‘Show your vulnerability’: Leadership lessons from the head coach of Canada’s women’s volleyball team

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Question: I’m a new boss. I recently started in a supervisory role with a small team after years in non-supervisory positions. It’s a new workplace and I’m eager to set the right tone with my new team, but how can I command respect without coming off as harsh?
We asked Shannon Winzer, Volleyball Canada Women’s National Team head coach, to tackle this one:
I don’t think we can ‘command’ respect. I don’t think that’s possible. If you go in with that attitude, I think it will be seen as harsh. I think the best way to earn the trust and respect of the people you are leading is to show that you care about people, that you have a clear vision and then set clear expectations.
As a leader, I always say, ‘We may lose games, but I’m never going to lose the relationship game.’ And those relationships can be tested in an environment where it’s very emotional.
I need to ask myself: Have I taken the time to get to know the athletes and what their goals and aspirations are? Have I set a clear vision for what we’re trying to do and how we’re going to achieve it? And then are my behaviours consistent in the decisions I make, how I treat people and how I react to things? I think you can demand a lot from people when you’re consistent.
Outside of training, I keep track of touchpoints with every single athlete. I keep a little notepad of who I sat with, who I’ve walked with, who I’ve had a casual meeting with. On the road, we have 14 athletes and I’m meeting with each one, probably once every two weeks. I want to make sure that everyone has face time with me so that they can address any concerns.
Another thing we do during team meetings is regularly call people out who have exemplified team values. And everyone gives them a round of applause.
You can be a taskmaster, someone who demands a lot, but you have to also ensure that you’re shining the light on the good things that are being done. I think that’s been a big piece that I’ve worked on over the last 18 months. I can’t say it’s a habit yet, it’s something I have written down as a reminder to do more often.
I think for a long time we’ve tried to portray leaders as people who are stoic and have no emotion, but I think it’s really important that you show your vulnerability.
I am the only woman who is head coach in the top 30 [national women’s volleyball teams] in the world. I work in very much a male-dominated space. When I first started coaching the Australian national team, I felt like I had to be someone who looked like they knew everything, who had all the answers. I don’t think it was my best coaching because I was trying to be someone I wasn’t. There’s a side to me that is vulnerable, that is human, that does make mistakes. And once I embraced that, I think that’s where I really started to thrive as a coach.
We’re trying to do something within the Canadian national team that hasn’t been done in a really long time. It’s going to be very, very hard. We talk a lot in our gym about how we are ‘training for hard.’ But if we’re going to go through the emotions that come with doing something really difficult, we have to have really good relationships and instill within the staff and the athletes an absolute belief in what we’re trying to do.
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The four-day work week has attracted a lot of attention in recent years as organizations rethink their practices in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Early evidence suggests that employees like it; according to a 2023 report from York University analyzing data from 30 Canadian firms employing 3,500 workers, 96 per cent reported happier and healthier workplaces after adopting a four-day work week. The study also found that shortened work schedules “significantly reduced feelings of burnout and job stress for women.”
But do these benefits extend to business performance, revenue and customer satisfaction? Some organizations say it’s helped them attract business and expand operations, attributing those positive results to contented staff. (Notably, in all the examples here, staff salaries remained unchanged despite the reduction in work days.)
Read how three organizations successfully integrated a four-day work week.
“In today’s evolving corporate landscape, the hybrid work model has emerged as a new norm,” says Merge Gupta-Sunderji, CEO of leadership development consultancy Turning Managers Into Leaders. “A hybrid work environment combines remote and in-person working, which can offer a great deal of flexibility to you as an employee. But it can also blur the lines of communication and interaction, leading to challenges in maintaining a robust relationship with your boss.
“A positive rapport with your immediate manager is not just about staying in their good books; it is a pathway to career growth, job satisfaction and a harmonious work-life balance. So don’t underestimate its importance.
“While decreased and irregular face-to-face interactions in a hybrid environment can lead to misunderstandings or feelings of disconnectedness, these challenges are not insurmountable. There are deliberate measures you can take to lessen and even overcome these difficulties.”
Read about five specific areas to focus on with your boss to keep communication approachable and accessible.
In all probability, your job is going to be affected by artificial intelligence. That may sound frightening, but there is an equal split between that impact being a positive one that enhances your productivity and a negative one that perhaps wipes out your occupation altogether. Those are the startling conclusions from a recent study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which also advises that countries take steps now to increase their odds of winning in the AI revolution.
It is not an exaggeration to say that AI is going to remake the economy and the labour market at a pace that will leave policy-makers scrambling to keep up. From the ethical considerations to the fact that the new technology can potentially do many jobs better than the humans currently occupying them, the implications are huge. The IMF study takes an interesting tack in that it looks at the occupational changes and challenges the notion that education alone will be enough to keep workers sheltered from disruption.
Read how AI could be “complementary” for high wage earners, and why women may be affected the most.
“This is a major type of conflict that’s surfacing in our workplaces,” says Andria Barrett, consultant and speaker with The Diversity Agency. “We’ve all had to deal with various types of conflict throughout our lives, but now, in our multicultural workplaces, there’s that additional layer of cultural conflict which can make things especially challenging. Our culture shapes our values, our beliefs and our unconscious bias. It shapes the way we see others.
“The first thing you can do to find common ground with this person is consider any experiences you’ve had that are similar. After all, you work for the same company. Are you in the same department? Do you both have children? Are you both caregivers? The more we share with people, the more insight they have into us, which will help them understand who we are and what makes us tick. If you’re open to this, you may find out you have more in common than you think.”
Read the full article.
In an era of record labour shortages, with the rate of unfilled vacancies having risen 63 per cent since 2020, many employers may be ignoring a rich pool of talent due to a form of double-barreled bias: gendered ageism, a type of sexism that affects women in their 40s and beyond.
“Women experience more ageism [in the workplace], and they experience it at earlier ages than men,” says ageism researcher Ellie Berger, an associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Nipissing University in North Bay, Ont., and author of Ageism at Work: Deconstructing Age and Gender in the Discriminating Labour Market.
Dr. Berger spoke to older job-hunters as part of a study – women who earned degrees later in life and thus had graduated recently. They reported being dropped from consideration as soon as employers learned their age, she says.
Read the full article.
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