We believe sport provides a learning environment for leadership and life, and so we interview Great Sports Coaches from around the world to find ideas to help us all be better people.

Our newsletter provides the best ideas from those interviews.

We hope you find one or two ideas that you can share with your family, friends, and teams.

Latest Interview

Previously a successful player in his own right, Dan McKellar has gone on to act as the head coach of teams including the ACT Brumbies and the Canberra Vikings, as well as the assistant coach of Australia’s national rugby union team, the Wallabies.

In mid-2023, Dan made the move to England where he now works as the head coach of the Leicester Tigers, utilising decades of experience both on and off the pitch to encourage his players to reach success not only as a team, but also as individuals.

Sitting down to speak with Dan about his career in coaching and the successes and challenges that have defined it, the discussion naturally turned to the topic of leadership and the key ingredient that he thinks defines a ‘great’ coach, as well as multiple other points such as:

• The greater importance placed on care and compassion by new generations

• The need to be blunt and direct when the situation calls for it

• Making unpopular decisions and the role it plays in great leadership

• Treating team members as individuals and tailoring a personal coaching approach

  … and several others.

Parents may find some parts of the interview particularly relatable, especially his belief that it’s important to stand firm when making decisions that may prove highly unpopular with the individuals they impact.

You can listen to the full interview now:

 Apple | Spotify  | Google

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Leadership Insights

No matter how hard you may try to leave your personal problems ‘at the door’, the situations you face at home and within your family and community can have a negative impact on all areas of your life, including your work.

In this clip, you’ll hear USA Boxing’s Billy Walsh speak about how a focus on mental health and the implementation of several positive mental practices has helped him to keep his personal emotions and situations from impacting the teams he works with.

There are more than 1200 insights just like this on our website, covering leadership topics such as establishing team values, creating cultures, and more.

All of our insights are indexed, searchable, and can be downloaded to share. (Some require a one-time purchase or subscription - you can find more information in their individual descriptions).

_{Leadership Skills}

As leaders, one of the most difficult tasks we often face is giving feedback.

If your delivery is too gentle, others may dismiss the feedback you share as simply being a ‘suggestion’; being too blunt, on the other hand, can lead to hurt feelings and a high risk of your professional opinion being considered a personal attack.

In this lesson, you’ll hear from eleven great coaches on the topic of delivering effective and productive feedback. From the role played by the surrounding environment to the value of implementing routines that leave plenty of time to process the feedback that has been received, the points raised in this podcast can be implemented across a number of scenarios, including businesses, locker rooms, and even within the home.

You can find this lesson, plus a number of others based on a variety of leadership topics, on our website:

_Ideas

Something that we often discuss with the Great Coaches we interview is the fact that careers - and life in general - are often a rollercoaster of ups and downs.

No matter how hard we try as leaders, and how much we believe in the value of the work we do, success is never guaranteed. What’s more, it can often be difficult to truly process failure when it occurs; it’s always far more tempting to look at others and the role they played towards our downfall than to practice self-reflection and review the role of our own actions.

This video produced by Raging Boar Productions looks at the rise and decline of the Australian Rugby Union, analysing the decisions taken in regards to both the union and the Wallabies over a series of decades from the 1980s until now.

Despite being only just over 10 minutes long, the video shares some quite in-depth perspective on the topic, and is very well presented.

You can catch the full video here:

_Partners

Looking to improve your own leadership skills?

The team at Elevated Leadership (including The Great Coaches host, Paul Barnett) combine decades of experience as international CEOs with tried-and-tested leadership methods and principles to help coach their clients towards becoming successful, impactful leaders.

If you’d like to learn how leadership coaching could help you and your career, reach out now: elevatedleadership.com.au

_{Contact Us}

If you have any feedback you can contact us [email protected] or if you would like to speak to us directly feel free to book a spot on our calendar for a zoom meeting using this link: