Leadership in Coaching: Two quotes from the SHAEF commander

There’s really no way to argue it–Dwight Eisenhower was amazing. Indeed, in my house, I have a framed campaign poster that is 4×6′ from the 1952 Republican Convention. It saddened me twenty years ago to find out that Stephen Ambrose was academically dishonest in his biographies of Eisenhower…though I wound up being glad to find out the dishonesty did not substantially change the truth of Eisenhower. I like Ike.

So while I’m writing posts on leadership and mentorship…I also work on my fiction daily…and sometimes research for one leads into the other. That was the case with President Eisenhower today. It led me to two great quotes attributed to Ike on leadership.

Quote #1: Pull the string and it will follow wherever you wish, but push it and it goes nowhere.

Quote #2: You don’t lead people by hitting them over the head; that’s assault, not leadership.

Not much explanation necessary. The question for coaching is how you apply these to your own program. Personally, I want to argue with the first a bit–if you have to pull someone to get them to follow, is that really leadership? Shouldn’t it really be about creating self-motivation?

The second–that’s really obvious.

** It’s that first quote that I REALLY sit here and want to argue. Is pulling someone along leadership–how is that any different than trying to push an individual in terms of motivating ‘the string’. If pulled, it moves because YOU are doing the work. If pushed, it moves but not where it is supposed to go.

Is there a way to rephrase it to get me to not want to say, “Yeah, but…”?

Is that a reflection on me as a coach and my leadership style–that I immediately go to ‘Yeah, but’ mode?

Is it a reflection on my coaching if I explain something and get a player immediately saying ‘Yeah, but…’ OR is that an athlete trying to practice leadership, showing confidence by asking a question and speaking up?

–because every coach has teams where they say they have no questions, you start, and then there are a dozen questions…amiright? (There’s also the kid that is asking questions to stall/not have to do the next portion of practice, too…)

**

Now I find myself thinking of an old saying:

You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar

And an old idiom

The carrot and the stick

Don’t these both acknowledge what Eisenhower’s saying in that second quote–that we know inherently that rewards (words, cash, candy, whatever) are better motivators than anything else? Centuries-old sayings observe this yet we glorify “tough” coaches who threaten and punish and enforce really restrictive rules….I just don’t see that as good leadership.