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The loudest voices in sports leadership rarely share their most effective secrets.

Why? Because these game-changing behaviours don't make Insta or YouTube reels.

They aren't flashy. They often happen behind closed doors or in small moments that most people miss.

Yet these quiet behaviours create outsized results.

I discovered this truth the hard way. Early in my head-coach/management career, I chased the visible trappings of leadership; the big motivational speeches, the ‘smart’ tactical innovations, the commanding presence.

They worked...just sometimes though.

But the behaviours that transformed my effectiveness weren't what I expected.

Let me share four counterintuitive leadership approaches that dramatically improved my results - approaches that 90% of sports leaders overlook.

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1. Embracing Strategic Silence

During a heated strategy meeting, my coaching/management team split into opposing camps. Everyone expected me to step in and resolve the tension.

Instead, I did nothing.

I let the silence grow uncomfortable. I resisted the urge to fill the void.

After what felt like minutes (but was probably 30 seconds!), one of our quietest people spoke up with an insight that bridged both perspectives. His solution was better than anything I would have imposed.

Silence creates space for reflection and emergence. Most leaders rush to fill conversational gaps out of discomfort or a need to demonstrate authority. This crushes potential insights before they can develop.

Your brain works differently in silence. Research from the University of Helsinki shows that even brief periods of silence activate brain regions linked to integration and insight generation.

How You Can Use This:

1. Count to ten before responding to important questions
2. Mark specific moments in meetings as "thinking time" with no talking
3. After asking a question, wait twice as long as feels comfortable for responses

An NCAA assistant coach I coached adopted this approach and reported: "Players who never spoke up are now contributing our best tactical ideas."

2. Designing Behavioral Nudges

One team I worked with consistently struggled with punctuality for morning sessions. Punishments and lectures changed nothing.

Instead of pushing harder, we restructured the environment: we scheduled a team breakfast 30 minutes before training, with the best food served first and gradually removed.

Within two weeks, tardiness disappeared.

Behavior change rarely comes from willpower or commands. It comes from smartly designed environments that make the right choice the easy choice.

This principle, central to behavioral economics, works because it bypasses resistance and leverages natural motivations instead of fighting them.

How You Can Use This:

1. Identify persistent problems that haven't responded to direct approaches
2. Ask: "How could I redesign the environment to make the desired behavior natural?"
3. Create small, strategic adjustments that don't feel like interventions

One Olympic rowing coach I read about implemented this by redesigning the team’s changing room layout to naturally create better pre-training prehab routines. Suddenly engagement with the full prehab program became the norm.

3. Practicing Radically Simple Communication

During a crucial championship match ten years back, I delivered complex, detailed instructions at halftime.

Players nodded, but in the second half our performance deteriorated.

In the next match, I tried something different: one clear message, delivered in under 20 seconds.

The improvement was immediate and dramatic.

Under pressure, the brain's processing capacity narrows dramatically. Research from the Human Performance Laboratory shows that cognitive load reduces both decision quality and execution speed by up to 40%.

Simply, clear direction cuts through noise and focuses attention where it matters most.

How You Can Use This:

1. Reduce all critical instructions to one main point. (Remember the 90-10 rule from last week’s edition?)
2. Use concrete metaphors that create instant mental pictures
3. Check for understanding by asking players to repeat what they heard in their own words

A basketball coach I advise switched to this approach before playoff games. Her team's fourth-quarter execution improved so dramatically that opposing coaches commented on it.

4. Making the Invisible Visible

After a big win, I publicly praised our star players as custom dictates. But something felt off.

The next time, I tried a different approach. I dedicated five minutes of our team meeting to highlight the work of our performance analyst - showing specifically how his routine but unnoticed work directly created three scoring opportunities.

The entire team's energy visibly shifted. The culture of appreciation spread throughout the team.

The big win - an unprecedented improvement in group cohesion. This simple pivot lit the touch paper.

Recognition fulfills a fundamental human need. But when only visible contributions receive acknowledgment, you create invisible hierarchies that can undermine the very culture you’re trying to nurture.

Psychological safety (the ‘cool’ name for trust!) depends on people feeling valued for their full contribution, not just the parts everyone already sees.

How You Can Use This:

1. Identify one behind-the-scenes contribution each 2-3 weeks to spotlight
2. Be specific about how invisible work connected to visible outcomes
3. Create systems that track and celebrate progress on unseen work

In the world of luxury hotels, Taj Hotels leverage this principle through promoting a STARS program (Special Thanks And Recognition System) that allows all employees to highlight and reward exceptional (nearly always invisible) work that ensures they are the industry standard bearer when it comes to customer service.

The Counterintuitive Edge

These four behaviours share a common thread: they all run counter to standard leadership instincts.

Most leaders:

• Rush to fill silence
• Try to force behavior change
• Over-Communicate
• Recognise only what's already visible

The alternative approaches feel uncomfortable at first.

Reading them back now, they might even seem like non-leadership!

That's precisely why they work.

True leadership innovation happens at the edges of conventional practice.

In the spaces most leaders overlook because they don't fit the expected, obvious image.

A Leadership Experiment For You

Would it be difficult to pick just one of these behaviours to try this week?

To summarise…..

1. Where could you deliberately use silence?
2. What environmental nudge could solve a persistent problem?
3. Where might radical simplicity improve your communication?
4. Whose invisible contribution could you make visible?

Start small. Observe carefully. Then build from there.

I find time and again that the most powerful leadership moments often happen in the quietest ways.

Which behaviour will you try first?

Last thing - reply and let me know which of these approaches resonated most with you. I'll send you a specific implementation guide tailored to your situation.

Let's connect beyond here.....

Check out my YouTube channel: Paul Clarke - The Leaders Coach.

Follow me today: On X and Linkedin and Instagram​

Another Newsletter you might find useful....

It Got Me Thinking... By Dan Mickle | Mental Performance Coach It Got Me Thinking is a must-read newsletter that explores the mental side of performance, offering insights and strategies to strengthen mindset, build resilience, and unlock potential in sports, competition, and everyday life. Subscribe​

A Master's Voice....

Think about your team or group for a minute.

In every group or team you might say there are three groups.

Your 'star' performers - the Energisers who act as cultural architects.

Then the group who sit on the fence and are there to follow.

And finally your 'Vampires' - those who conspire, often in silence, to work against you and the culture you're trying to foster and nurture.

Vampires are only effective though if you invite them inside your door.

Over to you!

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Thank you for being part of the Leaders Coach community. The work on how to lead better is something you have to do alone. But you don't have to do it on your own. Onward and Upward, Paul Clarke

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