I am a loser. In three seasons coaching softball at Wheaton (Illinois) Academy from 2009-11, my career coaching record was 37-52. It remains 37-52 and it will very likely always be 37-52.

For those scoring at home, that's a winning percentage of 41 percent. As NFL Hall of Famer Bill Parcells has been known to say, "You are what your record says it is." Thus, a loser am I.

My coaching career wasn't supposed to last only three years. No, I didn't get fired, although I'm sure there were times when WA's then-athletic director Paul Ferguson was ready to graciously put an end my fledgling coaching career (although I was inexperienced, I think Paul hired me because I had a very detailed plan for success; the fact that Super Bowl winning coach Tony Dungy called Paul to recommend me for the job probably didn't hurt either).

Regardless of my lack of coaching ability, when our team walked off the field after losing to Ridgewood High School in the 2011 IHSA 3A regional championship game, I was already planning for our next season, and the season after that. We were going to build a successful program, even if I died trying.

I loved the process of coaching. For someone who is an ineffective long-term planner in most areas of my life, coaching was different. I was always trying to figure out ways to improve our softball program. Unfortunately, too often this came at the expense of everything else, including relationships.

I could write that I was being a godly leader in our home when I decided to resign from coaching, but I'd be lying. I knew that focusing on family was more important than coaching a gaggle of teenage girls not my own. But although I knew this deep in my soul, I was still a petulant child who didn't want to stop coaching.

I was too engrossed in trying to improve a 37-52 record that I was convinced would get better in short order. My hunch played out as, ultimately, only two years after my resignation, four freshmen who started for our 2011 team went on to capture a league championship, yet that was under the direction of a coach far better than I.

But, regardless of my 37-52 lifetime tally, I did learn some life lessons from being a loser, the most significant of which is that lessons don't mean much if we don't implement what we learn. Unfortunately, it is that learning-to-implementation process that I struggle with most. I'm hopeful you are better at it than I.

Here are 5 leadership lessons I learned from being a loser:

1. Invest more in relationships than results. I am far from a charismatic leader. While some people walk in a room and are immediately noticed, I can be in a room for 30 minutes before someone realizes that I am not a hibiscus. I was the third head coach in three years for the team our staff inherited, a squad that had only won four games the year prior. I could tell that they were skeptical, yet also excited for change. There was so much intrigue in the new coach that we had a large turnout at our introductory meeting the winter before the 2009 season. My charisma, energy and charm was so overpowering in that meeting that our first voluntary workout featured a wide-eyed group of ... count 'em, one, two, three, four players. The program would have been better off had I had not had a meeting. I had scared just about everyone away. In hindsight, I know why.

I remember two distinct things from our initial introductory player meeting. First, I wore a suit and a tie. I wanted to set the tone for a new beginning but I may have slightly missed the mark with my disconnected habiliment. The second stark memory was a question that was posed to me by a very good player who ultimately decided not to play that season. She asked, "Why do you want to coach us?" I don't remember my answer but I clearly remember that my response was an ineffective, incoherent non-answer because I simply didn't have one. At that moment I had already lost her as a player and a few others as well. My first team meeting, which in high school is the equivalent of an introductory press conference for a college or pro coach, was a monumental flop.

The struggles continued. The night before the first practice of my coaching career the best softball player at Wheaton Academy (she also happened to be its best artist, arguably its best singer, and the-best-at-whatever-she-wanted-to-do)—not to mention our already penciled-in starting catcher—emailed to let me know that she decided that she wasn't going to play softball that season. Uh oh.

I begged, pleaded, cajoled, offered cash payments (OK, not really, Illinois High School Association) to get her to join us, but she remained steadfast in her decision. Olivia Tilly, this wonderful player and remarkable young woman, returned for her senior season the next year and went on to become an all-area player but her absence in our first season didn't help the bolster the quick turnaround I had envisioned.

Unfortunately, Olivia wasn't alone in her absence. We began our first practice with eight players in the entire program. Eight players. By the beginning of our second season we had more than 30 but we started with fewer than 10. For those of you who may not know, you usually play softball with nine. I always like to say that it was like the movie "Hoosiers," but I wasn't close to being Norman Dale. When games finally began in mid-March we did have players on our bench. Scratch that, we had a player (singular) on our bench for the first game, a stunning upset over a team to whom WA had lost the year prior, 16-1. Our lone bench player didn't show up for practice the following Monday and I never saw her again.

For the first several weeks we had players join the team, quit the team (one in remarkably dramatic fashion that included an infuriated parent making a special visit to our practice), and join the team again. Only later did I find out that even those players that I thought were on board with what we were doing wanted to quit too. That news came in the form of an impromptu after-practice meeting with WA Head of School Gene Frost, who called me in to his office after watching one of my ill-advised and mind-numbing grounder drills. He instructed me that I had to try to make practices more fun and interesting, and that I needed to show the girls how much I cared, or I was going to be a coach without a team.

I don't think our practices ever got much more fun or interesting but I knew something had to change. I was so caught up in trying to do what I thought would make us better that I wasn't building relationships. Early on in my coaching career I treated too many of our players like a means to an end; the end being a "winning" program. I cared deeply about every girl that I coached but I didn't know how to show it, especially in the short term.

To the girls' credit alone, our first team improved from four wins the year prior to our staff's arrival to 12 notches in the left column. We took our lumps but by every objective measure we were much more competitive. I built relationships with a number of girls on that first team that have been maintained to this day. Yet, other girls on that team still hate me with the intense heat of 1,000 suns. I can't say I blame them. They were a beleaguered bunch being "guided" by a clueless coach.

Here's an illustration that explains this well. Several years after I had stopped coaching I was at a game standing with one of my former players. During that game there was a play at the plate and the on-deck-hitter didn't instruct the incoming runner. I mentioned to the former player that I was surprised that the on-deck hitter didn't help tell her whether or not she should slide, and in which direction. The former player, who is now a student at Duke University, said, "Coach, you never taught us that." Ugh. While it was easy for me to notice this mundane task as a spectator, I was shocked and disappointed that I had never communicated it as a coach. The vast divide between "coaching" as a fan and actually coaching a team is Grand Canyon-wide.

2. Listen to your players (employees). I am not always a great listener. While coaching, I'd hear what girls were saying but I wasn't always listening and there is a big difference between hearing and listening. I thought I knew best, although often I didn't.

One of my biggest mistakes my first season was forcing a girl to practice who had just broken up with her boyfriend. My relationship with that young woman was fractured that day and it was never fixed. Having worked in the NFL, and for Bob Knight at Indiana University ("5 Life Lessons I Learned from Bob Knight."), I had never encountered a player missing practice because he had broken up with his girlfriend. "Uh, Coach Knight, I can't practice today because my girlfriend and I broke up" wasn't a declaration I had heard, or wanted to be in the same area code if it was uttered. But, this was high school softball and this young woman was crushed. I was insensitive and far less than compassionate than I needed to be. I "lost" this player for the rest of that season because I was worried about being perceived by others as being too flexible and accommodating. Instead, I know I "lost" several other players that day as well because they did see me as insensitive and uncompromising.

I have taken that lesson with me as a manager in business. If my team members are distracted and struggling with outside influences, I need to help guide them through those difficult times by being as supportive as possible. A short-term lack of production to deal with "off-the-field" issues can have positive results later on down the road if the manager effectively deals with these rough times.

During my second season, one in which we had a team that was much more competitive, we hit a wall halfway through the campaign. I was pushing every possible button to try to get us to perform better and nothing was working. I even went as far as naming two sophomores captains midway through the year. I think in some instances captains can be more trouble than they are worth but I was trying to light a fire under a great group of seniors. To their credit, the seniors responded, although they were furious about my decision. (Coincidentally, I just learned yesterday that this year's University of Tennessee softball team has two sophomore captains, although it's not necessarily something I'd advise).

While I blamed our seniors for a lack of leadership (I now know the leadership void was me), we just weren't performing to our potential. To try to get an answer to what was causing our struggles, I had all of our players fill out an anonymous questionnaire that asked the following three questions: 1) What can we do collectively to make our program better over the next three years? 2) What can we do to make this year's team better? 3) How can I improve as a coach?

I was shattered by the feedback. The girls unloaded on me. "Mean," "says one thing and does another," "inconsistent," "spending too much time situations and not focusing on fundamentals," and it went on and on. It was necessary feedback, regardless how much it hurt to hear. We made some immediate changes and finished the season playing very good softball. We all started to enjoy being around one another much more and we began performing at a much higher level.

I received letters from two of our seniors at the end of that season.

The first note read, in part, "I can't express in words how appreciative I am of you. Not gonna lie, there were some parts of this season that I absolutely hated, but in retrospect, I am glad you did most of the things that you did. The way this team played softball has transformed from lazy and embarrassing to proud and competitive."

The second letter read, also in part, "Even when some of us complained about your ways of going about things, no one could ever say that your heart wasn't in the exact right place, and that you didn't care immensely."

I don't believe that those letters would have been written had our staff not asked for honest feedback earlier in the season, and had we not acted on what I had been told, even as hard as it was to hear at the time.

3. Explain your decisions. One thing that I learned during my coaching tenure was that I had to clearly present why I made a decision. Too often I would make a decision that I thought was right for the long-term success of our program without communicating why I had made such a choice. These decisions were related to: practice times; playing time; what position a player was playing; why this pitcher was pitching more than another girl on the team; why a player was on JV instead of varsity; and on and on. Leaders must understand that every decision he or she makes is being evaluated and you don't want your players or employees guessing at your reasoning.

I wrongly expected the other players and coaches to know why I was making decisions, without telling them. Instead, they were often confused as to their role on the team, or possibly even something as simple as why we practiced on a particular time on the weekend. I created confusion that wasn't necessary.

If you don't tell your players or staff why you are doing something, don't expect them to figure it out. Be specific, explain your reasoning, seek feedback and make an informed decision that will benefit the team over any individual.

4. Don't make promises. Managers and coaches should be very careful not to make promises. Too often, especially in my first two seasons, I told a player that she was going to be in the starting lineup next week (or a manager may tell an employee that she is going to get a promotion at work). Immediately after I made that promise, the player didn't practice up to her ability and then I was stuck in a very difficult situation. I could either put an under-performing player in the starting lineup, or renege on the promise that I had made. A manager or coach can't be in a much worse position and it will undermine his or her ability to lead.

Coaches can't worry about being liked, by players or their parents. If you are worried about being liked, coaching is probably not the best profession to pursue. Even worse, if you are making promises in the pursuit of being liked, it will come back to haunt you.

5. Don't sacrifice long-term growth for short-term wins. Arguably the worst decision I made during my three-year tenure of poor decisions was to strongly encourage an injured player to pitch in a game. Paige Huizenga, one of my favorite players (yes coaches do have favorites and it's usually those who work the hardest and do what they are supposed to do when they are supposed to do it) had badly injured her ankle. She was convinced she could pitch, and I wanted her to pitch, but I was the adult coach and I should have never let her step foot in the circle.

Our No. 2 starting pitcher was unavailable for the game as well but I should have tried anyone else that afternoon. Paige pitched well on one ankle but it was a horribly selfish decision on my part. We did not allow her to pitch for two weeks after that game but it was one game too late. I was looking at short-term wins over long-term growth.

Along those lines, another mistake I made was that I became very inflexible with my starting lineup, especially defensively. Because the high school season is so short, I didn't feel as if I could move girls around to different positions and still attain a high level of consistency and performance. My shortsightedness limited us in the long-term because players because very attached to one position, at the expense of learning others. It really became a challenge when we had injuries. My lack of long-term planning by limiting opportunities to play different positions had short-term consequences as well.

This shortsightedness can have a negative impact on businesses as well, especially when employees leave organizations and a great deal of intellectual capital and training walks out the door with them. If that person was assigned tasks that no other team members knows how to complete, catching new employees up to speed will be a significant challenge.

Summary
To be honest, I could write pages of mistakes (mishandling my reaction to a junior pitcher who told me the day before a regional championship game that she was going to her cousin's wedding the next day instead of the game was not one of my better moments).

But even with all of those mistakes, my most significant takeaway is this: If you care deeply about what you are doing, and love the people you are doing it with, you will overcome short-term failures and disappointments and your team and organization will prosper. 

Todd Starowitz is the public relations director at Tyndale House Publisher and the CEo at ProScoutSports, LLC. For the original article, visit linkedin.com.

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