New Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell has shared an insight into his leadership values, highlighting the ability to give and seek strong feedback and a commitment to self-improvement as key pillars to building success.
Speaking to Trent Leyshan on the Not For The Average podcast, Mitchell shared his knowledge from both a player and senior coach perspective on several topics including leadership, culture and teamwork.
Hawthorn bolsters its coaching line-up
The 38-year-old said having an ability to move on from the past and stay in the present were important skill sets to have as both a player and coach.
“No matter how strong you are as an individual or as you are as a team, you must always be looking to move forward,” Mitchell said.
“One of my pet hates when I was a playing was when a player says 'let's do what we did last week' - I hated it, you must move forward.
"There's no doing what you did last week, whatever you did last week won’t be good enough this week.
“As a coach, I don’t spend a lot of time watching individual players, or this happened, or that happened.
“I always find myself looking for patterns of what’s happening in this game, I’m trying to get the momentum of the game in my team’s favour.
“I’m trying to figure out ways to give our players better odds than the opposition, according to the way the game is being played.”
Mitchell, a four-time premiership player at the Hawks, said there were several important elements that led his team to success besides from just being "good at footy".
"We were very driven to improve no matter how good we were. That ability to push yourself beyond what was just okay was really important," he said.
"The other thing that I think became really important was our openness and desire to give and receive feedback.
"Whether it was Luke Hodge giving me solid feedback about how I could've played better, or whether it was Jarryd Roughead talking to Hodgey about the same thing... there was enough of us that were willing to try to improve and to commit to team ethos before ourselves."
Mitchell said now as a coach, he still considers seeking feedback as a key aspect in becoming a high-performer.
"If you really want to achieve your best, you should be looking for feedback as often as you can," he said.
“Feedback is the lifeblood of any high-performer, the faster you can get feedback, the more often you can get it, the more valuable and reliable it is, the quicker you can improve."
During 2021, Mitchell managed dual roles as Hawthorn’s head of development and coach of Box Hill.
In July it was announced that former Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson would leave the club at the conclusion of the 2021 season, with Mitchell immediately succeeding him.
Mitchell said he has enjoyed a new involvement in building the Hawks future list alongside the club's list and recruiting manager Mark Mckenzie and head of football Rob McCartney.
“The list management side of things is absolutely key,” he said.
“The recruiting is going to be very important; you can have cultural fits as much as you’d like, but if there's not the required level of talent, it’s going to be tough to go to the top end.
“We’ve got a draft coming up, free agency and a trade period and all these things - I’m certainly learning a significant amount at the moment, which has been brilliant for me as an individual.”
Hear more from Mitchell in the Not For The Average podcast by visiting Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
