Athlete accountability is key for any team or player who wants to perform their best. However, it can be tough to get started with building a culture of athlete accountability, especially if your team already has a history of not holding themselves accountable. Here are ten strategies to help your encourage athlete accountability in any sport:
Set an example
Accountability comes from a top down, and it starts with the coaches and other support staff. You can’t expect your players to hold themselves accountable if you don’t hold yourself accountable. If you say that you will do something, follow through on it, and your players will get the message. And if you have a habit of saying that you will do something and then dropping the proverbial ball, don’t be surprised when your players won’t hold themselves accountable either.
Communicate your expectations
Your players are not psychic and cannot read your mind, so don’t enforce a penalty for an expectation that you never actually communicated to them. Be clear about what you expect from your players and what will happen if they don’t fulfill those obligations. Keep in mind that you may need to issue several reminders, especially if you are instituting big changes to the team’s routine.
If the team doesn’t currently have a culture of accountability, it will take time for people to get used to it.
Don’t be afraid to enforce penalties
If you are new to a culture of athlete accountability, enforcing penalties can feel rather uncomfortable, especially if you work with younger athletes who are just learning that their actions have consequences on the field and in life. However, don’t let that stop you from enforcing penalties, especially after you have issued a reasonable number of reminders. If athletes think that they can blow off team rules with no consequences, that will create the exact opposite of accountability.
Differentiate accountability from punishment
At the same time, you need to separate accountability from punishing your players. Some coaches like to take things too far, and they tip over into destructive punishment rather than constructive accountability. Make sure that the penalty is in line with the seriousness of the offense: Smaller offenses get a smaller penalty, and so on. This will show your team that you are not “out to get them” but are rather trying to demonstrate that actions have consequences.
Pay attention to detail
When you’re first getting started with athlete accountability, you are understandably going to focus on the bigger things: not skipping workouts, etc. However, as your team builds its accountability “muscles,” then you can start dialing in on smaller changes that make a big impact on performance and safety. Fine-tuning footwork during drills and double-checking sports mouthguards might not feel impressive, but it teaches your players that they need to bring 110% effort and focus to practice and hold themselves accountable for doing their best.
Expand the idea of accountability
Coaches understandably focus on accountability in sports contexts: the field, the court, the weight room, etc. However, it’s important to expand the idea of accountability to other relevant arenas, including school and dietary choices. If your team has a GPA cutoff, don’t let someone’s bad grades slide because they’re a star player. If you want to set an example of accountability, it needs to apply to all relevant areas.
Prepare to deal with parents
Parents are more involved with their children’s athletics than ever, and the younger the kids, the more involved the parents try to be. Not every parent is going to understand what you are trying to do through accountability, so you and your fellow coaches need to be prepared to manage their potential interference.
Don’t be surprised if you have a parent come up to you because you made their child sit out a game for forgetting their moldable mouthguard, or you made them run extra drills for slacking off.
Treat your players equally
Accountability only works if every player and coach is held to the same standard, regardless of their seniority or talent. Unfortunately, many coaches are tempted to fudge the rules for star athletes, creating dissension among the team and undermining a culture of athlete accountability. If you want to create an atmosphere of accountability on your team, then you need to be committed to treating all your players equally, no matter their talent or skill.
Encourage peer accountability
Top-down accountability from coaches is important, but so is peer-to-peer accountability among athletes. Encourage your players to form pairs or small groups to keep each other accountable outside official practices and games. Having a buddy to encourage you to eat healthily at mealtimes or to get up early on Saturday to go for a conditioning run or buy a backup custom mouthguard can make a big difference in your athletes’ lives. In some cases, positive peer pressure is more effective than a coach’s influence, so don’t be afraid to leverage those peer relationships.
Don’t slack off in the off-season
While many athletes look forward to getting some time off, the off-season is where the groundwork for accountability gets laid. After all, if you can hold yourself accountable during the offseason, when there are no competitions on the line, then you can certainly do it during the onseason as well. Let your players get some rest, but also encourage them to continue to hold themselves and their teammates accountable so they don’t lose all their progress during the offseason.
Have you been able to successfully create a culture of accountability for your team? Does your team currently lack a culture of accountability, but you want to turn that around? Let us know what you did in the comments below!
