Coaches & Leadership
The best thing you can do for the long-term health of your program is develop the leaders within it.
Not appoint them. Develop them. There’s a difference. Appointing gives someone a title. Developing builds the capacity behind the title. And programs that invest in the second thing — that take the intentional development of young leaders seriously — are the programs that sustain excellence across multiple seasons.
Read this passage slowly.
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.
1 Timothy 4:12 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Paul is writing to Timothy — a young leader who is apparently dealing with people who don’t take him seriously because of his age. And the instruction is not to wait until he’s older to lead. It’s to set an example now, in the specific domains that matter: speech, conduct, love, faith, purity.
Young leaders in an athletic context face the same thing. The younger athlete who is given leadership responsibility before they’ve established the credibility that usually comes with seniority is going to be tested. Not always explicitly. But the room will watch to see if the title is matched by the substance.
The coach’s role in that situation is critical. Developing a young leader means more than assigning them a responsibility and watching what happens. It means giving them the framework to understand what leadership actually requires. Debriefing with them regularly on what they’re seeing in the room and how they’re responding to it. Creating enough safety for them to try things and fail without the failure being catastrophic. And publicly backing their authority in ways that build the room’s trust in them.
The investment in the young leader pays forward. The captain who leaves your program with genuine leadership development — not just the experience of having worn the title — is a person who leads better in every context they enter for the rest of their life. That’s legacy in action.
Developing leaders means more than assigning responsibility. It means building the capacity behind the title.
Who in this room has leadership potential that is not yet being fully developed? What specific investment would accelerate their growth?
Identifying specific people and specific investments. The more concrete the answer, the more likely the investment actually happens.
Develop the leaders. Don’t just appoint them.
Best as an early-season devotional that frames the captain or leadership development work for the year ahead.