Developing a player-led team doesn’t mean coaches give up control—it means they strengthen leadership from within. Research shows that high-quality athlete leadership boosts resilience, motivation, and team cohesion while reducing burnout. In this playbook, we break down the essential steps: co-creating standards for clarity and buy-in, redefining leadership as influence, highlighting individual strengths, removing the perfection barrier, and providing leadership reps. When athletes take ownership, teams thrive. Learn how to build a culture where leadership is shared, accountability is natural, and performance reaches new heights.

Back in the Fall, a video of Nick Saban talking about transformational leadership on College Gameday went viral. In the video, Saban describes his experience coaching at Michigan State and how, in 1998, he made a seismic shift that forever altered his career. 

Elite coaches operate in high-stakes, high-pressure environments where their decisions can make or break a season. While many hire sport psychology professional (SPP) to enhance athlete performance, few eventually realize the value of working with a SPP for their own development.

“In college, people really noticed all the records and accolades… but I was really hurting in terms of my identity and trying to figure out who I was as a person,” Plum shared. “There was never a, ‘How am I doing?’” The focus was always on her performance, making it easy to believe that it her whole identity.

Mental Performance Training is the practice of mental skills that improve the performance of athletes, teams, coaches, business professionals, performing artists, and so many more people who care about the outcome of the work that they do and experience stress or pressure while doing it. 

Motivational climates, what are they? For those of you who are familiar with growth mindset, this may seem similar. The important distinction is that growth mindset is, well, a mindset, whereas a motivational climate is the athlete’s perceived structure of the environment.