Transformational Leadership in Action at BGGA
By Iain Highfield , BGGA Director of Mental Training
At the end of January , I was fortunate enough to attend the PGA Merchandise Show and listen to some of the greatest minds in golf share knowledge on how we can improve as coaches . It was a great opportunity for myself and the Bishops Gate Golf Academy coaching team to expand our knowledge . It was an opportunity we all enjoyed and made the most of .
However , something that makes us different at BGGA is the understanding that the knowledge we hold and share is not the most important part of our coaching make up . As a collective , the coaching team at BGGA understands that being what is known as a Transformational Leader will influence our students ’ behavior more than any knowledge bomb we can drop .
Transformational leadership is defined as a leadership approach that causes change in individuals and social systems . In its ideal form , it creates valuable and positive change with the end goal of developing followers into leaders . Every day the coaches at BGGA embody this as we raise one another , and hopefully in turn the students to higher levels of morality and motivation through our own personal actions .
At the start of this school year I took up calisthenics ( gymnastic exercises to achieve bodily fitness and grace of movement ). I felt it was important for me to be attempting to learn new skills and be seen to embrace failure . The videos below show one of my many ungraceful failures as well as my recent success ! But I always bounce back from adversity , and I enjoying sharing my calisthenics journey with the students I am blessed to help daily . Enjoying the process of mastery is a message I aim to portray to students and my calisthenics journey is helping me do this .
Here ’ s how other BGGA coaches contribute to our Transformational Leadership .
Coach David Louys-Moroney lives by the expression “ Transformational Leadership .” As a coach that has face-to-face contact , five days a week with 40 teenagers , he understands the importance of his actions . David believes that most successful people in any field demonstrate very similar character traits . Hard work , passion , dedication , resilience and grit to name a few . If David expects his young athletes to manifest these traits , they need to be exposed to them daily through his own actions as he interacts with the students embodying these very characteristics .
As an elite athlete in multiple sports growing up , coach David continues his love of sports in general and engages with Director of Athletic Development Karen Harrison on a personal level . They work on his mobility and flexibility in a manner that if his students modeled the behavior they would create physical and technical gains in their swing motions in line with their collegiate or professional goals . David can be found biking to work and working in the gym before many students have even got out of bed ! He also understands that to develop these traits in the students , he needs to create a training environment that pushes the students just outside their comfort zone which enables these character traits to be tested through the correct challenge point framework . He then helps guide them through these desirable difficulties in the most effective fashion which continues to expose the students to his leadership qualities .