For those of you who have been around for awhile I have a question—”Did this ever happen to you?” “Did what happen?” you are thinking. The answer to that question is as follows.

First,a little background. As you climb the ladder in your chosen profession or career the leadership accountabilities grow. At some point you may reach or have reached the place where you are in-charge of something. You know, Head Coach, Director of Athletics, Dean, V.P., etc.

The question I have is this; “Did the person hiring you tell you up-front that you are going to be successful because they are going to make sure that you are?” I know … I must be dreaming. For me it was more like this, “Okay Big Boy, show me what you’ve got.”

Every leader needs to insure the growth and development of his/her direct reports. Let’s use competitive athletics as an example. The Head Coach is not going to play a single minute or score a single point. And, usually, is not going to do all the coaching. Therefore coaching the assistant coaches is a must. Oh, I forgot, you don’t have time for that. They know the game, that’s why you hired them. REALLY? Do they know YOU’RE game?

When I started my Head Coaching career I was given a word of advise by veteran coach Abe Lemons who, at the time, coached Oklahoma City University. He later finished his career at the University of Texas.

Here’s what Abe said to his assistants, “Don’t ever lose one of MY players.” In other words don’t ever interact with them in a way that has them leave the program or resist Abe’s coaching. The thing I would add now is that Abe needed to be sure that his coaches knew exactly what he wanted from them. That’s training.

In my experience the single largest thing “missing” in organizations is training. People have skills and talents. The key however is their ability to apply them in alignment with their teammates to deliver the purpose of the enterprise, organization or team. You always want talented players. The question is “Are we all playing the same game?”

Get your copy of “The Art of Losing” Coach Todd’s latest book. You can find it on www.lulu.com