Do You Have a Leadership Playbook?

The concept of a playbook in sports originated over 100 years ago in American football. Now, versions of a playbook exist in most sports. My question is, should they be limited to sports? Do you have a leadership playbook, and if not, why not?

I asked ChatGPT: What is the value of a playbook in sports? The answer was enlightening.

A playbook codifies strategies, formations, and responses to different game situations. It allows teams to operate with clarity, consistency, and cohesion. Without a playbook, teams rely solely on instinct, which can lead to disorganization and missed opportunities.

This implies that a playbook is a strategic tool that provides some structure and a framework to improve planning and execution - and provides room for greater flexibility in responses to changing situations.

Sounds like something that would help a leader, doesn’t it?

Now using ChatGPT’s initial answer as a starting point, here’s the value of a leadership playbook.

A leadership playbook outlines strategic responses to different workplace and marketplace situations. Without a playbook, leaders rely solely on instinct, which can lead to ineffective responses and missed opportunities.

Would you like to be able to have a way to act, respond and decide that takes you beyond your instincts and habits? (Hint: the answer is yes, if your habitual response has sometimes led to unintended consequences or less than awesome results).

Habits, instincts and learned responses are wonderful but will not always lead to great results. Having a playbook helps you have a plan to move past doing the automatic natural thing.

My opening question was – do you have a leadership playbook?

Hopefully you recognize the need to have one. Now let’s look at what you want to include.

List Key Situations

Sports playbooks will have plays to address specific game situations. As a leader, you have plenty of these types of situations, including:

• Leading a difficult conversation
• Making decisions
• Solving problems
• Creating tactics and strategies
• Leading meetings
• Managing conflict
• Giving feedback
• Coaching team members
• Introducing and leading change
• Influencing others
• Inspiring your team

These are a few of the situations you may want to include in your playbook.

Identify Your Natural Response

Spend time thinking about what your natural, habitual or learned responses are to each of these situations. Writing them down will help you see opportunities and strengths in your current approaches.

Consider Context

For each of your key situations, there are likely factors that might complicate things or make your next step less clear. What are the factors you might want to consider when considering your situation? Having this list of criteria will help you make sense of the situation more effectively, and allow you to consider flexing your approach, by calling a different “play”.

Have Plans for Flexing

Once you consider your context, how might you flex your approach? Might you need to ask more questions than normal? Slow down or speed up the rate of change? Coach differently? These are just a few examples of what you might want to outline in your playbook, so you can alter your natural response in the fac of shifting conditions.

Keep the Playbook Handy, Brief and Practical

Whether you keep your playbook in a journal or in some electronic format, keep it close by so you can refer to it in real time. And keep it brief so you can consult it quickly. Just as teams change their playbook regularly to deal with new situations and opponents, always consider your playbook as a draft. Be willing to update and revise is as you learn more about the situations you want to improve in.

Leverage it With Others

In sports, the playbook is for the team, not just the coach. Your leadership playbook may be something you want to share with other leaders in your organization. Consider creating organizational leadership playbooks as a part of leadership development processes.

If the idea of a leadership playbook is interesting to you, make sure you get a copy of my upcoming book, Flexible Leadership: Navigate Uncertainty and Lead with Confidence. It will help you build out your playbook, specifically helping you think about the context and your flexing plans – giving you a game plan and playbook for leading with greater flexibility, confidence, and success.

If you’d like to explore the creation of these playbooks for the leaders in your organization, reach out to us and let us see how we can help you.