Awards. She later appeared on the At Home With Leaders<\/em><\/a> podcast to discuss her leadership style and she was quick to touch on the importance of her assistants and why she liked to surround herself with coaches who had been head coaches in their own right.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was an evolution for me from being a younger coach to getting more experience,\u201d said Ellis, who took her first head coaching position in 1997. \u201cAs a younger coach, you get the feeling that the assistants are satellites to you and you tap into them but you\u2019re trying to prove yourself as you do when you\u2019re young, but gradually, as I realised, \u2018wow, I\u2019ve got phenomenal people around me. If I look at this instead, how can we make this environment better?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s certainly by harnessing people so we\u2019re completely covered, meaning there\u2019s no gaps in what we provide our players. It\u2019s looking at how our strengths and our weaknesses balance each other out. I\u2019m not a set-piece specialist; that\u2019s not where I\u2019m going to spend my time and energy, but if I have someone who can do that I\u2019m going to make sure they have their moment in front of the team, they have their moment to talk it through in terms of our thought processes and harness their assets. That\u2019s what I realised as well, if I can tap into people\u2019s strengths, it makes us as a whole better. That was an evolution to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellis herself had served as an assistant, most notably under Pia Sundhage, whom she eventually succeeded as Head Coach of the USWNT. She would eventually spend six years at the helm and maintained able support throughout.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved the fact that I had coaches that had been head coaches in my environment because it is different. You\u2019ve been in that environment, you\u2019ve sat in that seat, you\u2019ve been in the pressure cooker and know that ultimately the final decision rests with you. So what I knew about my staff, how do you create this environment where people can be open and challenge and you can have this really good dialogue around the game or around decisions, I think as a leader, you have to create that and so. I remember saying to my group \u2018I don\u2019t want Switzerland in here.\u2019 I don\u2019t want neutral, I want you to express yourselves, be committed to what you believe.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaving your comfort zone<\/strong><\/p>\n

Michael Cheika is one of the most respected coaches in rugby union, with spells as Head Coach of the Australia senior men\u2019s team, the Waratahs and Leinster among those that built his reputation.<\/p>\n

There is little doubt that Cheika will build on his career in rugby union but, for now, he has changed rugby codes and taken charge at the Lebanon men\u2019s national team ahead of their Rugby League World Cup campaign.<\/p>\n

It is a labour of love for a person whose parents emigrated to Australia from Lebanon, but it also sees him switching rugby codes at an advanced stage in his coaching career. It was a decision he discussed on the At Home With Leaders<\/em><\/a> podcast earlier this year. He starts by describing the period after the 2019 Rugby World Cup, where he ended his five-year association with the Australia men\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took some time off to reflect on my own performance over the time and maybe the year or two before and address the things I thought I could get better at. I started to address those things and work on those,\u201d he said. \u201cThen I really wanted to get outside my comfort zone, so the opportunity to do coaching with the Roosters was definitely that for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sydney Roosters of the National Rugby League gave Cheika his first formal foray into rugby league and, given that Trent Robinson\u2019s side<\/a> had just won back-to-back premierships in 2018 and 2019, it was an opportunity to learn from the best.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost like the first day back at school, often,\u201d Cheika continues. \u201cThe first time I actually stood up in front of the team and talked about some things on a video, watching it was quite nerve-wracking because you\u2019re in a totally different space and well outside what you really know, even know you know the game and have done for 20 years, and put myself in a situation where I knew I\u2019d be tested and I\u2019d have to get up to speed. It was not just at any team, it\u2019s the champions. You\u2019ve got to be of a certain level and bring something to contribute right away.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecondly, it\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever been in a role where I wasn\u2019t the head coach. That in itself was very different for me.\u201d It was a similar story when he later assumed an advisory role with the Argentina men\u2019s national team, this time back in rugby union. \u201cThe opportunity to go with Argentina presented a different challenge again. Again, I was not going to be the head coach and I had to play a different role in there than I would have ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheika took the Lebanon job in late 2020 and remains in situ after the 2021 Rugby League World Cup was postponed to 2022 as a consequence of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the opportunity to test myself in a World Cup, it\u2019s not just a game here or there. I\u2019ve had that brilliant experience in rugby union twice. I want to challenge myself not to see if they can transfer over but to make sure the skills of the head coach, the \u2018leadership style\u2019 coaching that\u2019s more my style, will work across multiple codes, not just my game. It\u2019s a game I\u2019ve got to have knowledge on and other people around me, but I can also lead those players so that they overperform when it comes to that big stage. And I think that\u2019s really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Download Performance 23<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our latest Performance journal has landed, with Gareth Southgate, Head Coach of the England men’s football team<\/strong> leading the way with his reflections on defining and developing resilience. Elsewhere we spoke to the Arizona Diamondbacks<\/strong> of Major League Baseball, as well as the world-renowned New Zealand Rugby<\/strong>, and British Wheelchair Basketball<\/strong>, who runs some of the finest programmes in the sport. Edd Vahid of Premier League club Southampton FC<\/strong> also penned a column focusing on talent pathways.<\/em><\/p>\n