The R.E.A.L. Man Program is a strategic and progressive character development program designed to help middle school, high school, and college-aged students to reach their full potential, in every aspect of their lives.

The 20-lesson program is a blueprint for success, which is aimed at helping students understand and live out the principles of a positive and influential life.

The foundation for the program can be described as:

Respect all people,
Especially women.
Always do the right thing.
Live a life that matters.

Here are a three videos about the R.E.A.L. Man Program.

The first video is a short description of the program. The second video is of an actual lesson taught by a coach at a school that utilizes the R.E.A.L Man Program. The third is an overview of the program.

The second video is a YouTube video, so you will need to be on a server that allows you to access YouTube.

There is sound with each video.

If you are interested in finding out more about the program, contact:

Kathy DiCocco at 203-206-4801 or email her at [email protected]

Or click here to visit The R.E.A.L Man Program

Please click the play arrows to view the videos.

R.E.A.L. Man Overview

 

Learning to do the Right Thing

James Vint on the R.E.A.L. Man Program

This post was provided by the Coaches Toolbox

By Scott Rosberg

My son, Morgan, calls me, “Dad.” It is my favorite name that I am called. I love hearing him call me “Dad.” I also realize that it is the most important name that I am called. While to just about everyone else in the world my name is “Scott,” I am “Dad” to Morgan, and I take the responsibility that comes with that name very seriously.

Other than “Scott,” “Dad,” and probably a few choice names people have called me through the years, the other name that I am most often called is “Coach.”  Many years ago John Wooden wrote a great book called They Call Me Coach. The book is filled with many lessons that he learned throughout his life that made their way into his teaching and coaching of young people. The title, They Call Me Coach, is a good title, for it makes the reader zero in on the concept of who he is and how the title that people called him shaped his life. While this post is titled “My Name is Coach,” I am not claiming to be able to make John Wooden’s title or his ideas better or even add to them. Rather, this is my response to a thought that hit me numerous times over my career, and it has hit me hard recently. A few months ago, I was told by our school’s athletic director that I would not be re-hired as the varsity boys’ basketball coach. This post is about one of the thoughts I had as I realized that, for the time being, I am an “ex-coach”

As this new reality hit me, I realized that there is no such thing as an “ex-coach.” Once you are a coach, you are always a coach. This has been made clear to me at other points in my life when I stepped away from coaching for short periods of time. I started coaching at age 20, and for over thirty years, there have only been a few years where I have not coached in some fashion. Each time I stepped away from coaching for a while, I never felt like I was out of coaching. I was constantly watching sports with a coach’s eye, reading books by coaches, watching videos, and even attending coaching clinics. So the fact that I wasn’t coaching at those particular times didn’t make me feel that I wasn’t a coach.

But there is something even more powerful that hammers home the concept of “once a coach, always a coach.” People call me “Coach” whenever they greet me. Other coaches, teachers, administrators, parents, community members, and of course players who I have coached through the years all address me as “Coach.” When I talk to former players, the greeting is always, “Hey, Coach.” This happens often with players who have graduated. To them, I am not “Scott,” I am “Coach.” I have only had a few ex-players in my life ever address me by my first name, even those who are in their 30’s and 40’s now. I would have no problem with them calling me “Scott” – it is my name that everybody else calls me. However, just about every one of my players still calls me “Coach.” There are a few reasons why this happens. One is that they are uncomfortable calling me anything but “Coach” due to the respect that they have for me. Another is that they also have a level of respect for the title of “Coach.” Finally, one of the main reasons players still call me “Coach,” is that is my name to them. That is all they have known me as, and that is all they would ever consider calling me.

I still remember the first time I was ever called “Coach.” I imagine the young man who called me “Coach” for the first time doesn’t even remember me, but I have never forgotten the moment it happened, and I even remember the young man’s name – Matt Schuning – because of how powerful the moment was for me. I was student-teaching, and I was helping coach the freshmen boys’ basketball team. Matt was on the freshman team, and he was in my freshman English class. It was the day after our first practice, and Matt walked into the room and said, “Hey, Coach.” I was stunned. Here was a kid calling me, “Coach,” after one day of me being his coach. I thought, “That’s cool! I’m a Coach!” And then it hit me – “Whoa! I’m a Coach. These kids are looking up to me. They are taking their cues from me. They are listening to what I have to say and watching how I act. Holy Cow! I better do things the right way. I better behave properly. I better be a good role model. I better not screw this up!” I was 20-years-old, and the concept of “responsibility” had just hit me in the face with one 15-year-old boy calling me “Coach.”

That was 1981. For 34 years, I have never taken the title, the responsibility, or the importance of what I do for kids as a teacher and coach lightly. I have never taken the name that I am known by to so many people – “Coach” – for granted. Whether or not I ever coach again, I know that my name is “Coach” to thousands of people out there, and I have a huge responsibility to live up to being called “Coach.” Other than “Dad,” there is no greater name that I will be called. I have always loved and will always love being called “Coach,” and I will always keep in mind the great responsibility that I owe to that name. I hope any of you who are called “Coach” love being called “Coach” as much as I do. I also hope that you, too, will treat the name “Coach” with the dignity and responsibility that it deserves.

Do you remember the first time you were called “Coach”? Do you remember how that made you feel? I would love to hear from you in the comments section here or below this post on my website – www.coachwithcharacter.com.

About the Author of this Article

Scott Rosberg has been a coach (basketball, soccer, & football) at the high school level for 30 years, an English teacher for 18 years, and an athletic director for 12 years. He has published seven booklets on coaching and youth/school athletics, two books of inspirational messages and quotes for graduates, and a newsletter for athletic directors and coaches. He also speaks to schools, teams, and businesses on a variety of team-building, leadership, and coaching topics. Scott has a blog and a variety of other materials about coaching and athletic topics on his website – www.coachwithcharacter.com. He can be reached by email at [email protected].

Scott is also a member of the Proactive Coaching speaking team. Proactive Coaching is dedicated to helping organizations create character and education-based team cultures, while providing a blueprint for team leadership. They help develop confident, tough-minded, fearless competitors and train coaches and leaders for excellence and significance. Proactive Coaching can be found on the web at www.proactivecoaching.info. Also, you can join the 200,000+ people who have “Liked” Proactive Coaching’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/proactivecoach. Scott can also be reached through Proactive Coaching at [email protected].

This article may also be found at The Coaches Toolbox

Dr. Cory Dobbs

Coaching Maxim:  Leadership demands we make decisions that define who we are and how we interact with others.

We often talk about a leader having a “style” of leadership, a distinctive way of thinking, feeling, and acting.  And it is true; coaches do have a style that shapes who they are and what they do.  The relationship between style and leadership is expressed as a systematic process in how a coach gets things done and inspires his or her players to be their very best.

Over the past decade I have watched many coaches in action and have detected a distinct difference between two dominant leadership styles.  There are many ways to describe the leadership habits of coaches, but it appears to me that as leaders most fall into one of two categories—drivers or builders.   Drivers tend to be what leadership experts refer to as transactional leaders while builders fall pretty naturally into the category of transformational leaders. Drivers and builders have two very different leadership mindsets and skill sets.

Drivers are generally after impressive achievements, especially the attainment of fame, status, popularity, or power.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld would say.  Drivers view success to be mastery of the technical and tactical aspects of their sport. Builders commit to their calling and enjoy the human development side of coaching.  For them, significance is found in contributing to the lives of their players.  It’s not that they don’t want to win; it’s simply that winning includes building self-confident people who will succeed away from the playing field.

Coaching is a major factor in any team’s success.  Most players recognize this.  They’ve been coached since they were tots playing in youth leagues.  And for the most part they’ve believed in and trusted their coaches to teach them to play the game while instilling life skills and personal values.  However, many adults reveal years later that they learned little from coaches they encountered in their student-athletic experience.  Generally, the coaches that fail to have a long-term impact on student-athletes are transactional leaders.  Many former student-athletes view their experience as being a pawn in the game of student-athletics.

Transformational leaders (builders) do more with and for their student-athletes than transactional leaders (drivers).  These leaders tend to empower student-athletes with challenge and persuasion and actively engage in supporting and mentoring the holistic development of their players.  Transformational leaders seek to inspire their followers to commit to a shared vision of how student-athletics can enhance their lives.  For the transformational leader the sport situation offers an opportunity for the participant to learn such life skills as perseverance, character development, relationship building, and goal attainment.

Transactional leaders, on the other hand, are those that prefer to set up simple interactional exchanges or agreements with their followers, often investing little in building relationships.  They manage players through the use of carrots and sticks—offering a reward (usually playing time) for a desired behavior.  These leaders are those that often use the maxim “the bench is my best teacher.”

This is a prime example of contingent reinforcement—you do “X” and I’ll give you “Y.”  A transformational leader, while certainly not shy to use the bench as a learning tool, would not view the bench as a teacher—that’s a role they cherish.  The transactional coach keeps his or her distance from the athlete, preferring to have a “distant” relationship.  Some coaches will fake the relational process, but the lack of authenticity is quickly recognized by the student-athlete.  The transformational coach is more likely to spend time building relationships with players and showing them he or she cares.  Their mindset is that people aren’t going to care about you and your concerns unless they know you care about theirs.

Transformational leaders don’t do this just to be nice, they understand it to be an effective and appropriate way to deal with young and developing student-athletes.  Building relations is not a road block to success as many coaches find that because they show they care about the person, they can ask for and demand more performance.  Think about it.  Are you more likely to extend yourself for someone you care about or someone you don’t like and care for?

Coaches do many things.  They inspire and motivate, they teach and instruct, and they set an example.  More than anything else, however, coaches help the student-athletes make sense of some of life’s most important lessons.

Over time many coaches move from a driver dominated way of coaching to that of a builder.  Take for example Westmont College men’s basketball coach John Moore.  “Coaching and teaching is more meaningful for me today than it was eight to ten years ago,” said Moore.  “It is more significant because of the kinds of things that are important in coaching.  Someone once said to me, ‘You don’t have a philosophy of coaching until you get to 15 years as a head coach.’ I discounted that originally, but there was a point for me, and it was in that 15-year range, that I realized that I had a philosophy of coaching – that makes it more meaningful for me and more meaningful for my players.”

Being a driver, a transactional leader, can be very effective in producing immediate results.  However, the constant pounding and intimidating of your student-athletes will reduce the motivation of most student-athletes.  Student-athletes prefer to be guided and seek motivation from the collaborative process of coaching.  Even the most self-motivated player will lose their drive if you don’t provide them with positive reinforcement and a sense of worth.

Transformational coaches appeal to players by working with the athletes to create a compelling and collective purpose; a purpose beyond individual ambition that enriches the possibilities of each team member.  By valuing both relationships and results, a builder’s influence leads to higher levels of trust, empowerment, and community.

For builders, the real definition of success is a life and work that brings personal fulfillment, lasting relationships, and makes a difference in the world in which they live.

Are You a Driver or a Builder?

Drivers  / Dominant Leadership Style: Transactional	Builders / Dominant Leadership Style: Transformative
Put results first. Relationships are subordinate to results, a means to an end.	Put people first.  Relationships are priorities to producing results.
Make the decisions. Drivers like being decisive and in control.  Drivers set the agenda.	Stress team capabilities.  Builders want to build systems and talent.
Possess a controlling spirit.  They feel if they can control people, they’ll maintain absolute authority.	Get others involved.  Builders seek input from other coaches and value input from players.
Resort to more regulations.  Drivers use rules and regulations to enforce compliance.  Drivers want things done their way.	Let solutions emerge.  Builders don’t try to tackle every problem knowing that some problems solve themselves.
Crack the whip.  Drivers keep pressure on for accountability.  Come down hard when goals aren’t attained.	Take a long-term focus.  Builders assemble players, programs, and processes.
Take a short-term focus.  Drivers tend to focus on the day’s or week’s results.	Are mission driven. It’s the mission that sets the priorities.
Focus on “what” have you done for me lately? Enough said.	Are servant leaders. What’s my contribution?  Builders possess a mental model stimulated by a “What can I contribute to the lives of my players” approach to leading.
Get “in your face.”  Drivers thrive on confrontation.  “My way or the highway”.	Embrace empowerment. Builders work to prepare others for leadership roles.
Are more critical than positive.  Drivers find it difficult to accentuate the positive.	Support identity of team. No two teams will ever be the same.  Builders see value in the diversity of personalities.
Power trip.  Fear giving away power.  Empowering student-athletes to become team leaders is not a priority.	Vision is the main course, not an appetizer.  Builders weigh the costs of today’s decisions on  tomorrow.
Span of vision.  Concern is for results today regardless of costs tomorrow.

 

About the Author

Dr. Cory Dobbs is a national expert on sport leadership and team building and is the founder of The Academy for Sport Leadership.  A teacher, speaker, consultant, and writer, Dr. Dobbs has worked with professional, collegiate, and high school athletes and coaches teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience.  He facilitates workshops, seminars, and consults with a wide-range of professional organizations and teams.  Dr. Dobbs previously taught in the graduate colleges of business and education at Northern Arizona University, Sport Management and Leadership at Ohio University, and the Jerry Colangelo College of Sports Business at Grand Canyon University.

NEW RESOURCE

Coaching for Leadership: How to Develop a Leader in Every Locker. ($24.99)

 

The Academy for Sport Leadership

This article may be found at The Coaches Toolbox, a collection of free resources for coaches of all sports

By Dr. Cory Dobbs

Every team has players who always do less than they are asked; still others who will do what they are asked, but no more; and some who will do things without anyone asking. What every team needs is more of the third group, players who serve to inspire those around them to do things that will make the team better. These are the players who constantly renew their commitment to being their best for the team and whom others would do well to model.

A fun and energizing environment is much more productive than a routine and stale environment. Student-athletes who enjoy their sport and their teammates come to practice with moare energy—more passion. And this can be contagious.

To help lift your team’s performance look for ways to infuse your team with passion. Help teammates believe in themselves. Build their confidence and self-esteem. Search for ways to make your teammates feel important and appreciated. Celebrate and get excited about
the successes and accomplishments of your teammates. Make it a daily goal to point out the strengths and contributions of those around you.

You can infuse your team with passion by the acting out the following eight principles in your daily activities:

1. Keep Your Fire Burning. Fill your energy tank frequently. Your teammates feed off your fire. Avoid burn-out by regularly relaxing and refreshing your mindset.

2. Take Charge of Your Moods. Recognize your present mental and emotional state and take time to reflect on how your attitudes impact and influence your teammates.

3. Listen to Teammates. Spend time with your teammates and attempt to understand their feelings, perspectives, and experiences. Make it a way of life rather than a onetime event.

4. Be There for Others. Team building is about recognizing, respecting, and appreciating your teammates. Your friendship can be just the encouragement a teammate might need to make it through a challenging time. The smallest gesture, a simple act of kindness, at just the right time can make a big difference.

5. Act with Integrity. Blaming, finger-pointing, and accusing others will lead to negative reactions. Do what you say you will do. In other words, walk the talk. Your attitudes and actions should be consistent with your words.

6. Be Genuine. Your teammates will see right through you if you are phony and superficial. They want you to care about them and help them achieve their goals. Belief in your teammates will breed trust and healthy relationships. Point out others’ strengths and contributions—daily!

7. Refrain from Excuse-Making. Players that are committed to excellence identify what top-notch performance looks like and then take action steps towards that standard, never making excuses for disappointments and failures along the way.

8. Mend Broken Fences. Great teammates are those willing to admit mistakes. Durable and enduring relationships are built by pushing through adversity. Conflict is natural. Restore relationships where conflict has caused tension. Be patient, persistent, and pleasant when restoring a relationship.

 

To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

About the Author

Dr. Cory Dobbs is an accomplished researcher of human experience–a relentless investigator always exploring “how things work.” He is the founder and president of The Academy for Sport Leadership and A Leader in Every Locker and has written extensively on leadership development of student-athletes.

An Interview with Dr. Cory Dobbs

Q: Why do you find it necessary to add the role of Leadership Educator to the practice of coaching? Aren’t coaches already modeling leadership for their student-athletes?

A: Let me explain by telling you a story. I recently met with a “brand” name coach and his staff to discuss leadership education. The coach is highly recognized as a top coach in his field. I opened our conversation by asking him “Are you a world-class coach?” He looked at me with an unassuming grin. So I said “The world certainly sees you as a world-class coach.” His staff chuckled but agreed. “So let’s check that box,” I said. “And,” I declared, “would you agree that coaching is teaching?” He and his staff vigorously shook their heads to imply a definitive “yes.”

“Now,” I continued, “are you a world-class leader?” Again, he looked at me with a humble smile. I asked his staff for a thumbs up or thumbs down vote of agreement. All thumbs were pointed upward. “Check that box too” I announced.

“Okay,” I said as I headed towards my home territory. “Are you a world-class leadership educator?” The grin on his face slipped into a look of bewilderment. “Well,” I said cunningly, “if you’re a world-class coach and a world-class leader shouldn’t you be a world-class leadership educator?” Puzzled and disoriented, the brand name world-class coach didn’t quite know how to respond. I continued, “How do you go about developing team leaders—or in my world team leadership?” After uttering something he asked me to explain to him just what leadership education is and how one goes about becoming a leadership educator.

A leadership educator is no different than, let’s say, a professor of management—someone who teaches management. A leadership educator teaches leadership. However, this role seems a little strange for many coaches. Few engage in a planned program and curriculum with the deliberate intention to build team leaders. Rather, most simply leave it to the seemingly natural growth of the individual. Oh, let’s not forget that a rigorous development program can be time consuming and emotionally demanding.

“Coach,” I said, “we can’t check that box can we?” I then began to teach: “The role of leadership educator requires a different mindset, skill set and involves very different actions from the one’s you’ve been practicing for a lifetime.” The coach quickly acknowledged that a huge gap exists between what he and his coaching staff are doing and what they could do to develop team leaders. He then asked if I would work with him and his staff to develop their knowledge, skills, and abilities to be high-performing leadership educators.

Q: A leader in every locker sounds a lot like “Everyone gets a trophy.”

A: First, there’s a big difference between welfare and well-being. When everyone gets a trophy it’s often like a government handout—it’s freely given, no strings attached (and just as likely not to have been well-thought through as it does have extraordinary potential as a long-term positive of participation if done right). However, when a coach is concerned for the total well-being of her student-athletes, she is delighted to have everyone on the team maximize the experience; which includes learning how to lead.

In a recent workshop a coach asked me if the idea of a leader in every locker is like a trophy for everyone. I held back, but then I injected my research and organizational framework into my response. I let the coach know emphatically, it’s just the opposite. I had to first help the coach see beyond her flawed mental model of leaders are born, the driving factor behind such thinking.

The notion of a born leader appeals to our belief in intelligence, charisma, and other personal traits as attributes necessary for leadership. Most of us have been taught since childhood, at least implicitly, that we are either a leader or a follower—mostly followers as we can only have one class president. This plays on an almost universal theme that some people must be given the role of telling us what to do; it fits with our sensibilities that we are better off by granting some people power and agency.

To be sure, my experience—countless number of workshops plus working alongside coaches—is that in most cases coaches are cynics when it comes to the idea that everyone has the ability to lead (though anticipating the critique of this claim I’m compelled to ensure I don’t imply all are equally motivated to learn to lead). For those of us who do not want to simply dismiss people as not capable of learning to lead—especially those who’ve had few role models in their lives—the concept of leadership development is a significant step forward.

The idea that leaders are extraordinary people with special gifts is an assumption many coaches have embedded in their minds—baked into the cake. Most coaches operate from a paradigm—a set of assumptions about how the world works—that makes it difficult to understand why the virtues of a leader in every locker far exceed the verifiable inefficiencies of the team captain model.

What I’m advocating is this: when a coach assumes the role of leadership educator, it is to teach leadership to all his or her student-athletes. Why in the world would you not want to teach leadership to all of your players? And why in the world would you not want your players to develop a leadership mindset, skill set, and act like a leader?

Beginning with the end in mind, when you deploy a leadership learning system you are creating a learning organization. When coaches honor the need to personalize learning for each student-athlete, they then create a dynamic learning environment in which everyone is learning in action and by reflection.

However, if a coach doesn’t think it’s worth his or her time, then it’s likely they are acting from what Stanford professor Carol Dweck calls a “fixed mindset.” A coach that acts from this perspective will do little to stimulate interest and commitment to personal leadership development of the student-athlete. Such a mindset places little value in teaching leadership. After all, they reason, either the athlete is a “natural” leader gifted with the “right stuff” or they’re not. This thinking suggests only a few athletes on any team are capable of leading. Such thinking makes no sense.

Leadership is not an all-or-nothing ability, something you either have or don’t have. As a form of social interaction, leadership can be developed when student-athletes and coaches put in effort, time, and practice.

The reality is the student-athlete (and the coach too!) has to work hard to learn how to lead, to develop a set of skills and competencies that will serve as a foundation for lifelong learning of leadership and team building. Leadership can be learned, indeed it must be learned. The key is that it must be practiced in order to facilitate the growth and development of the student-athlete. Without practice, which requires time, effort, and energy, all you have is a potential leader.

Finally, in my Coach’s Guidebook: A Leader in Every Locker I make clear that most student-athletes are raised in sport to simply follow the lead of the coach; thereby making the participant a passive recipient of leadership. After years of going along to get along the young athlete develops the habit of passive followership. This is one of the biggest challenges of change we face as leadership educators.

Should everyone get a trophy? Probably not (save for another day the issue of participation and achievement).

Should everyone get an opportunity to learn about leadership and explore how to lead? Yes! And to do so requires great effort on the part of the student-athlete. The athlete is not given anything but opportunity. Are all leaders equal? No! Everyone has a different starting line, but all student-athletes can learn to lead at some level.

Q: In your workshops you urge, quite forcefully I might add, coaches to rethink their
thinking?

A: I do this because every act of coaching rests on assumptions, generalizations, and get this—hypotheses. That is, the coach’s mindset determines to a great extent how he operates. It is very unlikely that a coach will change his or her ways of coaching until they look in the mirror and consider who they are and what they believe and why they believe what they believe. Once they peel away the layers and recognize how deeply held beliefs and attitudes—such as only a few athletes are capable of leading—he or she can design a culture that maximizes the experience for everyone.

It’s a shame that many coaches are intimidated by the idea that embedded within every player is a potential leader. There is great suspicion of how things will work if everyone is potentially a leader. A common concern about a leader in every locker came up one day when I was talking with a group of coaches. “How can you ask us to have all our student-athletes lead?” one coach said to me. “Isn’t that opening Pandora ’s Box?” Recall that when Pandora’s Box was opened, all the troubles of humanity flew out. Is this how coaches imagine what might happen should everyone learn to lead and be given opportunities to lead?

I understand their concern. They really have no reference point to relate the practice of teaching everyone leadership. But when coaches and players learn for example, the 5 Steps of Team Leadership, the 8 Roles of Team Leadership, and The Coach as a Leadership Educator that I’ve created it all begins to make sense. Something else we do is utilize a specialized vocabulary. In addition to the 5 Steps of Leadership our program includes specialized terminology and unique constructs such as the eight roles of team leadership, leadership educator, followership and leadership orientation, and leadershift to cite some of the vital elements of our way of talking, thinking, and developing leaders.

The unnatural gap between the traditional team captain model and the reality that everyone can learn to lead at some level requires a monumental change program. It’s going to take awhile, but over time coaches will discover new things about how it all works together to the advantage of the program and the players.

To find out more about and order Sport Leadership Books authored by Dr. Dobbs including Coaching for Leadership, click this link: The Academy for Sport Leadership Books

About the Author

A former basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition. While coaching, he researched and developed the transformative Becoming a Team Leader program for student-athletes. Cory has worked with professional athletes, collegiate athletic programs and high schools teaching leadership as a part of the sports experience and education process. Cory cut his teeth as a corporate leader with Fortune 500 member, The Dial Corp. As a consultant and trainer Dr. Dobbs has worked with such organizations as American Express, Honeywell, and Avnet.

Cory has taught a variety of courses on leadership and change for the following universities:

Northern Arizona University (Graduate Schools of Business and Education)

Ohio University (Graduate School of Education / Management and Leadership in Sport)

Grand Canyon University (Sports Marketing and Sports Management in the Colangelo School of Sports Business)

Visit www.corydobbs.com to read Cory’s leadership blog.