- The Great Coaches: Leadership & Life
- Posts
- Tim Sheens
We explore leadership through the lens of high-performance sport by interviewing Great Coaches from around the world to try and find ideas to help all of us lead our families, our colleagues, and our teams better.
Our newsletter contains the best ideas from those interviews.
Latest Interview
Australian Rugby League coach Tim Sheens played 166 first grade games for the Penrith Panthers between 1970 and 1982 (and was named Penrith Panthers’ Player of the Year in 1974) before becoming a coach in 1984 and leading the team to their first finals series in 1985.
From there, he went on to take the Canberra Riders to their first premiership in 1989 (as well as the 1989 World Club Challenge) and again in 1990 and 1994. For the 2003 season he joined the Wests Tigers and coached them to their 2005 Grand Final win against the Cowboys.
Besides this, Sheens has also taken on a number of successful representative coaching roles for NSW City, New South Wales, Australia’s National Rugby League Team, and the Combined Nations All Stars.
Tim Sheen’s coaching philosophy is one that he borrowed from an American coach: “being consistent in treating everyone differently”. He credits this philosophy as the reason that he doesn’t see people management in black and white terms.
During our interview, Tim shared the 3 things that he thinks all effective teams should be doing on a consistent weekly basis: working on their public perception, thinking about the opposition, and making sure that small groups within the organisation don’t start talking negatively about each other.
No small feat, but definitely very important steps to maintaining and developing a successful team.
Finally, I also liked what Tim had to say about how the best coaches are usually good recruiters, able to select people who are going to suit their style. This is especially important in the world of business: how many leaders have first-hand experience of the issues that can occur when a new hire just doesn’t ‘fit’ the team culture?
Make sure to give the full interview a listen - I would love to know what points resonated with you the most!
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Leadership Insights
Have you ever stopped to think about the link between physiology and psychology?
In this clip from our interview with 8 times Olympic rowing coach Paul Thompson, he shares how examining the diverse range of human emotions helped his rowers to learn more about themselves and discover the mental and physical balance that allows them to reach their peak performance.
If you like this, you can find more than 1200 other insight videos on our website, covering a variety of leadership topics such as setting up new team cultures, establishing team values, or helping others with their inner voice.
All of the insights are indexed, searchable, and can be downloaded to share. Some may require a one-time purchase or subscription - check the individual insight’s description for more information.
Leadership Skills
When it comes to managing and leading a successful team, few things are as important as the establishment (and maintenance) of trust.
Do the members of your team trust you? Do they trust each other?
Most importantly, do they trust themselves?
For this lesson, we’ve put together several clips from previous interviews with Great Coaches discussing the topic of trust and why many of them view it as the ‘currency’ that makes their teams work.
Some of the points raised during the lesson include:
The 3 key types of trust within the team, and how to develop them
What it is about trust that makes it so important to the team’s success
Why empowering the individual should be the first key step in developing trust
How to develop and build trust within a group through time spent together
The difference between ‘trusting relationships’ and ‘friendships’
The value of maintaining consistent behaviours and carrying out your role to the best of your ability
Want to find more content like this? You can find lessons on a wide range of leadership-related themes and topics on our website:
Ideas
If you’re a fan of Formula 1, then you’ve probably heard of Adrian Newey - the greatest designer in the sport’s history and the man behind Red Bull’s record-breaking 2023 championship season.
Adrian is the engineer behind the Red Bull F1 cars, and this fantastic BBC article takes an in-depth look at his approach to his craft. He talks about marrying his artistic and technical skills, and honing them for over 10,000 hours.
For all the coaches and leaders reading, I think that his approach to design and teams will be very interesting.
Inspire Your Teams With Ideas From The Great Coaches
Spread across Europe, North America, and Australia, the Great Coaches team has collectively interviewed more than 200 of the World’s Great Coaches on the topic of leadership.
Our guests include men and women from across multiple countries and sports; many of them have won multiple Olympic medals and championships on both national and world stages.
Through our presentations, we address the challenges faced by your teams with the insights gathered through our in-depth interviews. Our material is inspiring, authentic, and unique, and can be delivered virtually or in-person.
Interested in learning more? Get in touch today.
Partners
This newsletter is brought to you by Macquarie University Business School’s MBA program. Designed to empower, challenge and transform, the Macquarie MBA gives you the business skills and knowledge you need to succeed in an evolving global economy.
The program bridges the gap between theory and real-world application, bringing together world-leading professors, executives and industry partners to teach you how business can be used for good.
I have started working with the team at Macquarie on some projects and can attest to the quality of the people and material. To find out more, search for Macquarie University Business School’s MBA.
Find out more: https://www.mq.edu.au/macquarie-business-school
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