From Team Captain to Team Coach
- Anuj Chadha
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
For the first 23 years of my career I was part of teams and led teams. From a Territory Manager leading a team of customer executives in Mumbai, to a Country GM & Board Member leading a team of cross-functional leaders in Indonesia. Each team had its own unique strengths and challenges, a unique set of external stakeholder expectations, and a unique market landscape.
As I transitioned into a Leadership Coach about five years ago, I started working with individual leaders and teams. I was fascinated by the shift in my perspective. While I may have intuitively used this perspective in some moments in my corporate role, I can now see the power of this shift more clearly. The shift is not necessarily in the role, but in the mindset. Many team leaders may be able to make this shift while still in their role as team leaders.
What's the shift? From Team Captain to Team Coach Mindset. I often find myself using the analogy of a football team in my coaching work with leaders and teams. Here are three questions that stood out for me:
Zoom-out on People: What happens when I shift from "I" to the "Team"? :
The voice in the head of the team captain is often saying "I must shoot the maximum goals". As a team leader, I often felt the pressure, "I must get the best results for our business".
In comparison, the coach mindset is looking at the whole team and thinking what does the team need to win? Looking at the whole team dynamic and reflecting, what's coming in the way of the team winning? What are we doing that is destroying trust? What are we not doing that can improve collaboration?
Zoom-out on Time Horizon: What happens when I play to win this Game vs when I play to win the Championship?
As a team captain, I am very close to each game. I make choices on the players as resources I need to win today's game. I may end up over-exhausting some players and not grooming others.
In comparison, as a coach mindset, I am looking at a longer time-horizon and ensuring that the I balance the current month results with developing their ability to sustain the performance. I prevent burn-outs of the high-performers this quarter, and nourish team talent to deliver a high performance year.
Zoom-out on Context: What happens when I am focused on beating my key competitors vs I widen my lens to look for emerging players & market trends?
As a team captain, I tend to focus on my key competitors, and sharpen my plans to anticipate and counter their moves.
In comparison as a coach mindset, I widen my frame to look at the emerging players and trends in the industry and even across industries. I can foresee emerging opportunities and risks because I am not bogged down by the details of the few key competitors.
This shift in mindset requires us to step back and reflect on three questions: What can we do differently to truly unlock our potential as a team? What's coming in the way? What beliefs or assumptions are we holding on to?
In our work at Thrive as Leadership and Team coaches, Harpreet Arora and I are working together to create a space where we can help leadership teams to step back and ask these key questions. If you are looking to explore possibilities to shift your team's mindset, give us a shout and we will be happy to explore!
Photo by Pauline 🦋📷 on Unsplash
The author, Anuj Chadha, is a Leadership Coach, and a Co-Founder of the Thrive Program, designed for Leadership Teams, along with Harpreet Arora. To know more, write to anuj@threecircles.co.in or connect@harpreetarora.com
Anuj is the Founder of Three Circles, Faculty & Coach with Leadership Et' Humanite, and a Leadership Coach with the Center for Creative Leadership.
Reach out to Anuj for coaching, leadership, or simply making authentic human connections!
Very nice informative article.