The Supervisory Behavioral Continuum: An applied approach to develop leadership in athletes

The Supervisory Behavioral Continuum
An applied approach to develop leadership in athletes

Dr. Larry W. McDaniel, Allen Jackson, M.Ed., and Dr. Laura Gaudet, discuss concepts related to developing leadership skills through measures of practical application.

A basic understanding of the Supervisory Behavioral Continuum (SBC), consisting of specific behaviors, is important in the process of developing skills of effective leadership. The Supervisory Behavioral Continuum has been proven to play a vital role in the decision-making process. SBC is the continuum adapted for use in the educational process of developing leadership in coaches and athletes. SBC includes ten specific behaviors; listening, clarifying, encouraging, reflecting, presenting, problem-solving, negotiating, directing, standardizing, and reinforcing. Each behavior is clustered into the sub-groups of directive, directive informational, collaborative, and nondirective. 

Throughout the coaching process it has been our intent to encourage leadership by involving athletes in experiences aimed at developing independent thinking and leadership skills. Dr. Larry McDaniel, an Associate Professor at Dakota State University, has developed an array of educational episodes where the use of the Supervisory Behavioral Continuum plays a major role in this instructional process. Through an understanding of specific behaviors within the continuum, Dr. McDaniel discusses methods of supervising athletes and provides examples of different supervisory strategies which will be employed in physical activities and sport settings. After the behaviors, which will be employed throughout the learning session or practice, are introduced and discussed, Dr. McDaniel demonstrates the behaviors specific to the "Supervisory Behavior Continuum." Demonstrations offer opportunities to incorporate "direct informational supervision" and clarify expectations. 

Dr. McDaniel's instructional methodologies are specific to the field of physical education and athletics. His use of supervisory strategies includes direct informational, collaborative, and nondirective supervision thus allowing participation in a variety of different learning experiences followed by different behaviors augmented by feedback. Learning episodes involving physical activity produce a variety of opportunities for student leaders of various physical activities and sports. These novice leaders are given opportunities to interact with groups of athletes at different levels of human development while capitalizing on the use of the SBC to guide participants toward a greater sense of self and the realization that they too have the potential to be leaders.

In the educational leadership settings developed by Dr. McDaniel, students assume the role of instructional leader or coach and are in charge of the participants. Each learning experience involves a focus on developing a safe environment and progresses to encouraging student leaders to engage in specific learning episodes. These student leaders are directed (Direct Informational Supervision) to provide a learning or working climate which minimizes the fear of failure and the fear of injury (mental or physical injury). These novice leaders through "collaborative leadership" become proficient in the four "D's", directing, demonstrating, providing practice drills, and discussing progress. By partaking in the above processes, the student leaders are engaged in the use of the "Supervisory Behavioral Continuum"! 

Physical activity and sports skills are presented through demonstrations by the student leader in charge. These demonstrations are accompanied with "directions" and "clarifications" (Direct Informational Supervision) for correct performance. Throughout all of the above activities appropriate feedback (critical cues to perform the skill) was delivered. While participants practice the skill, the student leader moves along the outer perimeter of the activity "observing" and assisting athletes in problem solving and performing skills correctly. Throughout the practice session, the student leader "reinforces" the desired behavior and performance of skill patterns. The student leader asks participants questions related to the skill and then "listens" to the answers provided by the participants. This allows the student leader information which may result in quality feedback and encourages and motivates participants to improve performance. These processes assist in training prospective leaders in the processes related to "Withitness Skills" and "Qualitative Analysis". 

After the lesson, the student leader "reflects" on not only the performance of the participants but their own leadership performance. This process allows for an objective evaluation of the performance of the student leader. The coach may offer suggestions about how to improve the practice and whether or not pre-determined objectives were realized. Coaches encourage student leaders to offer extrinsic rewards for good behavior by allowing participants time during the next practice session to become involved in a favorite activity. A typical practice session would consist of other athletes and a student leader as the coach. These sessions provide an outstanding opportunity for student athletes to develop leadership skills. These activities are videotaped. This allows the coach to use the learning experience as a teaching tool and an opportunity for timely and appropriate feedback. Video, a powerful learning tool for prospective leaders, provides the opportunity for the learners to see themselves as others see them. It is extremely important for athletes as student leaders to have a high level of confidence and readiness to assume leadership roles. Students leaders must realize that the decisions they make may impact another student's life forever. The above processes will provide learning opportunities to grow as reliable individuals who possess the tools necessary to enable them to assume leadership roles within their chosen profession. 

 

Conclusion

With training one can be conscious and competent in the use of the "Supervisory Behavioral Continuum" and employ these strategies in planning various activities. The continuum consists of a number of different supervisory behaviors which play a major role in the decision-making process when interacting with a group. Behaviors such as observing, listening, reflecting, standardizing, and clarifying, with supervising strategies involving collaboration and non-direct supervision to guide prospective leaders. These leaders employ direct, direct informational and collaboration when working with groups of other learners or athletes. Student leader actions include the full spectrum of behaviors identified in the Supervisory Behavior Continuum. These young leaders are also given freedom to engage in other forms of supervision not identified in the continuum. 

To be an effective leader, one must have the ability to engage in all aspects of this continuum which gives the coach or leader a method for dealing effectively with everyday issues that may occur within the practice or competition setting and develop workable solutions that contribute to athletic leadership and performance.  Supervisory skills are an essential part of effective instruction and coaching. By providing the coach with knowledge about knowing when and with whom to engage appropriate behaviors included in this continuum. Although one may have a preference or leadership philosophy which indicates a personal inclination to supervision, the supervisory continuum is vital to the overall success of any organization and may be employed in athletics to begin building leadership skills among athletes and novice coaches. 

This model applies just the same to our business here at N.E. Partners. We give our people the tools and coaching to develop themselves and their people into strong leaders with an understanding of each other while being solution oriented.

Check out our website at nepartners.net

Information for this blog was provided by http://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/article040.htm

How to Assess Your Leadership Skills

Are you persuasively steering your team, and the company you founded? How do you know?

“Often without meaning to, we create complexity for people who work with us,” says Katherine Ebner, executive leadership coach at Nebo Leadership inWashington.

The first step is to recognize you can always do better. The next one? Follow Ebner’s seven leadership tenets.   

1. Clarify what your job is. Before anything else, says Ebner, you must understand your roles and responsibilities as a leader. “Often people will do their old job; they will do what is familiar versus what’s needed.” Ebner says it is an adjustment to step up to a leadership role, often one that people are not prepared for.

She recommends you define your work by researching your job description, making a list of your roles and responsibilities (according to you), defining outcomes expected of you and, invaluably, asking direct reports, directors, and other senior level staff what they expect from you.

2. Invite feedback. Just as you offer colleagues and subordinates constructive critiques to improve performance, those people can also help you evaluate how you’re doing. To get the deepest and most actionable commentary, Ebner recommends you make the feedback loop simple. It can be formal or informal, as long as it is confidential, respectful, and efficient.

Ebner recommends conducting such leaderships reviews annually, or twice a year, because your staff may turnover and market conditions change. She advises asking key staffers open-ended, low risk questions such as: ‘What could I be doing better to support your success?’ ‘What do you need from me?’ ‘Is there anything I do that make things difficult?’

She also points out the importance of observing nonverbal cues. She stresses you should always be aware of the impact your make others. You can observe it from body language. Does the staff fall silent when you walk in the room, say? Do key executives meet your gaze or look away when you are speaking? “The key is to understand that you are collecting observable data,” says Ebner. “Don’t project, or be overly sensitive about what you may be seeing.”

There are also a lot of resources to help you do peer reviews:

• 360-degree evaluation tools. Ebner says there are several excellent online 360-degree survey tools that protect privacy while also providing thorough assessments, including Leadership Circle, the Booth Company, and the Center for Creative Leadership.

• Leadership coaches. “A coach can interview stakeholders and produce a narrative from confidential conversations,” says Ebner. This is often valuable when you want to go one layer deeper than online assessments.

3. Define goals. Establishing goals and milestones for performance over time is important not only in the financial arena but also in the organizational one. “The number of people you can impact everyday does not change in a big or small company. People who work most closely with you will pick up on your tone and mood,” says Ebner. This is then reflected throughout the company.

You can track “people performance”: turnover of key positions, length of tenure in position, ability to attract top talent.

4. Refine your storytelling skills. Once you define your goals, you must be able to articulate them. Ebner says that an effective leader is the company’s chief storyteller, not just someone who keeps his or her nose to the grindstone. You have to be able to say where you have been as a company, where you are now, and where you ’re going.

Ebner recommends using a three-year time horizon. “When you can answer where you want to be in three years in detail, you can identify what it will take to get there, and start filling the gaps.” Remember it’s not just financial or market positioning, it’s also organizational goals—everything from staffing to technology choices to office locations.

5. Check in on employees. Ebner says it is important to find out if the message you are relaying is trickling down to employees. You can do so by asking around, or by setting up a more formal process. Take annual employee satisfaction surveys, or conduct a culture survey. There’s also a slew of online vendors that can help assess your company culture and its impact on performance.

6. Look into leadership training. Many universities and institutes offer leadership-training courses. You can also engage a leadership coach, or even go on one of numerous CEO retreats. Among the subject matter you might expect: how to use conversation to inspire action and results, how to garner respect and credibility through your presence, and how you can use social networks for career development.

7. Expand your circle. Networking is critical to being an effective leader. It can come in the form of professional peer groups like industry associations or community involvement at, say, your local Parent Teacher Association. “Practicing leadership in a variety of settings and observing leaders in a variety of settings will enhance leadership skills,” says Ebner.

Don’t overlook peers as an important group with whom to network, either. “As you progress professionally, so do your peers,” points out Ebner. “By investing in these relationships and getting to know others at a similar level of responsibility and authority, you are building a community of colleagues who care about you and your success.”

Another networking tip: The aspirational—or “stretch” lunch. One of Ebner’s coaching clients regularly invites leaders she admires for a bite, and focuses on talking with them about their lives, careers, and goals. She even follows up with ideas, articles, or an intro to someone relevant she knows. But she holds off on asking for anything. Says Ebner: “Over time, the good will and relationships from these lunches has led to a powerful network of people who are more than happy to support, advise, and assist her when the time comes.”

Coach John Wooden

For each of his practices as coach of UCLA’s mens basketball program, John Wooden used a set of 3 x 5 index cards.

On those cards was the sequence and duration of each drill he wanted to practice.  It was the same practice every day, and everyone worked on the same skills—there was no need to differentiate.  Wooden saw no need to mess with what worked, a system in development since his earliest coaching days at Indiana State in the 1930s.

It is one of many lessons Coach Wooden has for us as educators—especially since he himself saw himself as a teacher more than a coach.

Former players, coaches, and sports pundits will be busy expelling reams of print on the legacy of John Wooden, who died this past Saturday June 5 at age 99.  They will laud his 10 national championships, his 88-game winning streak that still stands as an NCAA record, as well as the stars under his tutelage such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton. 

Many more will praise his impact beyond the basketball court as an educator and motivator.  They will extol his timeless virtue and humility; his steadfast beliefs and conservative demeanor that were at once folksy and endearing.  His legacy on this front is ironclad: the Seven-Point Creed, the Pyramid of Success, and the endless maxims that made him an icon to millions of Americans beyond the confines of sports.

 Along will all his usual parade of well-wishers, the Neighborhood is not alone in celebrating the life work of one of the most remarkable men in America’s last century. 

Yet in the spirit of our journal, we seek the virtues of Wooden as teacher, educator, and mentor. 

To that end, I’ve selected a few of Coach Wooden’s most poignant and perceptive maxims so they can be applied to our own practice as educators.  Wooden, like any good teacher, believed in the learning power of self-reflection, and it would do us good—and honor him—to reflect on our practice this last month before summer.

“Be quick, but don’t hurry.”

Probably one of Wooden’s most famous, if not the most famous quote.  Its complexity is in its apparent simplicity.  How many times do we get bogged down on lessons based on needless minutia?  On the other hand, how often do we rush into covering a unit while many of the students still have trouble grasping the concept?  Timing is based on both the needs of the teacher and the needs of the students.  The material has to be covered, yet one should never go so fast as to leave students behind. 

“Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.”

His other well-known maxim, this quote is fairly obvious to most teachers.  It’s been paraphrased in numerous ways by numerous characters, including a Navy officer that alluded to Slavic toilet habits.  The results are always the same.   We can ad lib all we want, but the best learning experiences are those that are planned and managed in advance.  Even if you have to change things on the fly, the plan will always keep you oriented towards the learning goals of your students.

“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do”

Every classroom has the kid that doesn’t want to learn.  Often, a student doesn’t want to perform due to shame at their lack of ability or comprehension.  The above maxim is the basis for special education: use your abilities to their utmost, and with proper training you can overcome those shortcomings.

“If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.”

We all mess up once in a while.  Teachers, students, administrators: we all have times when we come up short.  That lesson didn’t come out as planned.  You did poorly on a test.  That conflict wasn’t resolved in the best way.  Mistakes happen—it’s how we react to mistakes that really matter.

“Never mistake activity for achievement.”

So much can fit into this category: those hackneyed homemade greeting cards used to waste time.  A busy assignment used to discipline an unruly child.  Standardized tests designed to derive meaningless data to make the suits feel better.  Just because things are happening does not make it meaningful.  True achievement involves activity and purpose, focusing work toward a real, organic end.

“Young people need models, not critics.”

This is especially true where the role models are few and far between—the South Bronx, for example.  My students have plenty of people hassling them, harassing them, even abusing them.  Yet so few of those adults that get on their case actually model the right form of behavior themselves.  Boys need to see men act as gentlemen.  Girls need to see smart, confident professional women.

 “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

One of the sad casualties of modern education is the dearth of moral or character-building education among young people.  In a media-driven world where reputation is not only easily attained, but easily disposed, today’s students need ethical guidance more than ever.

“Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.”

Check out John Wooden's website, and take a look at his "Pyramid of Success" to download a copy!

N.E Partners 8 Steps To Continuous Self-Motivation

Many of us find ourselves in motivational slumps that we have to work to get out of. Sometimes it’s like a continuous cycle where we are motivated for a period of time, fall out and then have to build things back up again.

A good way to be continuously self-motivated is to implement something like these 8 steps from Ian McKenzie.

1. Start simple. Keep motivators around your work area – things that give you that initial spark to get going.

2. Keep good company. Make more regular encounters with positive and motivated people. This could be as simple as IM chats with peers or a quick discussion with a friend who likes sharing ideas.


3. Keep learning. Read and try to take in everything you can. The more you learn, the more confident you become in starting projects.


4. Stay Positive. See the good in bad. When encountering obstacles, you want to be in the habit of finding what works to get over them.


5. Stop thinking. Just do. If you find motivation for a particular project lacking, try getting started on something else. Something trivial even, then you’ll develop the momentum to begin the more important stuff.

6. Know yourself. Keep notes on when your motivation sucks and when you feel like a superstar. There will be a pattern that, once you are aware of, you can work around and develop.


7. Track your progress. Keep a tally or a progress bar for ongoing projects. When you see something growing you will always want to nurture it.


8. Help others. Share your ideas and help friends get motivated. Seeing others do well will motivate you to do the same. Write about your success and get feedback from readers.

By continuously following these 8 steps, you will gradually develop certain skills that become motivational habits.

N.E Partners Gets Advice from Myron Curry on Leadership

What Makes A Good Leader

By Myron Curry

It goes without saying that good leadership is crucial to any successful business. But, what makes a good leader and how can someone develop himself or herself into a good leader if they are not one to begin with? The answer is that there are many factors that contribute to good leadership. And, whether someone is naturally a good leader or not, anyone can become a good leader.

 Get To Talking

One of those factors of good leadership is communication. Communication is one of the most key elements of leadership. Good communication skills need to be learned to effectively become a good leader or manager. When communication occurs, as a leader, you will be able to accurately convey your ideas and thoughts to those that work for you. In fact, simply being able to convey these things in the first place, much less accurately, puts you in the right direction for leadership. If employees have no idea what is on your mind, your leadership is going to falter. Employees are not typically mind readers.

If there is a problem a certain employee is experiencing, good communication can filter the problem out. You, as a leader, can dissect the problem and offer solutions in various ways.

Ideas that are given to employees work both ways, as well. Employees can give helpful feedback and generate new ideas to you that help the company as well, when good communication is present. 

Get Something Moving

Motivation is another variable that plays into good leadership. Employees tend to stagnate when motivation decreases and it will decrease, without proper motivation. Many leaders try to motivate the old-fashioned way through fear. (Do what I say or something bad will happen) This is not advisable, since it tends to only deliver short-term results and cause even less competent work in the long run, due to resentment resulting from the fear tactics.

Instead, try adding challenges for employees. A fresh challenge always adds excitement and spawns creativity. Challenge your employees with tasks that may be slightly out of their range and let them at it! This increases motivation. 

If they run into a snag, guide them towards a solution but don't offer the actual solution outright. Coach them into discovering the solution themselves. Once they have, their self-esteem will rise, thereby raising their motivation level.

Two Heads Are Better Than One

Teamwork is always something to consider when striving to become a good leader. This means not only teaching your employees to work together but to become part of the team yourself.

Use others potential. Many times, employees potential is wasted. A good leader recognizes that his or her employees are more than just employees, they are people too. These people have lives outside of work where they have to make decisions on a daily basis, from how to deal with house payments, to car bills, to raising children, to uncountable tasks in everyday lives. Yet, at work, their decision making skills are not trusted enough to choose what type of toner needs to be ordered for a set of printers.

The point here is that employees need to be trusted to do more. A good leader doesn't manage every single detail. Use others potential to your benefit. You will find that you have become a better leader for it.

Back to School

As always, increasing your education is definitely a good thing when trying to improve leadership, but the school that really needs to be brought at attention here is the kind of school that you don't get a degree for.

Take the time to learn as much about your position of being a leader as possible. Do some reading at the nearest bookstore. Talk to other leaders and see how they do things; trade notes. The more you continually evaluate yourself and your practices and search for as much information on leadership as possible, the more you will be able to keep up with changing times and the better leader you will be for it.

About the Author
Myron Curry is President and CEO of Business Training Media, Inc., a leading provider of workforce and business development training programs designed exclusively for corporate deployment. Myron has over 20 years of successful management experience with leading fortune 500 companies and has written numerous articles about workplace management issues.

N.E Partners Tip Of the Day from Harvard Business Review

 Management Tip of the Day: The three networks you need

(Reuters) - Many of the most successful managers have networks that include high-quality relationships with people from several spheres and from up and down the corporate ladder, says Harvard Business Review.

The Management Tip of the Day offers quick, practical management tips and ideas from Harvard Business Review and HBR.org (www.hbr.org). Any opinions expressed are not endorsed by Reuters.

"The old adage 'It's not what you know, it's who you know' is truer than ever in today's organizations. But how do you know whom to know?

Here are three types of networks it pays to have:

1. Personal support. Form relationships with people who help you get back on track during a bad day. These may be friends or colleagues with whom you can just be yourself.

2. Purpose. Include in your network bosses and customers who validate your work, and family members and other stakeholders who remind you that your work has a broader meaning.

3. Work/life balance. Seek out people who will hold you accountable for activities that improve your physical health, mental engagement, or spiritual well-being."

- Today's management tip was adapted from "A Smarter Way to Network" by Rob Cross and Robert Thomas