The Great Coaches: Eddie O'Sullivan

Eddie O’Sullivan: The Magic Formula

Our Great Coach this week is Irish rugby union coach Eddie O’Sullivan.

Eddie played rugby at provincial level in Ireland and worked as a PE teacher before coming a coach. From there, his rugby coaching career would go on for 35 years and include roles across his native Ireland as well as in the USA and France.

Eddie’s journey has seen him coach at 5 Rugby World Cups as well as leading Ireland to win 3 Triple Crowns. Under his coaching, the Irish team won 50 tests and climbed to #3 in the world ranking.

More recently, Eddie has been working as a Technical Advisor to both Brown University and Notre Dame, and he currently consults with a number of Major League rugby franchises in the US.

During our interview, we spoke about a number of highlights and insights from Eddie’s career, including:

• Why the utilising of innovation and difference, and getting others to believe in change, is one of the things he enjoyed most about coaching.

• The importance of being an ‘emotional leader’ in order to convey messages effectively, but also why you need to be willing to quickly apologise when emotions overshadow those messages.

• What living in America taught him about the need for quick and succinct communication in training environments, and why you shouldn’t worry about many voices speaking at once.

This was a great discussion that brought out a number of valuable insights on the topic of good communication, which is something a lot of leaders can struggle with. I hope you’ll take a lot from it when you give it a listen.

Listen Now: Apple | Spotify

The key questions raised from today’s episode:

• What role does leading innovation play in my leadership?

• Am I too emotional as a leader?

• Is the idea of one voice at a time the right one for my organisation?

Find all of our past interviews with some of sport’s most successful coaches and leaders on our website.

Communicating Across Cultures

In each episode of our newsletter, we look at a different lesson that you can take and use within your own leadership.

In this week’s interview, Great Coach Eddie O’Sullivan speaks a lot about communication, and also shares what his time working in America taught him about different ways of communicating.

When it comes to communicating effectively, we often fall into the trap of thinking that what works in one environment will work in another — but this is rarely the case. Parents will know that if you speak to your children the same way you speak in the boardroom, you won’t have much success (and vice versa). Likewise, cultural and generational nuances can mean that what one person considers a quick and effective message could be taken as rude and abrupt by someone else.

So, how can a leader ensure that they communicate well in every environment? The answer lies in an often-forgotten part of communication: listening. When approaching new groups or cultures, take the time to listen and observe the interactions happening around you. What tones are being used? How are messages being conveyed? Do voices tend to overlap and battle for dominance when working together, or does every person speak in turn, ensuring that every voice is eventually heard?

As a leader, you can (and should) of course always be looking for ways to improve communication and make systems more effective. However, your approach will often need to be tailored to the environment you enter, and there’s a lot to be learned from stopping to listen, observe, and attempting to match the communication styles that already exist.

In the clip below, another Great Coach, Alf Galustian, shares what time spent in Japan taught him about effective communication.

We combine videos of the Great Coaches that we have interviewed with our experience as corporate and sporting leaders in order to bring insight, energy, and ideas to your teams.

On Player-To-Coach Pipelines

Many of the Great Coaches we’ve interviewed for this podcast were previously successful players in their sports, but is a background in playing the secret ingredient to becoming a successful coach?

In this think piece, Nathan Wood reflects on the tendency for elite athletes to be encouraged into coaching upon retirement and shares why he believes great coaching and great playing are actually completely different crafts that don’t always go hand-in-hand.

A very interesting read that considers why not every player-turned-coach sees the same level of success as our podcast guests.

Elevated Leadership

If you’re looking to improve your own leadership skills, get in touch with us at elevatedleadership.com.au 

Our team of executive coaches — including The Great Coaches host, Paul Barnett — bring a wealth of experience as international CEOs who have faced the challenge of stepping forward in uncertain moments.