Empowerment lesson final

Tue, May 23, 2023 8:28PM • 23:09

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

coaches, women, people, empower, empowerment, kid, leaders, interview, kathy, female, natasha, helping, leading, young women, create, podcast, inclusivity, community, ideas, growth

SPEAKERS

Felisha Legette Jack, Jim Woolfrey, Bev Priestman, Paul Barnett, Natasha Adair, Tricia Cullop, Kathy Delaney-Smith, Sue Enquist, Alana Thomas

Paul Barnett  00:00

Welcome to the lessons from the great coaches podcast.

00:04

I've learned that you don't do it alone, you learn so many different things from so many different coaches. That's an elite learning environment. How you deal with how to be resilient, how important it is to infuse joy in the process of learning. To be a good candidate, you've got to do more than you take. What an interesting way it is to be a waiter.

Jim Woolfrey  00:29

My name is Jim Woolfrey. And you're listening to the great coach's podcast, where we explore leadership through the lens of high performance sport, by interviewing great coaches from around the world, to try and find ideas to help all of us lead our teams better. In celebration of International Women's Day, we decided to do an episode that features some of the great female coaches that we've interviewed, talking about empowerment, a topic that so many of our guests talk about in the context of preparing women for the choices that they will either make for themselves, or influence in others. We chose this as a topic as it is one that frequently comes up around our dinner tables, whether discussing the group's assigned in school sport classes, society's views around clothing, or the roles that we all play at home and work. It's also a topic that comes up around the boardroom or meeting tables that we sit and work at. Paul and I both have daughters. And so putting this episode together gave us a chance to reflect on what we are learning as parents, podcast hosts, managers and leaders ourselves about this topic, and we hope you enjoy it and get the same sense of reflection that we did. And here at the great coaches podcast, we're working to create one of the world's best leadership libraries. From the lessons our interview guests share with us, you can help support our project, get exclusive content, and early access to the great coaches collection by joining our Patreon community. All the details on how you can be a part of this journey are in the show notes. And now please enjoy our episode of empowerment from the great female coaches. The lessons from the great coaches podcast.

Paul Barnett  02:19

We start every episode by asking our guests about the great coaches they have known and what sets them apart from others. Their answers are always surprising and cover themes from authenticity to communication, to emotional intelligence. But as basketball coach, Natasha Adair points out, they also have the ability to move from understanding to empowerment. And this leads people to being better as a result.

Natasha Adair  02:46

From my experience, I will say they are really good listeners. You know, most often coaches are talking. We are talking they're telling you, you know, their philosophy, their vision, how you want, how they want things, how they should look. But I have found along my journey, that the great coaches, our listeners, they empower the people, not just the student athletes, the people around them. They're selfless. They don't, they don't want they don't want the limelight. They don't they don't want all the credit. And they make people better, holistically around them.

Paul Barnett  03:29

And as Natasha goes on to point out, when you build a culture of empowerment around you, it will be visible and increased commitment from the team.

Natasha Adair  03:38

And so I have found that when you empower your student athletes, when you empower your assistants, when you empower your support staff, all the people around you, and you know what makes them tick, and you feed it then they'll run through a wall for you because they know it's authentic. They know it's intentional, and it just makes them feel important.

Paul Barnett  04:04

Kathy Delaney Smith coached the Harvard women's basketball team for 40 years. She told us that the goal of empowering women has been at the center of her focus the whole time. And the output of that focus has been a ripple effect of increased empowerment of other women that starts at the grassroots level.

Kathy Delaney-Smith  04:23

I've spent my whole life trying to empower women. So it's, it's making sure women have the confidence to be on podcasts to get up and speak. Go out into youth, sports. If you have if you're a family. If you're a woman running a family, it doesn't matter if your kitchen is clean. It matters that you're on the soccer field, even if you didn't play soccer. And there's just so many women when they don't know anything about soccer. Well, it doesn't really matter. Read a book, go on the web and get out there because we need to see more women at that level. So one of my alumni said to me, Kathy, do you know how many of us coach AAU, our AAU teams and our youth teams? And I said, No, she goes, all of us, we're all coaching our youth teams. And the she said, Do you want to know why? And I go, No, why she goes, because you told us to. And so that's the empowerment that we need. But we have to start at, you know, that grassroots level, a first step

Paul Barnett  05:25

towards empowering people, not just women, is to create a space where they feel comfortable sharing their thoughts. And as we say, in each episode, this can be around the dinner table, in the locker room, or around the boardroom table. Here is Natasha Adair, again, talking about the spaces that she tries to create in her program.

Natasha Adair  05:44

You empower them, by allowing them to share, to have conversations to be in safe spaces with you about their wants, their needs, their fears. And you show them that you know what, I'm acting, I'm acting on your behalf. I'm being there for you. I'm helping navigate this, this path that we that we told you, we were going to do when we set in your home, that we told your parents now I tell the parents, I do not promise playing time. But I do promise that you will be proud of your daughter's growth in your daughter's development. So when you lay your head down at night, you know that she's okay. That's what I promised. And every day we work towards them.

Paul Barnett  06:35

Felicia legit Jack is presently the head coach of the Syracuse University women's basketball team. She builds on the thoughts of Natasha Adair, by talking about the topic of self doubt, and how it is one of the main things she talks to young women about after she's created a space where they feel comfortable enough to be open.

Felisha Legette Jack  06:54

I value the whole woman, you know, I value all of it, you know, the rich kid who's never seen because money is supposed to make the family happy value the poor kid who all she wanted was a hug from parent or brother or sister value the adopted kid who's in search of something that may not ever be found. Value, you know, it all you know, you come to me as your whole self, I present to you my whole self. And I think that if we can get something out of that better than it was yesterday. To me that that's why I do it. And that's why he doesn't feel like this is year 33. Because every single day do that door walks a person that's in need of being valued. So I think young women, you know, have it worse than most. Because I think that we're pretty smart. I think that we're pretty compassionate, I think that we are undervalued. And therefore we undervalue ourselves. And what I think is the most valued thing I can bring as a coach is to share with all of the, the whole kid the broken kids, the last kid is the ability to look in their eyes and let them know I see them and that they matter. And from there, we'll figure out the rest of it. And I got a quote here, I keep next miss it my certainty it must be greater than everyone's doubts. And that's very important for young people, because there's so much doubt, and young women, that if you share with them that they are the best ever I see them your matter, they fly and they flourish and, and I just really enjoy the fact that I look back at all my players that I've ever coached that I think one kid has lost her way. And I mean, I'm talking about all the way back to Hofstra. And so that's what I value the most is the fact that I can help people find and feel their value. Even on days. I feel broken.

Paul Barnett  09:16

Becky Burley coached the University of Florida Gators women's soccer team for 26 years. When we spoke to her, she emphasized the part of empowering people is also giving them tasks that stimulate them and help them grow.

09:31

And I think so often, especially if I'm the boss, maybe I give tasks to my people underneath me that are things I don't want to do, instead of trying to sit down, align self interest with them and figure out what their interests are and maybe share some tasks that they have some interest in because now that could stimulate the desire to grow a little bit.

Paul Barnett  09:55

And these tasks can then in the words of Alana Thomas, the rugby union coach, open up pathways for other women to experience opportunities. This is a very powerful idea that many of our female guests have talked about. And I think it is as applicable in the workplace or any other organization in society.

Alana Thomas  10:12

I'm a big believer in, if you get given opportunities, and you put opportunities out there, then you're creating a pathway. That's the same. And another one that I sort of use a lot is, if you can see it, you can be it. So the more that we can promote women in sport on free to air TV, across, whether it be club rugby, whether it be on TV, internationals at sevens, the growth of rugby after the 2016 Olympics, when the girls won gold, it was a quarter of the growth across Australian Rugby and around the world, it just exploded, because people could see it. And people wanted to be a part of it. They just loved what they saw. So for me to get coaches involved, and even players to be involved is we have to create pathways, and they have to be visible and we have to celebrate them. When we have successes. We have to celebrate the people in them and share their stories because the one big thing I believe, is everyone's got a story. And every story is unique, and it's authentic. One part of the story may resonate with someone out there that's watching or listening. And they are I can do that. That sounds like me, I've come from that background, I could actually do this.

Paul Barnett  11:24

The idea of inspiring other women was also something the Olympic gold medal winning football coach Pressman talked about. Bev also makes the interesting observation that her appreciation of the value of role models changed after the Olympic win.

Bev Priestman  11:39

If I talk about the impact of the female, I think I've realized since coming back from the Olympics, the importance of having a female do well on the stages, I don't think are valued as much as a half. But I know that a lot of female coaches now see in the dream, but then you're gonna see it happen. I think my more Molly, who, you know, when I was at university, she was evington Ladies. And like I said, I'm from a small town I was the only girl who played on my team and all the rest of it. For the first time I got to see more Molly, who was a professional coach at Everton ladies. And I went down to the training sessions six weeks in a row, put a cone down. And eventually she got me involved. But I think for the first time, I got to see a strong female who was making a profession out of being a soccer coach. And that was obviously many years ago. It's very different now. But that definitely inspired me to say, Listen, actually, I can make a career out of this because as a kid growing up, I'd only ever seen Kevin Keegan, Alex Ferguson, like the men's Premier League, and male coaches that that was all I'd seen. And for the first time in my career, I got to be around, Watch, Learn around a female coach. And I think that gave me that kick to say, I'm going to be a full time professional coach. And of course, here I am,

Paul Barnett  12:57

Trisha color coaches basketball at the University of Toledo. And in her program, there is a focus on community involvement, which she believes helps people keep perspective, she tries to amplify the experience her players are having, by infusing it with the joy that can come from helping lift others up.

Tricia Cullop  13:16

For me, building is those relationships. Building is establishing relationships in your community. I believe that is doing community service work that is going out and really connecting with people kind of meeting them where they are, we've been involved with a group called Connecting Kids to meals in our community that feed 7000 starving kids a day. We have, we help out with the Race for the Cure, which is cancer organization that, you know, we work a water station, you know, we could easily be in the race, but we feel like being a servant of the race is better. Because so many times those same people are cheering for us in a game. But now we get to cheer for them, and serve them water as they run in the race. Learning how to be a servant and always the leader is a really good thing for our team, to keep things in perspective, to make sure that even on our worst days that sometimes we realize our worst day is someone else's best day. And so that community of giving back, it's it's great because we wouldn't have the facilities we have the uniforms, we have the ability to, to have the incredible environments that we have if it wasn't for our community. And so we need to understand that appreciate that. Be grateful for that. But also learn those lessons of, of why we're doing it. And those life lessons of you know, it could always be worse. And so let's be let's be grateful for that.

Paul Barnett  14:41

One of the challenges with empowerment as a leader though, regardless of your gender, is ensuring that you empower people consistently and equally. Your biases and experiences will mean you make judgments that makes this difficult to do continually. But as Sue EnQuest holders, if you do aspire to be a transformational leader. Do you do need to create opportunities for everybody?

Sue Enquist  15:03

And so the challenge with our transformational leaders is, how do I create the conditions for everybody to be seen and heard are people of color? How are we creating the conditions for inclusivity? And these people to be seen and be heard without us saying, Hey, you educate us, black person, you educate us on the pain? No, the black person shouldn't have to educate us. I'm a white woman of privilege. I had access from the day I was born to great schooling, great education, great athletics, great facilities, great transportation. So I was ahead of the game. As a white woman of privilege, I have to be the one that goes out and advocates for those people that didn't have access to excellence like I did. We didn't all start at the starting line the same and we've no matter you buy into that or not, it's a fact. And we've got to answer the call, especially when it comes to laying down that environment for employees to include people of diversity, people of different backgrounds, different sexual orientation, to be comfortable with our LGBTQ community. I always am fascinated by how on one hand, people can love technology, they love their phone. But on the other hand, they don't want to change their leadership tactics. So we were able to adjust around communication technology, why can't we adjust around our own micro relationships that we have with the teams that we're on right now.

Paul Barnett  16:38

For many of us, though, the focus is not necessarily on being transformational, but just a little better every day, in the way we empathize with people and do what we can to help them here. Natasha Adair speaks again, this time giving some ideas on what everyone can do to start empowering people tomorrow.

Natasha Adair  16:58

First, I would like all leaders, of people, not just coaches, for people, to ask the people that they're leading what they need. So many leaders forget to ask. They go in with these preconceived notions of their agenda, what they have to do, meaning they themselves self. I want this, we need that. What do you need? And so I think the first thing, the first order of business, is ask the people that they're leaving, what they need, and what they need from them as a leader. I do that all the time. What do you need from me as your head coach? How do you want me to coach you? Have the I don't know if a lot of coaches ask them? Well, Coach, I want you to be direct, or coach, I don't want you to call me out in front of the group. Coach, I want to just sit down one on one, I'm more private, and more one on one I'm not. So that immediately lets me know. That's what they need from me. I need I need feedback. I need to know feedback pretty much daily, okay. And everyone needs something different. So I love leaders immediately just start asking the people who they're leading what they need, and then use their platform to create change, change is uncomfortable. Change is uncomfortable for so many. Equality, right? Diversity, social justice, no, a lot of people are uncomfortable talking about that. But if I'm a leader, and I'm leading a group of people, it is my responsibility to make sure every person that I'm leading feels important. That's why representation matters. gender, ethnicity matters. I can't lead or I can't empower someone. If they never know that they can do it. You walk in a room and if there is not equality, if there is not balance, if there's not diversity. If I believe in young people, and they look around and there's no looks like how do they know they can? And so I just think that it's time for leaders to have tough conversations with themselves. And whatever it is they're uncomfortable with and seek out resources seek out information. Seek out Hello, because they're failing in their leadership, if they don't bring awareness, if they don't bring change if they don't bring new ideas if they don't grow their culture,

Paul Barnett  20:17

the final thought on empowerment comes from Kathy Delaney Smith again, the Harvard basketball coach. The final question we ask in each interview, is a version of what does I guess hope their legacy is, with the people they have coached? Kathy's answer is a terrific example. But the purpose that has not only driven her, but also many other great female leaders and coaches that we have in society,

Kathy Delaney-Smith  20:42

that I allowed the women like I empowered them, and I allowed them not only to be free to be who they are, but feel great about it. i We live in a world where we're judged by our gender, our race, our height, our weight, our hair, or this or that. And I really tried to empower all of my women to be their authentic self, because I have I am, I have had a crazy coaching career. I am non traditional, I was criticized for a majority of the time for just doing it my way I my players call me Kathy, I was worn don't do that they will, they will not respect you. But I just I did it my way. And I encourage women that there's power and being authentic, and we should all be free to be who we are.

Jim Woolfrey  21:35

Hi, everyone. It's Jim again. I hope you enjoyed our episode on empowerment, featuring the great female coaches that we've interviewed, and found a few ideas that you can bring to your own dinner table, locker room, or boardroom table for discussion. One thing that I'm going to do differently now is to focus on talking more to my daughter, about women creating pathways. When we see them in the media. I also liked the ideas about ensuring that the tasks you give people are stimulating and help build more inclusivity across the team. We started the podcast, hoping to find ways to help people live better. And the more people we interview, the more I become aware of how crucial the home is for helping to achieve this. And just before we go, if you have any feedback, then please let us know. Just like Mikhail asrb, who said, Hi, excellent work. So inspirational. It's always a pleasure to listen to your interviews. Gosh, thanks, Miguel. It's the interaction with people from around the world who listened give us great energy. And so if you have any feedback or comments, please let us know. And also, if you're interested in helping us create one of the world's best leadership libraries, from the lessons our interview guests share with us, then you can sponsor us through our Patreon page, or the details on how you can do this or just connect with us or in the shownotes or on our website, the great coaches podcast.com