When I hear other coaches and leaders say, “My management style is…” a red flag pops up in my head. Because here is the deal: if you have a specific management style, you are bound to fail. It’s a bold statement, I know.

Here’s why: The goal of coaching or managing is not winning; it’s creating factors that produce winning. And the biggest factor that produces winning is the ability to extract your players’ maximum talent. You can’t do that if you have just one style of coaching.

The concept of chameleon coaching
We started this effective team building series with a focus on building teams to stay competitive, and where we took a look at our cultures and focused on our presence, presentation and delivery. In a second post, we introduced you to some ways to build bulletproof teams that foster individual peak performances, selflessness, and resiliency; teams that are highly motivated, laser-focused and thrive off competition.

In this third post, we’ll focus on the concept of chameleon coaching.

Whether autocratic or democratic, the yeller or the hugger, having a management style leaves you coaching everyone the same. I’ve learned (the hard way) that if you try to coach everyone the same way, two major issues arise.

Mistake #1: Favoritism
First, you create favoritism. Legendary basketball coach John Wooden said, “Treating everyone the same is the surest way to show favoritism.” Early in my coaching career, I was coaching with a style, a tough one at that. As an athlete, I wanted my leaders shouting things at me that you can’t repeat in church, because it motivated me to be better. So, my leading became a reflection of what I liked.

The problem was that this approach only worked for half the group, leaving the other half demotivated and frustrated at me for not providing the coaching they needed to get better. Long term, this even impacted the relationships the players had with one another.

Mistake #2: Wasted talent
Second (and more importantly), having a universal coaching style results in you falling short of extracting the maximum talent of each individual team member. You can do all the development work you want, but if you can’t get the very best out of someone, it’s essentially pointless.

What I have learned is that everyone needs to be coached differently to get his or her very best effort. Every person and every situation calls for a different coaching style, so you need to be a chameleon and have the ability to adapt. I heard a coach once put it in simple terms: it’s a balance of crap and ice cream.

Some of my players came from some tough backgrounds, where they experienced poverty, family members with alcoholism, and beyond. Those kids needed ice cream. They needed to be encouraged, cared about and managed in a nurturing way. The same goes for your worker, who may be going through a tough divorce, battling depression, or in a financial rut.

And then there were some kids I coached who were very privileged, who never were given a chore in their life and didn’t really know what hard work was. Those kids needed crap. They needed to be told to shut up, get in line, and listen. The same goes for the procrastinator or the “all-star” in your group with the bad attitude.

Again, the goal to coaching and managing is creating factors that produce winning. Mainly this consists of extracting talent to help each team member reach their top potential, which requires chameleon coaching—the ability to adapt to the unique, individual needs of your players.