Leadership in Sport
Articles and Videos
Whether you are starting out or a veteran in sports leadership, the most critical components of leadership are covered in these articles. You may find our sections for our most recent articles, resources and materials, latest newsletters, or 5 Minutes with Bo Hanson video series valuable too.

Beyond the Bowl: How the LA Rams are Transforming Lives
Against the backdrop of a thundering home-crowd stadium, the Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl. But a lesser-known thundering roar, fueled by the echoes of the “Who’s house? Ram’s house!” chant, is building throughout the Los Angeles community due to the championship winning work of the LA Rams Community and Engagement team’s Pathways to Success Program.

A conversation with Coaches who Lift Other Coaches
How do you prepare Assistant Coaches for the next step in their careers? To unpack the ideas around this important subject, we called on those who have a proven track record of elevating the careers of the coaches around them, and who we are lucky enough to call our clients. We brought them together – not because they liked the topic, not because they’re interested in the topic, but because they are genuine experts in the topic.

The Key to Unlocking your Coaching Philosophy
When we look at leaders in any endeavor, we often see their success critically defined by their leadership philosophy, and when it comes to sport coaches it is exactly the same. Having a defined coaching philosophy is key to effective coaching (and leadership), but the process of developing and understanding your own philosophy is often sidelined. When your team relies on your performance as a coach as much as they do on technical execution for achieving a winning outcome, this process is a priority.

Where Coaching in Theory Meets Coaching in Practice
Dedicated to his profession, four-time Olympic coach, now Program Director, Dr. Cam Kiosoglous focuses his commitment to build the depth of alignment between coaching research and coaching in practice through Drexel University’s Master of Science in Sport Coaching Leadership.

Getting the Most Out of Your Coaching by Looking In
Can a coach coach themself? It’s an interesting question to ponder. While the role of a coach is to constantly work with their athletes and team to develop and improve, and we know that coaches by nature and role can be excellent at developing others, what about when developing themselves?

Leadership Learnings from an Award-Winning Lecturer and International Leadership Consultant
Having the capability to lead plays a critical role in this effectiveness, so how do we actually develop leadership across diverse populations, ensuring to include those who may be reticent or hesitant to take on a leadership role? Jacqueline Mueller, a leadership expert renowned for bridging the gap between theory and practice acknowledges there’s no effective ‘cookie-cutter’ approach for teaching leadership, but simply put she says, “I try to invite participants to reflect on themselves and to find a way of leading that works for them.”

Why Effective Leadership Starts with Structuring Your Captain Selection Process
Captain or leadership group, how can you determine what the right structure for your team is? Who should be appointed as the leader and, what exactly does the person in the leadership role do? These were some of the critical leadership questions we unpacked in our recent open webinar, ‘Choosing Captains and Leadership Development Within Your Team’.

Hardwood Hustle Podcast: with Bo Hanson
We’re excited to share Bo’s chat with hosts of the Hardwood Hustle Podcast TJ and Sam, along with longtime friend of Athlete Assessments, Lisa who introduces Bo on the episode.

Connecting and Collaborating at the Client Collective
The faces occupying each Zoom square on Athlete Assessments’ first Client Collective were distinguished by their choice of beverage – Eastern Time in the United States saw clients sharing their happy hour with us, water bottles for those on Mountain Time, Pacific and Central Time, in the UK it’s a late night cup of tea and comparatively, time zones in Australia saw clients reaching for their morning latte.

Mammoth Momentum Maintained For Women Coaches
The NCAA Women Coaches Academies have been running for close to two decades and have thousands of inspired alumni who sing the praises of the experience of bringing coaches together to connect, learn and network.

Lifelong Leadership with Latitude (and a learning attitude!)
What keeps Dr. Steven Estes, Professor of Leisure and Sport Management at Middle Tennessee State University engaged, looking for new challenges and delivering dynamic content to develop leaders for our community?? That question evolved in my mind the more we delved into Steve’s philosophy on leadership – developed over a career spanning over four decades. Experience has seen him guide students in the classroom as a tenured professor, high-performance sport gave him the opportunity to compete at international events as part of the US rowing team, he continues to be a pivotal member and was twice president of the National Association for Kinesiology in Higher Education (NAKHE), a leadership lecturer in residence at the United States military training academy, and part of teams tackling grueling physical challenges.

We are in the AITD 2020 Excellence Awards Finals
We are incredibly proud and excited with the news we recently received from the Australian Institute of Training and Development (AITD). Each year they preside over the national Excellence Awards and Athlete Assessments have just been announced as one of eight finalists in the Best Leadership Development Program Award. Prior winners range from large corporations and Australian household brands such as Coles, Blackmores Institute, Volkswagen Group, Government departments and top Universities, so it is truly an honor to be named a Finalist now and we have our fingers crossed for the winner announcement later this year.

The Way Forward and the Power of One Word
I recall interviewing an NBA coach while he was visiting Australia – he was promoting the NBA by way of conducting basketball coaching workshops and I was facilitating the one in our local area. I asked him the question, “What players have you coached who still stand out for you and why?”

Debunking The Myth of Leadership
Leadership is not anchored to a nominal position or the domain of the select few within a team, according to Sarah Leberman, Professor of Leadership at Massey University, New Zealand. Also a Fulbright Scholar and the author of highly significant research on leadership, Leberman specialises in applying the knowledge surrounding leadership to the sport space and in particular women and girls.

How Skills from Sport Transfer to the Workplace
Every year thousands of students graduate college, but we’d argue, they don’t all graduate with as many employable skills as student-athletes. The National Center for Education statistics records that in 2018, some 2.9 million students graduated college but, according to the NCAA, only 2% of college students are student-athletes. This makes student-athletes a rare commodity.

Coxswain Coaching Camps – Champion Creating Future Champions
Mary Whipple, who won three Olympic Medals, two Gold and one Silver, plus five World Championships, knows exactly how to achieve extraordinary results. As coxswain to the serially successful USA Women’s Rowing Eight, she was responsible for leading, understanding and ultimately driving her team across the line in first position, multiple times. Now,

University of Louisiana Athletics Leading the Way
When you visit University of Louisiana’s campus and see the new athletic facilities, a testament to the University’s investment in recent years, you’d understandably be impressed with their focus on the physical side of development. But, you would be misled. What you quickly learn, when you dig a little deeper, is that they are committed to a holistic approach to development across the entire Athletic Department.

Winning Back-to-Back Championships
Winning a National Championship is not only an incredibly special feat; it is also very hard to do. So when you win a National Championship twice, you know that it is even better and even harder.

Taking the Confusion and Mystery out of Leadership Development
Leadership can be a complicated topic. There are literally thousands of well-meaning books and even more articles dedicated to demystifying what leadership is and how to be an effective leader. We know there are different ways to lead and many examples of varying styles and philosophies of leadership. Knowing how to be a leader can be confusing because even though new models of leadership are spoken about, at the same time, we see more traditional styles being enacted within politics, business and sport. To say it is confusing is an understatement.

Play Like A Champion
Here’s two statistics you’re sure to be interested in. 98% of coaches surveyed believe that having an effective team captain positively impacts their teams’ winning percentage. No surprise there. But what may surprise you is that the same research into Leadership Development in College Sport found just 37% of coaches believed their captains were prepared to handle the responsibilities and challenges of leadership.

Building Personal and Performance Character in Sport
By Bo Hanson, 4x Olympian and Coaching Consultant In elite sport, leveraging the 0.1% improvements in your team is not only important, it’s essential. At the Performing Stage of Team Development, the concept of building character is an

Sport Management Leadership and Coaching
Recently we saw a great article in the Harvard Business Review Blog Network by Monique Valcour, titled “You Can’t Be a Great Manager If You’re Not a Good Coach”. We thought it would be useful to discuss how this topic can be adapted for Sports Management Leadership.

The 0.1% Difference in Sport
Video Presentation by Bo Hanson, 4x Olympian and Coaching Consultant To win or not, at the elite level of sport comes down to fractions of fractions. We are competing in an environment where every minute improvement

Queensland Firebirds: Coaching Leaders
In 2011, the Mission Queensland Firebirds won the ANZ Championship, going undefeated and breaking numerous records during the season. In 2013, Senior Coach Roselee Jencke, and Performance Coach Tracey Robinson are making history again with three of their players

Leadership Development and Coaches
By Bo Hanson – 4x Olympian, Coaching Consultant & Director of Athlete Assessments At the recent 2009 Evolution of the Athlete Conference in Brisbane Australia, Athlete Assessments conducted a survey of participant coaches from Australia and
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Learn more about Athlete Assessments
DISC Profiling
Learn how to master the people side of sport using DISC Profiling...
What We Do
We specialize in helping our clients create and sustain winning results...
Our Clients
See who we work with and read what they say about us...