Leadership in Strength & Conditioning
Author: Servando Duran, Director of Athletic Performance, NorthWood High School
Published: March 25, 2024
When it comes to choosing a career in strength & conditioning, the target goal is usually to serve as a leader of a team, program, or department – which we call “Head Strength Coach”, “Director of Athletic Performance” or “Director of Applied Sport Science” …something along those lines. That was my goal when I first decided that S&C was going to be my future.
My path heading into the S&C field looked somewhat like most others:
Played a sport/s in high school and college.
Undergraduate degree in exercise-science/human performance.
Graduate degree in exercise physiology.
Multiple internships in a broad range of settings (high school, large university, private sector).
First position at Mid-Major Division-I level as an assistant S&C
During this span of time, my passion for S&C developed and I fell in love with learning about every avenue within the field: strength methods, periodization, speed and agility development, sport science, nutrition, energy system development, athlete load monitoring, etc. It was quite simple when I first got into the field – become an “expert” in all these areas because that is ultimately what will help me get the “big time” job at a power five football school (laughing out loud). Yes – it is important to learn and be educated on the X’s and O’s of S&C (professional education should always be a priority!), but more importantly, how effectively can you perform as a leader within your setting. Can you manage athletes that come from various backgrounds? Can you manage sport coaches when working with multiple programs? Do your administrators find value in what you provide as a coach and as a leader? What are your leadership qualities like when conflict arises? I’d like to talk about some important things I have learned in my time in the college setting and now in high school education and athletics that have helped me in my day-to-day operation as a Director of Athletic Performance.
HOW TO BE AN EFFECTIVE LEADER IN S&C
First and foremost, who are you leading? This could be your students, athletes, staff, interns, etc. These are the people that must be priority when making decisions as a leader. “What is best for your (insert)?” should be the first question you ask yourself when making difficult decisions. Next – Who are the people that you must collaborate with daily to provide the best possible experience for those that you lead? This would be your sport coaches, sports medicine staff, teachers, and administrators.
Context, Motivation, Personalities
When taking up a position as either a director or assistant, your first step should not only work to establish relationships with athletes and colleagues – but get to know them on a deeper level! Who are these people you get to work with daily? What motivates them to do what they do? For example, you have two sport coaches whose teams you are responsible for leading and
delivering a highly effective strength & conditioning program. Coach A is all about culture and experience – they want their student-athletes to have the best experience possible and to learn important qualities that will carry over to their relationships, community, and workplace. Coach A wants to impact their athletes’ life (transformational). Coach B cares more about wins and losses and how to set up the program for long-term, sustainable success. They want to hang banners and have a “winning-first” attitude to how they approach their daily operation (transactional). An understanding of their personalities, core values, and their motivation will surely help guide you through the next segment.
Conflict and Finding Solutions
Sport coaches all want their own thing and have their own agenda. It may be weight-room time and scheduling, facility access and usage, multi-athletes to be participating in their sport more than the other, strength training to fit their model/philosophy, periodization and peaking/recovery timing – the list can go on FOREVER! How do you accommodate all these variables, when you have anywhere from 3-10 teams and multiple coaches pulling at you from every direction wanting what THEY want? What are your steps to dealing with challenging situations? How do you manage two coaches that want their way but it’s your job to find one way that will satisfy all three of your needs, standards, philosophies?
Here are my steps to finding a solution when managing PEOPLE:
KYP (know your people!) – It is vital to understand context, personalities, language, values, and motivation. This will help guide you through the way you hold a conversation with people.
LISTEN. Your job as a coach, director, and leader is to take the time to listen. Coaches want to be heard and to know that you are there for them and their program.
SPEAK THEIR LANGUAGE – We hear this all the time, but how do we actually “speak one’s language”? Again, this comes down to understanding your people and what they want. This could be correlating the things you do to “sport-specific” movements, gameplay, outcomes, etc. It could be implementing training strategies that allow athletes to lead each other, be accountable for their teammates, and work together to improve. What ever the context may be, use these modalities to guide you through a conversation with a sport coach in which allows them to be satisfied, but does not steer you away from your program philosophy and principles.
FIND A SOLUTION – Every conflict or challenging situation must come down to the question “what is best for our athletes to set them up to be successful?”. The strength coach, sport scientist, sport coaches, admin may not all agree on philosophies, way of handling conflict, managing people – but there must be a solution that is athlete-centered.
Communication, Validation, Trust
Trust is the foundation of every relationship. It is important to building trust, not only with your athletes, but with your coaches, support staff, and administration. Here are some ways to help develop those strong relationships, especially to the point where you are a trusted, reliable, and
a highly respected professional at your program, school, or department.
Frequent communication. Don’t only ask for your needs. Find out their needs; how can you help them become more successful. What are their program’s strengths and what are their weaknesses? Be a part of their programs developmental process.
Track and provide data from your training program that are specific, measurable, and relevant enough to correlate to coaches. Establish what your key performance indicators (KPIs) are, implement how you will test and monitor long-term performance progress, and consistently communicate these trends to your coaches. From there you can correlate any significant data trends with athlete wellness, training and sport load prescription, and injury data.
Communicate and keep your administration in the loop of all positive or negative performance trends and accomplishments from athletes. This allows your admin team to see how much of an impact your work and leadership has on your sport teams, coaches, and athletes.
Regardless of your job title, it is your responsibility as a S&C coach to show your worth, deliver high-quality strength & conditioning programs to your athletic teams, and be a reliable leader that your colleagues can trust. At the end of the day, the goal is to make a positive impact on your athletes, coaches, programs, and institution. Notice throughout this blog, the word “people” is bolded throughout this blog. That is because PEOPLE matter and how you treat PEOPLE is just as important as what training or coaching philosophy you have. A highly effective strength & conditioning program can help set your athletes up for success, but an even better coach and leader will set your program up for LONG-TERM SUCCESS.