Do Coaches Need Good Leadership Skills?

Does a coach need good leadership skills? Do they need to know more about the sport than their competitor? Do they need to have more talented players than their competitor?

I suppose if a coach had all three they would be more likely to be successful, but if I had my choice of the three listed above it would be to have good leadership skills.

I know that the second two have been tried before by multiple teams and without fail they do not win the championship trophies. In fact, most of the time they don't even get into the final running!

Just remember back to the Chicago Bulls and remember that Michael Jordan could score fifty or more points in a game and they still didn't win championships.
The Washington Redskins tried to buy their way to a Super Bowl with all the great players. They spent millions of dollars but came up way short in the end!

Great players rarely make good coaches even though they know a lot about the sport they play in. If number two above was correct then Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, and many other great players would have become coaches and taken their teams to a world title.

Being a successful coach does take good leadership skills!

It all starts with creating within someone a huge desire to win! However, not winning as an individual but as a team! Creating an unselfish desire to win as a team and not be the main focus!

That takes a special kind of skill set!

It's a lot like trying to get a very large bull into a barn! If that bull doesn't want to go into the barn it will be hell getting him there. You could tie a rope around the neck and try pulling him in. You could get behind the bull (if you are crazy) and try pushing it in. Without dragging this example on forever, the most effective way to get the bull into the barn would be to create a reason for the bull to go into the barn on its own! Maybe use a bucket of oats. That's the difference between using good leadership skills and using brute force.

I have a daughter that plays softball and I can tell the difference in her playing skills when she is motivated and when she's not. When she's motivated she pitches better, bats better, and overall is a better team mate than when she is not focused.

Keeping her focused takes good leadership skills! Every member of the team is motivated by different things but all must have the same common goal or it won't translate into a victory! Understanding those differences takes good leadership skills! Trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole will never work unless you break something. Trying to use the same type of motivation for every player won't work either!