The Encouraging Leader

Five years ago I was inspired by Mike Neighbors, an assistant coach at Xavier University, to begin a newsletter on leadership entitled THE ENCOURAGING LEADER.  Neighbors was doing a newsletter for basketball coaches and I really enjoyed it.  My entire life as a coach, I studied leadership and felt that I could add value to others with the insights that I had learned.  It started as a monthly newsletter but has since become a quarterly publication.  We have had some great leaders that have contributed over the years and I am so grateful for their generosity and willingness to write articles. For three years, I worked on the newsletter consistently but then in May of 2014 I took a new job.  I left a good college coaching job to become the athletic director at a traditional high school powerhouse in Indiana. It was a very grueling job and I put the newsletter on hold.  I kept coming up with reasons why I couldn't publish another issue.  The main one was "I am too busy".   However, what is in the middle of all excuses?  "U".  It wasn't the job that kept me from publishing more issues, it was me.  I was constantly making choices to push it further down my priority list. 

It takes time to put a newsletter together but every time that I put one together, it made me sharp and helped me learn more about leadership from many different perspectives.  Essentially by choosing to not publish the newsletter, I was taking away an opportunity for me to learn.  Just like Coach Neighbors newsletter, no doubt, keeps him sharp, at the same time helping others.  He is now the head coach at the University of Washington and they advanced to the NCAA Final Four this season.  He is a head coach in the Pac-12 and yet still religiously puts out his newsletter.  How inspiring is that?  That is one of the reasons that I decided to start being an encouraging leader again through the newsletter.  Click here to read the latest edition of The Encouraging Leader.  

Jamy Bechler is the executive director of U-Leadership and a John Maxwell Certified Leadership Speaker and Coach.  Contact him at CoachBechler@CoachBechler.com to find out how you or your team can be more successful.  

I Like Geno

I admit it.  I like Geno Auriemma.  

On Sunday, Geno will lead his UConn team as they play in the NCAA Women's Final Four located in Indianapolis this year.  The Huskies are going for their 4th straight National Championship.

Many people do not like Geno.  Many people do not like UConn.  Many people say that their dominance is bad for the game.  I say excellence and the quest for perfection is not bad.

Shouldn't we all be trying to do what Geno has done with UConn?  Shouldn't we all be seeking to be the best we can be regardless of circumstance or opponent.  All of the motivational quotes that we like to spout about making ourselves better, persevering, and being self-disciplined are apparently fine and good except when we are talking about UCONN and Geno Auriemma.  When they put all of those quotes into practice then they are not praised but rather vilified or dismissed.