⏳ Read Time: 4.5 min

🧭 What’s in this newsletter?

• 💥 Anecdote: A quiet breaking point in today’s athletics landscape

• 📊 Research Insight: The connection between values, clarity and resilience

• 5️⃣ Putting It All Together: Five ways coaches and ADs can re-center in the storm

💥 Anecdote: “I didn’t see it coming.”

I was speaking with a coach just this week.

Everything was going well. They’d made progress over the last couple of years. Next year was going to be the year they made the leap. The culture was strong. Everyone seemed “bought in.”

Then, the portal opened.

No heads-up. No real goodbye. Just a message: “Coach, I’ve entered the portal. Thanks for everything.”

What hit hardest wasn’t the talent loss. It was the disconnection. The quiet gut-punch that made him question: What am I building? Is this still worth it?

We’ve heard the same kinds of stories from athletic directors, too.

ADs who worked for months to hire the “right person,” only to lose them mid-year to a bigger budget or better title. ADs pour into the department culture, only to watch a program unravel when a key leader leaves.

Whether you’re coaching or directing a department, the rules have changed. Loyalty feels fragile. Connection sometimes feels one-sided. And when those surprises hit? It’s easy to spiral.

Here’s the truth: the storm will move you if you don’t have an anchor. It would be really easy to harden, to become calloused, distant, and transactional in your leadership. But that’s not the way forward.

It’s to go deeper into what matters most.

🛠️ Want to win more? Know Yourself First.

We’ve built a 5-day Leadership Course based on your primary Leadership Voice as part of the 5 Voices for Sports Leadership Assessment. It will be sent to your inbox starting the Monday after you take the assessment and run for that week.

The assessment takes 10-15 minutes. Take it below.

📊 Research Insight: Values Clarity = Leadership Resilience

Simon Dolan, an organizational psychologist, has shown that leaders who operate from a clear internal purpose are significantly more resilient during seasons of disruption and change.

In one prominent review, researchers found that leaders who had defined and integrated their personal values into their work experienced:

• Lower rates of burnout

• Greater perceived trust from their teams

• Higher satisfaction even when things were unstable

This isn’t fluff. This is measurable. In times of change, people follow the leaders who are most clear on who they are, not just what they do.

In an environment as fluid as today’s athletics landscape, clarity isn’t a luxury — it’s a lifeline. The research is clear: leaders who operate from a defined purpose weather change with greater stability, earn more trust from their teams, and experience less burnout over time.

Whether you're a coach facing roster upheaval or an AD navigating department turnover, your ability to lead others will always be limited by your clarity about yourself. You don’t control who stays or leaves, but you do control what you stand for.

🧭 Putting It All Together: Five Ways to Re-Center as a Leader in Athletics

1. Clarify Your “Why” — Again

   • What matters most to you in this role? What do you want to be true of the way you lead, regardless of outcomes? Write it down. Revisit it weekly.

2. Rebuild Your Scorecard

   • Wins and budget margins can’t be your only metrics. Measure values-aligned leadership: building trust, developing people, and making decisions that match your purpose.

3. Have an Anchor Conversation Weekly

   • This could be a mentor, a staff member, or a peer. But don’t go it alone. Process your “why” with someone who helps you remember it.

4. Shrink the Circle, Focus the Effort

   • You don’t have to solve every crisis in your department. You do have to show up with integrity in your lane. Lead there with intention.

5. Name the Disappointment, Then Choose to Stay Grounded

   • It's okay to feel gut-punched. But don’t lead from that place. Let your feelings inform you, not define you. Respond with clarity, not desperation.

🧠 Closing Thought

Whether you’re coaching a team or leading a program, unit, or department, leadership can feel fragile at this moment. But you don’t have to lead from fear. If your influence flows from identity, not outcomes, you’ll lead with stability no matter what changes around you.

Hold onto what grounds you. That’s what your people actually follow.

Want to Build Culture effectively and efficiently? Try our Culture Playbook and Leader Community.

Join our community of 200 leaders of High School Coaches, High School ADs, College Coaches, and College ADs.

If you ask your AD to cover your development, it should be this.

Celebration!

We work with excellent partners, coaches, and leaders. When they do well, we want to celebrate them! It takes a village, and we are grateful to be a part of that village.

So, congrats to our friends at Robert Morris Athletics who set a Department Record with five conference championships this year! Fantastic job, coaches and leaders!

And congrats to the many teams and coaches who qualified to play in their respective NCAA Championships!