“How do you know if someone needs encouragement? If they are breathing.” – S. Truest Cathy
Coach Keith Madison
Coach Keith Madison served as head baseball coach at the University of Kentucky for 25 years (1979-2003). During this time he amassed 737 wins and has been inducted into three Halls of Fame: Kentucky High School Baseball Hall of Fame, University of Kentucky Hall of Fame, the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. In 2013, Keith was honored with the Lefty Gomez Award.
Since then he has been working with SCORE International. Coach Madison can now combine two of the passions in his life: his faith and baseball. He reaches hundreds of college and high school baseball coaches and friends through his bi-weekly devotions and has spoken to thousands of coaches and players in 16 states and the Dominican Republic.
Coach Madison is a Godly man and great leader.
Kevin Burrell
Kevin Burrell is the area scouting supervisor with the Chicago White Sox. He has worked in pro baseball as both a player and MLB scout for the past 40 years.
Kevin was originally selected in the first round of the 1981 free-agent amateur draft (25th overall) and played 10 years of professional baseball with four different organizations. He reached as high as Triple-A before finishing his playing career in 1992.
Those who know Kevin describe him as a pastor disguised as a scout. I previously wrote about Kevin in the article The Countless Leadership Lessons From These 8 Questions I Asked A Professional Baseball Scout.
A Weekly Bible Study
Each week, I have the privilege of joining approximately 60 professional and amateur baseball coaches and scouts for an online Bible study. This time together is put on by Mike Linch, the incomparable senior pastor of NorthStar Church in Kennesaw, GA. This is my favorite 45 minutes of the week!
If you are a baseball scout or coach from the high school to professional ranks and want to learn about spiritual leadership with like-minded people on a similar journey, please reach out to Mike at mike@northstarchurch.org. He will send you all the details of how to join us. Below is a picture of this week’s study. Trust me, these are great, great men!
A 5-Step Plan For Encouragement
We were studying the life of Barnabas and what made him such a great encourager. A question was asked of Coach Madison and Kevin about how to best encourage people. As they spoke, I knew these two men were dispensing leadership gold.
I took copious notes of everything they said and then constructed the following 5-step plan for encouragement from their thoughts:
- Be Intentional – We do not default into encouragement. Coach Madison, like all of us, wishes he would have done more of this when he was younger. Being an encourager is a decision. Kevin coached us up by saying it takes focus and discipline.
- Develop A Plan – A failure to plan is a plan to fail. As leaders, we must develop a system of encouragement we practice regularly. Put it on your calendar if you have to.
- Meet One-On-One To People – This was the process recommended by Coach Madison. A encouraging message to the entire team is not enough. For maximum impact, a one-on-one heartfelt conversation from you as the leader is necessary.
- Be Specific And Give Next Steps – Go to those on your team and be specific about the areas you want to encourage them in. This encouragement could be for improvement, motivation, or confirmation but you must be specific.
- Evaluate – These are coaches and scouts after all. They look at the scoreboard. Did their encouragement have the desired results they were looking? The measurement of success is generally transformation (did life-change take place), not transaction (I checked off the box that I encouraged someone today).
As Truett Cathy said, someone you know needs encouraging today. If you don’t know the best way to do so, use this 5-Step plan. You will be glad you did… and more importantly, so will they.
Once again, if you are a high school, college, or professional baseball scout or coach and would like to be part of this Bible study, reach out to Mike Linch at mike@northstarchurch.org. We’ll see you soon!
The Top 60 Leadership Quotes From 2021 Part 1 is my latest ebook. For many entering a post-pandemic environment, leadership looks completely different than the pre-pandemic world. People are more broken now. They are more uncertain. Fear and anxiousness are unwelcome constant companions. Cultures are more unhealthy. Relationships are more dysfunctional. Hope seems to be in short supply. Every day seems to bring a new hacking, natural disaster, or unexpected calamity.
Therefore, the fundamentals of leadership are more important than ever. The quotes in this book deal with the basics of leadership. If you want to be the best leader you can possibly be, click HERE or on the image provided to download this FREE resource. The lessons learned from last year, if applied, will sustain you for years to come.