Since 2017 I have been coaching my sons junior football club “Chorley Wanderers” currently at under 12s age group. We have 16 boys & 2 girls in our squad so the challenge of keeping 18 kids happy, motivated to turn up to training on both the winter cold evenings but also the lovely sunny summer nights is difficult.
At the start of the season, we lost one of our strongest players who not only was our captain the previous season but also our top scorer and the first three games started as badly as a season could start two defeats and 1 draw.
I have seen many a post on social media about the Boss VS Leader and usually I wonder whether there is hidden frustration from the person posting that they don’t like the style of management they fall under. Usually something similar to the graphic below. When we read most people, I am guessing they would prefer to be seen as a Leader than a Boss but sometimes a boss is what people want.
After some hard work and some honest conversations at training we got our season back on track with a good home win only then to lose our 5th game of the season and move 2nd bottom of the league. Things did not look good and what I forecasted would have been a promotion push season was turning into a relegation dog fight.
There are players in my team that watch a lot of live football and have kicked a ball since they could toddle whereas others have only taken an active interest in football over the last couple of years. As a coach I can see in this environment more so than in my role at Sharples Davies the need to modify my behaviour and turn from Leader for some of the kids to a Boss for others. There are some players that do need direct commands (instructions) on what their role in the team in that game is whereas other players prefer to learn by being asked questions and then figuring the answer out themselves.
I have a lot of faith in Thomas International and their behavioural profiling in the PPA (if you have done a Thomas PPA my D is above the Line as is my I which in short means I must be chatty person who loves to talk but is Assertive when I need to be). When I worked for Jeff, he had earned my utter respect and my biggest fear was letting him down but to get the most out of me I needed driving in the right direction and actually I was always more motivated when I had received the stick over carrot. I needed him to put that fire in my belly and Jeff knew when I needed him to be the “Boss”.
Come January I had one eye on the under 13 season in September 2023 and the move from playing 9v9 to 11v11. At this time, I was looking at increasing our numbers from 14 to 18 and the players that came into our team gave all the players a lift. They added quality in the ranks and competition to get into the starting team, efforts a training seemed to raise and the quality on the pitch soon improved, and a good run of wins put the team safe of a relegation battle but still some work to be done to achieve our original aim of promotion.
We have been lucky enough to work with a client now for nearly as long as Sharples Davies have existed, a relationship that spans nearly 30 years. This company I believe are at the forefront of people development and this in turn sees so many of the team fit into the green side of the graphic above. You can see length of service by the employees and a genuine desire not only to do well for their line manager but also a desire to represent the company. This is a company cultural thing that has been cultivated over many years, the leadership and collaboration comes naturally and can be seen in the way they work.
The team on a weekly basis now started to get the results we needed and with some good fortune the results around us seemed to be going our way. With two games to go the team needed one win to secure the championship from the last two games but equally no win in either game would see the team finish an agonising 3rd and would miss out on promotion. By the pictures you can guess that the season ended the way we hoped and will hopefully give this group a memory they can cherish till we are all old and grey.
As a coach you want to be a Leader and want to inspire a group to get the very best out of them, but I have found that in the last 12 months as these kids have got older and have really changed from young kids to more mature young adults it has been a tough challenge. This last 12 months has made me think more than any other about my managerial style.
Does a good Leader know when to be a Boss or does a good Boss know when to be a Leader? I hope my team at Sharples Davies & Chorley Wanderers think I am alright. Both teams are certainly driving me to be better in my roles.
