Leadership in situations where it is tough to control

[jrhtiger]

Hello, 

There are several groups that play different sports (volleyball, frisbee, etc). It is purely for fun and recreational... Several of the people that regularly attend the sporting events are very unathletic, frankly speaking. These individuals seem to acknowledge they are bad, and don't seem to care or want to improve - which I can understand, we are just having fun. However, it gets to the point where we are not really playing a "sport", but just standing around since we cannot get a volley going. (Ex: a teammates gives an easy set to a bad player and the bad player hits the ball out of bounds behind our team or misses the ball completely).

Many of the other (normal athletic people), find it frustrating how our games turn out at times. Ex: when playing volleyball and my team serves the ball, the other team can't even return the ball back over the net. Our team will just win the whole game off serves, so we find ourselves chatting, sitting down, or getting bored. 

I have attempted to lead the individuals who are not very good: giving them practice sets in between games, showing/teaching them with the correct form on how to set the volleyball, and even pleading with them how simple it is to hit the ball up in the air as opposed to slapping it to the ground.  

When trying to lead or show support to the bad players, they often get defensive and aggressive saying, "I got this, get back"; "shut up, I know what I am doing". However, even after they say that they are still terrible and loose the game for our team, and they make the sport very difficult. 

Please share any comments or suggestions. Again, this is nothing super competitive, but it gets to the point where players/teams can't even return a volley on the serve. 

Thanks 
JR 

[mynewunit]

This is common problem with leagues. People are there for many different reasons. 
Winning a game on serves is not fun. Neither is having to prevent a team member from playing the ball. 
I see it as 2 challenges, as you have also defined. 
1. Developing the players you have. 
2. Making the league more competitive.

Developing the players has to be fun and has to reward improvement or effort. I would try something like subbing out the best and worst player at the same time. If they can go off to the side and practice bums and sets, footwork, positioning, etc. and then go back into the game to use the skill they worked on.

Making the league more competitive can be done with either a draft each season, picking teams every week/month, or swapping team mates. 

The leadership task should be to set small goals. The goal isn't the win, the goal is to have every serve returned. The goal is to have everyone to get a bump and a set. The goal is to have points that last 20 seconds, or 30 seconds.
Ways to help this will involve suggesting changes to the rules or procedures before the game starts. Maybe an ace changes the server. The goal to be to do as little as possible to change this. Like golf handicap, different tee boxes, allow the competition to be against where the individual started the season, or their last game. 

Good luck. The answer is going to take leaders knowing the players, why they are there, what success looks like to them, how they respond to criticism and praise. The right answer is going to depend on the person, player, team. It may involve taking people out of the games for playing too hard/mean or playing poorly. If there is a person who causes the situation to worsen, they might have to be suspended or expelled.

I understand how hard this can be. I have enjoyed every league, pick up game, sport competition I have participated in, except church softball league.