Module 1.6: Developing Leaders on Staff and Within the Team – Leadership Is Built — Not Assigned

The purpose of Module 1.6 is to help head coaches intentionally identify, develop, and protect real behavioral leaders (both staff and players) who influence standards and culture when you're not present—preventing the common failures of popularity-based captains, misaligned informal leaders, or over-reliance on positional titles.

Grounded in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and sport-specific research on peer leadership, distributed leadership, role clarity, and behavioral emergence, this module shifts from "naming leaders" to observing and shaping leadership through responsibility, adversity, and structured activities.

Key elements you'll cover:

• Core principles: Leadership is behavioral; influence > volume; responsibility reveals leaders; bad leaders damage more than none.
• Staff leadership: Builds on delegation/standards; observe behaviors like unprompted reinforcement, calm correction, solution-focus; progression: Trusted Contributor → Informal → Formal Leader.
• Player leadership: Identify via adversity/fatigue indicators (respectful correction, effort maintenance); avoid popularity/talent traps.
• Team X activities: Five step-by-step interventions: Behavior Mapping (nominate influencers); Protection Scenarios (role-play corrections); Responsibility Trial (test duties pre-captains); Language Training (calm scripts); Adversity Debrief (post-pressure identification).

You'll get short videos with examples from real programs, plus printable activity guides, scripts, observation scorecards, and debrief templates. This module creates a distributed leadership layer that stabilizes culture, reduces coach dependence, and makes standards self-enforcing—because true leadership emerges from behavior under responsibility, not announcements or titles.