Being a Team Leader

By Dr. Richard Stratton

So, you have been elected or appointed to be your team captain. What are your responsibilities? What do your teammates and coaches expect of you? Or, maybe you feel like you could be a leader on your team even if you do not have the official title of captain. Being a team leader involves many responsibilities, often without much recognition. In fact, some of the best team leaders do it because they understand it is important for the team and don't even care if other people know they are doing it. Believe it or not, some athletes do not want to be known as a team leader because they believe that it puts too much pressure on them to make the team better or feel they are being singled out as being responsible for whether the team wins or loses. This is not the way it should be but it does happen, usually because some people do not understand what a team leader's job is!

What is the team leader's job? It is to help make his or her teammates better athletes. It is understanding that a team is only as good as all of its members are, from the best to the worst. Being the team leader does not make you the boss nor does it make you a coach. Much of what the best team leaders do they do without even thinking about it. They do it by setting an example for other team members. It is about being at every scheduled practice, getting to practice on time, and working hard during all of the activities that your coaches include in practice, even the ones you don't really like much. Being a team leader is about helping teammates work on their skills, encouraging them, supporting their efforts to get better, but never criticizing them or giving them a hard time. No one made you the boss! Yelling at your teammates and telling them how bad they are is not what good team leaders do. Coaches should never do this and neither should you. Team leaders want each of their teammates to become better athletes so the team does better. Think back to when you first started to play your sport. What kinds of things do you wish one of your teammates had helped you with back then? These are the things you can try to help your teammates with now.

This article provided by Dr. Richard Stratton and the Health and Physical Education Program of Virginia Tech.