College basketball is a perfect test laboratory for leadership styles. It’s one of the few places we get to see leadership in real time…then see it again on the replays…and then hear about it directly from every participant in the post-game pressers.  All while the rest of the world offers their hot takes.

A video went viral this week featuring Maryland’s head basketball coach, Brenda Frese, coaching her best player, Oluchi Okananwa,  during a critical moment of a game. Brenda is directly in the player’s face, screaming and stabbing a finger into her chest to emphasize each word.   Some observers had strong negative reactions, but lip readers were quick to point out that Brenda was affirming her player – saying “I believe in you, but you gotta want this moment more than anybody else.” 

It’s intense. It made some people uncomfortable.  And I fucking loved it.

Not because of the intensity. 

But because of the love and the personalization underneath that intensity. 

In their post-game statements, Okananwa said: “Coach understands I’m a competitor at heart and I’ve told her this before and I’ll keep on telling her this until forever: I love to be coached hard and that’s what she does with me every single day…And really what that was was a regroup moment for myself and her telling me she believed in me. Because sometimes that’s really all you need to hear…After that conversation, that’s when I really went back out (and) just did what I had to do for my team in that moment. So I’m forever appreciative of that.”

In her own comments after the game, Frese made explicit what Okananwa implied: this was a coaching and leadership tactic applied just to Okananwa because she responds to that kind of pressure.  Not everyone does. 

“It’s always been a pulse that I've been able to have with individuals and players, and we do have to at times have those tough conversations,” says Frese. “You can't have them without a relationship. You've got to be able to have that. The best of the best, the elite of the elite, want to be coached hard. And at that moment, I kind of had watched Luchi struggle within this tournament, and she's just too gifted. So I kind of wanted to implore just how much belief I had in her and just kind of challenge her. I know what a winner and competitor she is.”

If you don’t know how to motivate your people, you’re not a great leader.  

If you apply the same sticks and carrots to different personalities as a one-size-fits-all cure-all, you’re not a great leader.  

You have to know your people. 

What makes them unique? What style and intensity of pressure and love and feedback will get them to do their best? 

This moment resonated hard with me because I’m putting together a digital community for leadership development and currently editing a video about the Yerkes-Dodson Law. To summarize the law briefly: every individual has a unique relationship with stress that impacts their performance. Some people need low stress, some people need high stress and everyone is different.  

I like to imagine myself as a chemist in a lab – putting each person on my team in a beaker over a bunsen burner and turning up the heat on each one to motivate them and see where they perform best. Some like it hot! And some just can’t handle too much heat. 

Okananwa likes to be coached hard. So do I.  And so do some of your people. 

My fave, Abby Wambach, had an interesting take here as well on her podcast Welcome to the Party.

One of Abby’s points is that we don’t question male coaches getting in the face of and yelling at male players… but it goes viral and is even seen as controversial when it’s a female coach and a female player. Thank you, Abby, this needed to be said. It’s a double standard we can break by knowing our people and not being afraid to coach them in the way they need to be coached!

Here’s the thing - leadership development is as simple as this. Today, send these instagram reels to your team and ask them in your next one on one - does this style of coaching motivate you? If it does, how am I doing? Where could I be better? And if not, tell me how I can coach you next time to light you up and keep you going.

And if you want more nuggets of inspiration and tactics on how to be a better coach and facilitator, join the waitlist for the ScaleJOY Collective here!

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