Reflection to the Leadership Questionnaire Assessment

I would like to start with a few sentences, this is an interesting exercise. Before taking the questionnaire assessment I always thought that Relationship is the most appealing as a leadership conception. The outcome is very close between all the topics. Speaking from experience I am a bit surprised that I have skill emphasis as the top. I also have an issue with such assessments, I believe they do not fully capture the full story. When you have questions, and you must rate 1-5 how one knows what weight 4 or 3 or 2 carry on the charts. I believe there should be a better way to capture an accurate result. I could be mistaken of course and subconsciously my conceptual realization to leadership is skill emphasis. The results are as follows:

Skill = 19; Relationship = 18; Ability, Behaviour, and Process = 16 and finally Trait = 15

I will still stand by what I believe consciously that to me Relationship is most important out of the other 5, relationship is not just a steppingstone to get to goal A or B it is not about making people feel good or better. It is a way to communicate, motivate and influence people to contribute effectively to the common goal.

Without this, one can still have some what success and demonstrate great leadership and leader traits, but you won’t have a passionate team or people that would be willing to go the extra mile for you. You will have a mediocre team/work force that will do the task. They will give the minimal effort of capacity and not their full potential. What we want and most organizations should want is a team/work force to go the extra mile to be more creative and out the box to give more than the minimum, if you are able to communicate and understand each other it is influential enough and motivational enough for anyone to provide and push their potential. With such one can know the people’s traits and their behaviour and either help to change bad ones or cut their losses.

I have seen it in my life that I am not the most skilled soccer coach nor player, I did not have the most skilled team. Yet we built a relationship together and we had an understanding. This made both them and me motivated to our best and above our minimal potential skills. We were rooted to go out of the U13 tournament from the group stages, yet we went the long distance even though we did not win the tournament and were only second place. We could not have done that without just skills.

In many top organizations even in the real world, for example the famous French playmaker Zidane was successful, and the club was successful, yet he left do the lack of leadership relationship that made him feel worthless and unsatisfied in his current position. So, an organization or team will be successful, but they will start to lose people and eventually crumble.

I believe all 5 topics are important, for me I still believe that relationship would be the most emphasized and important for the longer run.

The question is how does this relate to coaching? The relation to this and coaching is that coaches are in a leadership role they are role models to athletes. so this will determine how likely you are to view a good leader and determines how you as a coach deal with the player.

It can also translate to your style of coaching, for example in my case I contextualize leadership through relationships, my coaching style will involve high communication with my players, trying to get to know them off and on the pitch, have a more friends or peers relationship versus coach to player. Obviously there is time for “coaching” mode to be turned on and time when it needs to be turned off. At the end of the day the players are humans and need a level of communication and to be treated as HUMANS!

Not because they’re semi-pro or professional players they shut off all emotions and play it cool, it is not how it works. The perfect example is Cristiano Ronaldo, when in the previous match he stormed out. It makes sense he is human and has feelings, there should have been a better communication with such a high quality player, Spoilers there will be a different post on this topic soon!

Yet through sports you will see similar behaviour and it showcases that first and foremost players are human, which means there has to be some relationship established with them and communication to know what’s wrong and how we can fix it. in simple terms just be human, and that is true if you are a great coach or a great leader.

The visual above was created using Power BI.

If you would like to take the questionnaire assessment follow the link https://edge.sagepub.com/system/files/questionnaire_ch01_0.pdf! Please feel free to share your results before and after taking the questionnaire what you thought or believed was in line with the results?

Top 10 Predictions of EPL Top Scorers 22/23 (Last Updated Oct, 6th 2022)

Below I will give my top 10 prediction of the top scorers of the EPL. Both from data retrieval and players abilities and traits.  This will change every 7 matches in the EPL. Currently only 7 matches have been played and it’s not a fair assessment to say who will win, but we can start the predictions. For every 7 matches played in the EPL, I will come back to this list and refine it with a new view and predictions depending on the cumulative matches played previous scores of last year in comparison to this year. This will mean up to 35 games (5 posts in total), leaving the final game with a final farewell (1 short summary post) to the series. The series will take a count if the players are or are not injured. Obviously when the next post comes, if players on this list are injured, then it will still give a prediction depending on the injury when they will return, and the remainder of the season matches left to play.

10 – Wilfred Zaha (4)

The 29-year-old Ivorian has not had his time to shine ever since joining Manchester UTD and not being on the scoring sheet. He’s moved from team to team, and now with Crystal Palace, we see him playing amazing games. We know of his pace, strength, dribbling, and finishing ability. He has been playing well this season too with 5 appearances and 4 goals. He’s at his peak athletic stage at 29 and still has a few years in him before he hangs the boots. The likelihood of him becoming a top scorer of the EPL is quite slim. Yet, if he starts to work on his weakness, which is offside awareness and holding the ball, he can improve to a degree of beating those last defenders, and with his quality of finish, we won’t need to worry about the goals.

9 – Roberto Firmino (3)

Bobby the 30-year-old Brazilian player, has not been in the spotlight for the top scorer of the EPL. If we look at the data from previous runs, he’s a bit short. He has never succeeded in becoming the top scorer in a league but was part of the top-20 list of scorers in Bundesliga, World Cup, Premier League, and Champions League. What changed? Well, now with the likes of Mane away, Bobby by far has the best ball skills, the ability to dribble, finishing and holding the ball those alone should make him a regular starter and allow him to contribute with goals and assists. The least he can claim is top assists this season. It will be hard to see him as a top scorer, but it is not impossible. If he becomes a regular player with Liverpool, he will score goals and make goals. So far this season he has played 5 matches and scored 3 goals, that’s 1 goal more than the top scorer of Liverpool (Mohammed Salah) while playing fewer matches. He scored twice in the 9-0 demolishing of Bournemouth and made 3 assists. So, it looks like we cannot count him out this season and only time will tell.

8 – Raheem Sterling(3)

Sterling, the 27-year-old England national team player and Liverpool and Manchester City ex-player comes in hot on this list. Raheem Sterling is one of the all-time top scorers of Man City following a little bit short of Sergio Aguero. Sterling is probably the most fearful left attacker in the EPL. Especially his pace, dribbling, and passing possess a lot of problems for the defense. Yet, we are here to talk about his scoring capabilities, and they do not fall short of his abilities. He has great finishing and shot placements and is willing to fight to get that goal. We have seen it when he plays with England’s national team, and he scores England wins or, so it was in the Euros before facing Italy in the final. So far with just 7 games in, he played 6 with his new team Chelsea and scored 3 goals. The majority of his goals were to keep Chelsea alive in the match or were match-winning goals. So, we can say when it counts, he provides. Hopefully with the likes of Pulisic and Reece and Mount he will start to get the goals rolling. We should not count him out on being in the top scorer list.

7 – Diogo Jota (–)

The 25-year-old Portuguese, central forward player has not made a tremendous mark when joining Liverpool. We know of his quality while he was playing with the Wolves, scoring 26 in 85 appearances. Right now, with his game of 88 appearances with Liverpool, he has scored 34 goals already, breaking his Wolves’ record. With the likes of Mane and Salah being on the team and scoring most of the goals for Liverpool, this young underdog was in the shadows. I believe that this season could be his moment to shine. With the run Salah has after 7 matches played getting less than half the goals he got in the previous seasons at this stage, I believe Jota could be a name amongst the top scorers of the EPL. How likely this will happen is yet to be seen. The reason why I say Jota should make his mark this year is because Mane has left Liverpool. Jota and Mane have the same strength to hold the ball, his vision to give the through balls, and the power to score without hesitation when in front of the goal. Just recently he has scored a goal in the 4-0 match against Czech Republic, so he is not shy in front of the goal; he just needs to be consistently played and maintain his performance. Ideally Jota now should take Mane’s spot and move forward. He is only 25 years of age so even if he does not make a big mark this season, he has some time to go. We shall see what will happen in the coming matches.

6 – Mohammed Salah (2)

Mohammed Salah, the Egyptian 30-year-old, has had an amazing run during his Liverpool Career so far, bagging the top scorer and bagging the most assists. So of course, he has to be on this list; without him, it wouldn’t be accurate. Seems like he is not having the best of starts this season with only 2 goals, compared to last season with 6. At this point of the competition, it’s a 33.34% drop since last season at this current stage. It’s not time to panic, but we clearly see the shift in the play and dynamic when Mane is no longer on the Liverpool team. In my opinion Salah needs players like Mane to hold the ball, have great vision, and create opportunities. This is where Jota or Firmino should come to play. Once the 3 forwards get in sync, I suspect we will see Salah scoring goals as we are used to seeing him do in previous seasons. He scored a few goals in the last National International Friendly, so we know he has it in him. He’s a well-rounded forward with great pace and speed, great finishing, and the great vision to create and make goals. With Mane gone I believe Salah should start holding the ball often and dribbling through the defense. Only time will tell if we see Salah in the top again; stay tuned.

5 – Marcus Rashford (4)

Marcus Rashford at 24 years old is probably one of the underrated England strikers. He has great pace, can beat most defenders, and can score amazing goals. This season he has been doing quite well, and he seems to be working on his weaknesses, or at least I hope so. For him to keep a high number of goals, he needs to work on his finishing. We have seen him time and time again be in good position but his finishing blocks him from being a top scorer. He is still 24 and has many years to develop and get that golden ball, but this year we should keep a close eye on him. With players supporting him like Bruno Fernandes, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Jordan Sancho, he will have loads of opportunities to smash it in the back of the net, but it will only happen if he improves his finishing!

4 – Son Heung-min (3)

Here is yet another underrated player, Son, the 30-year-old South Korean, seems to be coming to his peak potential with amazing pace, speed, and finishing to smash the ball into the net. As we saw recently with 15 mins in the match, he was able to not only get the difference for Tottenham but also bag a hattrick with 3 amazing goals one after another. With long shots and great finishes as one of his weaponries, he also holds the ball and creates space for the other players. So, we will see a lot of him this year. He has already made the same goals this year as he did last year at this stage, which means there is no decrease so far consistent with last year, and we hope there will be an increase in performance when we revisit after match day 14.

3 – Gabriel Jesus (4)

Jesus, 24-year-old Brazilian, has not yet reached his full potential for club level nor for National team. He had his ups and downs with Man City, and in his last few years at Man City, was not performing at the level we expected from him. I believe he made the best move and went to Arsenal, with Arsenal’s way of playing and the players alongside him. This seemed to spark something in Jesus that we have not seen in some time. So far, he has scored 4 goals. I am sure there is more to come. Jesus is one of the few players that have any real weakness. In terms of the abilities a forward and goal scorer should have, he ticks them all. His ability to dribble is by far the best we have since Ronaldo of past. The ability to pass key passes is phenomenal, and the ability to hold the ball and go into places to drive finishes is what we want to see more of him now! I hope to see him taking more long shots. To assess his long shots capabilities this season, over all he has worked hard and gotten on the top 10 list. Last year he was overshadowed by the brilliant players on Man City and now at Arsenal, it’s his time to shine. We can see at this stage last year, he did not have the same goals. So far, he has surpassed last year. Also at City he did not get enough playing time, but at Arsenal he will get loads of playing time, we just hope he does not get injured as frequently and we should see him shine this year around.

2 – Harry Kane (6)

Kane is the current England #1, and all hopes are on this lad. The 29-year-old England captain, Kane possess some of the great quality for a forward. With his ability to win duels in the air and finishing, it makes him no stranger to this list and potentially winning it this year. He is professional and consistent with his performance, so the expectation is for him to be battling this out with Mohammed Salah!  He is no stranger to this achievement as he already has 2 of them under his belt. This year he has some goals in and is currently tied with Salah’s goals scored last year at this stage. So, he has been improving thus far. Again, it’s a bit early to determine by looking at this stage; we need to see what happens in the weeks to come.

1 – Erling Haaland (11)

Erling Haaland is probably my favourite player since his time in Dortmund. He is dubbed to be the next Lewandowski, but I will disagree with this. He has the great qualities of Lewandowski with finishing, holding the ball, and goal scoring; but also, he reminds us of Ibrahimovic with his strength, passing quality, shooting power, aerial ability, both heading and acrobatics, and finally aggression. We cannot compare him with the previous year as he was in a different League altogether, which is a different style of play. We can only look at him now and see where he goes. We do know one thing for sure, he’s a goal scoring machine with just 11 goals in 7 matches, making the gap of 5 goals between him and number 2.

Stay tuned… follow and comment!

Special thanks to Hai Duong who has done a peer review for this article.

Worthy mentions

Below are some players that are worthy of mentioning, and in the next few weeks, we will see if they will replace some of the top 10 names above. We will take a close look at how they play and compare where they are with last year. Spoiler: Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrovic looks sold this time around with bagging 6 goals in 7 matches; so after match day 14, we can revisit the list.

Arsenal

               Eddie Nketiah

               Gabriel Martinelli

               Marquinhos

Chelsea

               Christian Pulisic

               Kai Havertz

               Mason Mount

               Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

Fulham

               Aleksandar Mitrovic (6)

Leicester City

               Jamie Vardy

Liverpool

               Curtis Jones

               Darwin Núñez

               Fábio Carvalho

               Luis Díaz (3)

Man City

               Bernardo Silva (2)

               Julián Álvarez

               Kevin De Bruyne

               Phil Foden (3)

Man UTD

               Anthony Martial

               Antony (1)

Cristiano Ronaldo

               Bruno Fernandes (1)

               Jadon Sancho (2)

Leadership From the Perspective of a Coach

What is leadership from the perspective of a coach. I’d Like to start this off with the statement, Coaching inherits the characteristics of leadership. We need to define what coaching is and what leadership is. To do so we will break it down. Coaching is the development of athletes to be their best selves, this is both on and off the pitch. Even though Coaching revolves around the sport and the skills and the drills, it is more than that. Coaching also allows to build the athletes to become there better selves, a good example of this would be the following quote by Bill Bradley, the former professional basketball player and U.S. Senator from New Jersey, observes how coaches can shape athletes’ character in Values of the Game (1998): “By talking candidly about the problems of adolescence or the vagaries of the parent–child relationship, some high school coaches extend their reach to life off the court. Their players may never become pros, but because they learned the values of the game they are better prepared for life. Many people in all walks of life will tell you that their lives were turned around by a coach who took an interest in their total well-being” (p. 23) the bolded line above indicates that coaching tries to better prepare the athlete for life and to develop to be the best version of themselves to achieve their goals, to build character, whether it becomes in professional sport or life endeavours.

Now if we go through what leadership is, to me it is best defined in the article What We Know About Leadership (Robert Hogan, Robert B. Kaiser). “Leadership is about the performance of teams, groups, and organizations. Good leadership promotes effective team and group performance, which in turn enhances the well-being of the incumbents; bad leadership degrades the quality of life for everyone associated with it.” this statement in my perspective is what leadership means, obviously leadership is a complex concept to accurately define but this is close to what I currently see. From the line above we see the similarity between leadership and coaching. Coaching tries to build values and to develop the athlete to be the best version of themselves to achieve their goals, leadership enhances the well-being of the workers in an organization; they in short try to achieve the same fundamental outcome and hence share the similar characteristics. In coaching like leadership there are 3 coaching styles, Command Style; being in command without accepting question or discussion with the athletes aka the one in charge, Submissive Style; being laid back and not attempting to challenge the athlete it is more like babysitting and letting them do as they please without proper guidance aka going with the flow, and finally Cooperative Style; allows athletes to come with ideas and also gives structure with specific guidelines to allow them to come up with own solution, yet coach will step in the right moments for lessons learned or to provide a solution aka the facilitator, conductor and choreographer. Similarly in Leadership there is also 3 styles similar to coaching, these leadership styles are Authoritarian; being in command without giving the follower the chance to provide or question ideas or task aka one in charge, Laissez-Faire; being hands free giving the follower the freedom to do as they please without providing real guidance aka going with the flow, and finally Democratic; giving the follower the ability to discuss and come up with solutions aka the facilitator, conductor and choreographer.

Both in coaching and leadership the 3 styles mean roughly the same thing and share same characteristics as we saw in the example above, and in this short blog post we can see that coaching inherits the characteristics of leadership. Lastly, to close with the following quote by Corey Jamison, PhD as she mentions mentions in her article People-Centered Leadership: Leading People vs. Managing Process the following “Leaders rise through an organization based on their ability to get results, more often than on how they inspire people to do their best work. In the scores of organizations, I’ve worked with over three decades, rarely have I seen leaders held accountable for unlocking the potential in their people in the same way they are held accountable for delivering results.”[1]

I hope that coaches in any sport, will be more accountable by the way we unlock the potential, empower and build character of our athletes instead of getting the results aka the win. I also hope that in organizational setting leadership becomes more accountable in unlocking the potential in their people in the same way they are held accountable in delivering results aka generating revenue and performance.

Reference:

[1] People-Centered Leadership: Leading People vs. Managing Process