On Coaching

 My father defined success as being a "coach".  I assume he meant a high profile college coach such as Bobby Knight, Hayden Fry or Woody Hayes.  I'm not sure whether he admired the role of coach based on the high profile, high salary, the responsibilities or something completely different.    "When you grow up, you should be a coach" is all I heard.  The "what" and the "why" of coaching was not communicated.

Being told what you should do maybe effective communication in some situations for some people.  My wife is ISTJ in Myers-Briggs personality type.  I regularly hear "just tell me what" from her.  She is not always interested in hearing my logic in detail.

The key question I want answered as a Myers-Briggs INTP is "why".  Why is it that I would enjoy or be successful at coaching?  My father was a school teacher.  Maybe, a really successful school teacher is successful at coaching?  Maybe, there is pride in having a really successful student?  My father did enjoy talking about students toward the beginning of his career who were highly successful.  From listening to my father talk, however, you would conclude the success of these students was preordained based on skills and abilities that they brought with them to his eighth grade class.  He never took credit for anyone's success at nuclear physics.

My father failed if he wanted me to become a coach (as he defined the term).  To convince me, he would have needed to communicate a "why" in addition to a "what".  Leadership and coaching involves communicating "whats" and "whys".  That may explain why having a good mission statement is important.  Is my goal "to win at all costs" like some of those coaches from the 1970s that I mentioned?  Is my goal something else?