⏳ Read Time: 3 min

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📌 What’s inside:

• 🧭 Why leadership matters before you have a title

• 🪞 The inner work most young coaches skip

• 🛠 Five foundations every coach should build early

The Foundation That Shapes Everything

Most young coaches are obsessed with the right things.

They want to be prepared.
They want to prove themselves.
They want to add value.
They want to win.

And they love the game.
That’s not the problem.

The problem is that almost no one teaches young coaches how to lead themselves before they’re asked to lead others.

So they learn by imitation.
They copy voices.
They borrow intensity.
They chase credibility through outcomes.

And slowly, without realizing it, they build habits that work early—but cost them later.

If we could sit down with every young coach starting out, here’s what we’d want them to know.

📊 Research Insight: Why Leadership Starts With the Leader

Decades of leadership research point to the same conclusion: effective leadership begins with self-leadership.

Psychologist Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence shows that leaders who can regulate their own emotions, especially under pressure, create more stable, trusting environments. In his research, self-awareness and self-regulation consistently emerge as foundational competencies for leadership effectiveness.

In sport specifically, research by Cruickshank and Collins (Journal of Applied Sport Psychology) has shown that coaching effectiveness is driven less by technical knowledge alone and more by a coach’s ability to manage themselves, build trust, and model consistent behaviors over time.

The takeaway is simple but often overlooked:

That’s why the most important leadership work for young coaches isn’t tactical mastery. It’s developing the inner habits that enable them to lead clearly, consistently, and credibly under pressure.

🛠 Five Things Young Coaches Need to Know Early

1. Your leadership begins before your role does.

You don’t “become” a leader when you get the job.
You’re already leading with your energy, preparation, humility, and consistency.

Build habits now that you’ll want to keep later.

2. Identity matters more than style.

You don’t need someone else’s voice, demeanor, or intensity to lead well.
Borrowing a style might work in the short term, but it’s exhausting in the long term.

The best leaders sound like themselves, even when it’s uncomfortable.

3. Outcomes are feedback, not a verdict.

Young coaches often tie their worth to wins, minutes, or approval.
That’s a fast track to insecurity.

Results tell you something.
They don’t define you.

Learn to separate who you are from how things went.

4. Your pace sets the tone.

How you respond to stress, mistakes, and uncertainty teaches others how to behave.

You don’t have to be perfect.
But you do need to be aware.

Calm leaders create calm environments.

5. Lead yourself first—or it will show later.

Every habit you avoid building now will show up under pressure later.

Reflection.
Regulation.
Clarity.

This is the work most young coaches skip—and the work that eventually separates them.

🏁 Closing Reflection:

The early years of coaching are about more than learning systems, drills, and game plans.

They’re about learning how to be yourself under pressure.

If you build that foundation early, everything else compounds:

• trust

• credibility

• longevity

• impact

That’s the heart of Lead Yourself First—and the lesson we wish more young coaches heard sooner.

Pre-Order The Full Book: Lead Yourself First!

There are only a couple of days left to pre-order Lead Yourself First before it comes out in Paperback on Monday! This is your last chance to secure all pre-order perks and get the book for $10.

When you pre-order, you’ll get:
✅ Immediate access to the next two PowerBooks as soon as they’re released
🗒️ A downloadable implementation guide for PowerBooks 1 & 2
🎥 Access to our monthly leadership webinars inside the BETTER Community
📗 A physical copy of Lead Yourself First when the full section is complete

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