Hi! I’ve asked you plenty of questions before, and your blog is so helpful for me to be a better rower and coxswain. Recently, my team voted for women’s varsity captain. The girl who won is in her third season on the team, and her second season coxing. I love her as a person but I am not a fan of her coxing – I’ve raced with her before. (Just for some background.)
I personally don’t agree with many of the decisions she makes. For example: on our team, if the rowers aren’t cooperating, the coxswains have the authority to assign pushups. If ONE rower in her boat is unable to roll their oar up, then she gives her entire boat pushups, and one day, she was coxing my boat (a mixed NOVICE eight) who has just recently been learning how to roll-up, and she gave them pushups for not being able to do something that they haven’t learned.
Also, there have been several instances where a boat has needed to be put away and one more person was needed to carry it. I offer to help and then she tells me that the rowers need to be the ones carrying the boats. I don’t agree with this because the rowers bring their boat down and up, they bring oars down and up, and they help other boats. If each boat was carrying their own boat on their own, I’d agree with her. But if you just need someone else to put it in the racks, what is the problem if it is a coxswain (formerly a rower; perfectly able to lift a boat) versus a rower?
Thirdly, there are many cases where she has to ask me what we’re supposed to be doing, who’s going out first, etc., and that just seems very backwards to me. This along with the fact that the novices (who didn’t get to vote) wish that I were captain and believe that I am a better coxswain than her, handle myself better under pressure, etc.
I obviously cannot change the fact that she’s captain, and I am happy for her. My question is, how do I respect her even though I have more experience and frankly more leadership skills than she does? (I don’t know if this sounds totally jerky or not… I really do like her as a person, I just feel that she isn’t fit to be captain – at least, not yet.)
There’s a lot of flawed logic in “coxswains can assign pushups if the rowers aren’t cooperating” but power, responsibility, or whatever you want to call it like that in the wrong hands is basically just giving them a clear path towards becoming a full on Napoleonic personality. This is one of those situations where I think it’s in the best interest of everyone, including her, to have someone (you, another captain (if there is one), her stroke seat, etc.) take her aside and basically have a “you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself” conversation with her. Throwing your weight around like that, especially with novices, isn’t the best way to earn your team’s respect and if she wants to actually be a captain and not just wear the title like a crown she needs to chill.
I agree that if you need somebody to help carry a boat it doesn’t matter who it is as long as they’re actually capable of helping (aka your 5’0″, 114lb coxswain probably won’t be of much help but your 5’6″, 127lb coxswain might be). This is one battle though that probably isn’t worth fighting. In this case I’d probably go to one of the people carrying the oars and say “hey, let me grab those and you go help them take the boat up”. You still get to help out and she gets to have a “real” rower carrying the boat … practically a win-win.
When it comes to her asking you what you’re supposed to be doing, who’s going out, etc. I don’t think it’s a big deal to occasionally fill her in if you know the answer to her question (particularly if she was legitimately occupied with something else while the coach was telling the team what the plan was) but more often then not I think you have to default to saying “you should talk to [your coach]”, “[your coach] posted the workout/lineups on the cork board upstairs”, etc. At some point you might just have to say “it’s not my responsibility to know this stuff or communicate it to you”, which might come off as passive aggressive or whatever but it’s true. I don’t expect the people in my boat or the guys on our team to tell me or our coxswains what the plan for practice is because it’s just not their job to do.
Looking at this from her perspective though (and to give her the smallest benefit of the doubt), it’s possible she’s asking you because she sees that you have more experience (both as a coxswain and a leader) and she’s looking for some guidance without having to outright say so. I’ve done that (and sometimes still do) but whoever I’m asking usually catches on and is like “you know you can just ask for help if you need it, right?” and it’s like … OK, they’re willing to help and don’t think I’m a total idiot. When you’re put in positions like she’s in, not just as a coxswain but with the added responsibility of being a captain too, there is a lot of pressure to have your shit together and if you don’t it can be pretty overwhelming (which in turn some people compensate for by going a little over the top with how they handle things … aka the pushups incident). Basically what I’m saying is don’t misattribute her attitude as being one thing when it might actually be the result of something else.
Like I said earlier, I think it’d be beneficial to have a quick one-on-one to address how she interacts with the novices and how she handles assigning pushups (which I still think is stupid and ineffective but if it’s a team policy then I guess you’ve gotta find a way to work with it … which basically means only using it as an absolute last resort). From there I’d just put it out there that you know having all this responsibility on your shoulders can be overwhelming at first so if she wants/needs advice on anything you’re willing to listen but, as previously mentioned, she’s gotta figure this out on her own and not rely on you to give her the lineups, workouts, launching order, etc. In situations like this I really believe the best thing you can do is just offer your support and if she wants it she’ll ask for it and if not, you just have to accept that and move forward. It’s hard – like, grit your teeth and cringe hard – when you want to tell someone how to do something or a way to do it better so they can avoid shitty situations but you also have to recognize that they’ve gotta make their own mistakes if they want to learn anything. That’s probably been the hardest thing for me working with our coxswains is just knowing when to sit back and not help. To the untrained eye I think it probably comes off as being a jerk for not helping (because obviously if a coxswain screws up it doesn’t just effect them, it effects the whole boat/team too) but I’m not about to force my knowledge or way of doing something on someone, even when I know it’s unequivocally right, just because they haven’t figured it out on their own yet (within reason obviously). So instead I’ll put it out there that if they want help, want to discuss something, etc. all they have to do is ask and we’ll find time to talk … otherwise, they’re on their own for better or worse.
I don’t think it makes you sound like a jerk to say all that. I think the only thing you’ve gotta be conscious of is not overstepping or undermining her authority when you interact with the novices. You can try to temper situations if a problem arises but they still have to respect the fact that she’s the captain, even if/when she does thing they don’t agree with. Even if you disagree with it too, it’d be better for you to try to help them understand where she might be coming from or why the team does things a certain way vs. saying “I don’t know why she’s making you guys do that…” or bickering with her in front of the team about who’s allowed to help carry the boats. If you want to be seen as a leader or theoretically in the future if you wanted to be captain, you’re not going to achieve that by badmouthing her or getting sucked into the groupthink where all the novices praise you while at the same time hating on her.
So … best way to respect her when you don’t (yet)? Find ways to work with her so you can better understand where she’s coming from. At the very least you’ll pick up some strategies for dealing with this type of personality so that if you encounter someone similar in the future (which you most definitely will in college, at work, etc.) you’ll know the most effective ways to deal with them.
