How to best improve my professional sports team
The offseason should be the most productive time of the year for any team, in any sport. It has proven to make or break teams, time and time again. As a coach of a very successful MLS soccer team, my focus will be centered on improving the following three points; team dynamics, group cohesion, and individual leadership. By optimizing all three of these characteristics I hope to build a much stronger team and win the league championship.
My first point is focused on enhancing team dynamics. The first step in this is making my group of individuals feel as if they are a team of one, and not just a group of athletes who happen to be on the same team. As the text states, “Although all teams are groups, not all groups can be considered teams (Weinberg & Gould 2011).” In order to turn my group of athletes into a team I must first focus on creating a productive environment. This includes building social support amongst teammates. In order to accomplish this I might hold team meetings before and after every practice in which I encourage teammates to talk about on or off field pressures or experiences. In doing this I am strengthening the teams listening support as well as their emotional support. I might also try to improve my team’s distinctiveness in order to improve their unity. I might introduce a new nickname for this group of guys, or maybe design an emblem or logo, anything to set my team apart from any other team, past or present.
Throughout history fans have always loved the story of the underdog. Not necessarily the most talented team, but always the hardest working and the most motivated. One thing all of these teams have in common is that they have a high level of group cohesion and run as a single unit, working towards a single goal. In order to build cohesion on my team I would like to start from the inside and work out, namely develop pride within subunits of my team. I may have all of my goalies working together, competing with and challenging each other to get better. I may do the same thing with my forwards or my defenseman. The whole point is to get each player to interact with other players in the same position and to build their cohesion; once this is done it will be much easier to join the whole team together into a single unit. I also might consider setting a single challenging group goal, such as decreasing everyone’s forty time by two tenths of a second, or maybe increasing everyone’s squat by fifty pounds. These goals will give my team a sense of accomplishment and set a higher standard for the team as a whole (Weinberg & Gould 2011).
The last characteristic I would like to focus on improving in my team would be their leadership skills. A strong sense of leadership can be invaluable to a team. Strong leaders possess a number of qualities that benefit the team as a whole. Some of these include integrity, flexibility, loyalty, confidence, accountability, preparedness, and resourcefulness (Weinberg & Gould 2011). Ideally I would like to improve leadership in all individuals on my team to the point of self-regulation. In other words, teammates hold each other accountable for their actions both on and off the field. In order to accomplish this I need to work with my players on a much more individual basis. I need to find what characteristics of a good leader he or she possesses and highlight those as well as strengthen any characteristics that are lacking. The easiest way to do this would be to hold individual meetings with players once a week to discuss how their doing. If I had a player lacking in confidence, I may pair him with a more confident player and convince them to work together over the next week. At the end of that week I would bring the player back in and reassess his leadership characteristics and then assign a new task based on those new characteristics.
In conclusion, in order to build a successful team many things have to be considered. How the team identifies itself, how well it works together, and the individual characteristics of your players. If you can enhance all three of these you can greatly improve your chances of being successful.

Reference Page Weinberg, R., & Gould, D. (2011). Introduction to Psychological Skills Training. Foundations of sport and Exercise Psychology (5th ed., p. 159-221). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics