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This story is part of our December 2021 CoSIDA 360 package, to view more stories, click here.

Leadership Traits Needed to Climb the Career Ladder

Three perspectives on identifying leadership traits for today’s athletic communicators and creatives.

by Barb Kowal – CoSIDA Director of External Affairs & Professional Development  @austinbarb

The trio of CoSIDA members below, all who started their careers as student workers or assistant sports information directors, currently hold senior leadership positions at their respective universities. They were all asked the same question: You’ve reached a senior leadership position in athletic communications and external relations. What are the soft and hard skill sets that today’s athletic communications professional needs in order to climb the career ladder and assume a top leadership position?


Jason Brough – University of Portland
Senior Associate Athletic Director

There will always be a baseline of hard skills necessary in whatever career path is chosen, but soft skills really are differentiators for people who excel. To be successful in any career – especially athletic communications in this new era of ever-changing digital media and technology – you need to have or be working on these essential skills:

• Effective Communication: Managing up to your supervisor is just as important as managing down. Building up relationships with colleagues, coaches, campus units, etc. will allow you to work through challenges and get others on board with new ideas.
• Adaptability & Flexibility: We work in a fast-paced environment and are juggling many responsibilities. Routine is impact in all aspects of life but being able to adjust and shift on the fly is an important and appreciated skill.
• Collaboration: Be reliable and don’t be afraid to empower and rely on others. It’s a much healthier and productive work environment when colleagues are willing and able to collaborate.
• Problem Solving: Managers don’t just want problems identified, they want to know what are some options to address, manage through, or solve the problem? I always try to bring ideas that can alleviate an issue I bring forward to a supervisor.
• Smart Work: Everyone talks about ‘hard work’ but I try to instill a culture of ‘smart work’. Just working hard and trying to do everything may become an unnecessary routine. How can you be more efficient and maximize the time you have? Sometimes that just means less quantity and a more guided focus.

 
A quick example: I admittedly have probably some of the worst basketball game notes. I keep it simple and to the point… Instead, I try to reach out and prepare the media covering our team with nuggets of information that they will use instead of thumbing through 50 pages of notes/stats. I try to talk with TV and radio talent in advance, provide personalized stories about each player and coach, share interesting campus notes, and focus more on the storytelling then regurgitating stats and trends. In that 5-10 minute chat they get their talking points more efficiently and I get to share our messaging clearly. It seems to work well.

Trust & Empowerment: The hardest skill I needed to learn as I climbed the career ladder was trust and delegation. I worked so hard to prove myself that I was hesitant at first to really trust others. I thought it was just easier and more efficient for me to ‘do it right’ versus letting someone else learn through experiences. Once I let that go, I became a better leader and my units thrived more than ever before. It also allows people to really grow and take on more responsibility that often leads to taking work off my plate.
 

Brough is a sports administrator for men’s and women’s tennis and also is the main contact for men’s basketball and men’s and women’s tennis. He has served at Portland for nearly 19 years, eight in his current role where he oversees ticket sales, communications, video, social media, facilities and media contracts for the department. A 2003 graduate of Portland, he began his career immediately upon graduation as the school’s assistant SID.

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Thomas Chen – Seton Hall University
Associate Athletics Director for Digital Media and Communications

I think today’s athletic communications professional should basically be living inside the Adobe Creative Suite. You need to be proficient in writing, layout, designing still and motion graphics, editing video, editing audio, etc.. There are so many mediums and ways to communicate your message, which I know can be overwhelming at times, but it’s important to know a little bit about everything. I think what has helped me in my career is that I didn’t limit myself to writing press releases or some of the other traditional duties. I have always tried to adapt, learn and be of assistance to my fellow external units. This is especially important for people who work at smaller schools with limited resources. The more you’re able to do, I think the more valuable you make yourself in the department.

People who want to climb the career ladder need to have vision, conviction and work ethic. College athletics is a wonderful career, but it’s tough. It’s long hours and in today’s world we’re being asked to do more with less resources. You need to have the vision to see how best you can communicate the message of your athletics department with what you have; you need conviction to stand behind your vision and sell it to your staff and colleagues; and you need the work ethic to execute the vision.

And I can’t stress enough that people need to manage up and empower below. I have a great relationship with my supervisor; we’ve built trust in each other, and that goes a long way. I’m always in his ear about what we’re doing, how we’re doing, sharing our successes and our failures. He comes to me with problems that I help him solve. It’s a great feeling to know that he has my back and will go to bat for me on things that I need. And for folks who lead a staff, you have to give them every opportunity to take on new responsibilities so that they learn and grow. Every good professional in this business craves the opportunity to take on new challenges, and you should want to foster that growth.

 

Chen has been a member of the Pirates staff since December 2014, promoted to his current Associate AD position in July 2017 after previously serving as Assistant AD. Chen oversees all aspects of communications, including media relations, publications, television and radio. He also oversees the department's digital and social media properties which includes the Pirate Sports Network. Chen overhauled the network to become a student-run organization that educates Seton Hall students on live broadcast production and creative digital media. Chen previously served at Stony Brook and his alma mater, Northeastern, where he began his career as an SID student assistant. 

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Emily Dorko – Adelphi University
Associate Athletic Director for External Relations/SWA

My message to aspiring leaders: it’s important to remember what — or more specifically, who — you do this job for. Communications professionals are here to do just that, communicate; to tell the stories of our student-athletes; it might be a hard pill to swallow early on when you might not be receiving the “thank you’s” from coaches, athletes or other administrators. Yet, if you have a passion for some elements of this job, that passion needs to be your motivation. Know what your motivations are.
 
Here’s another message that I stress constantly to my staff: at this stage in our industry we are expected to be better than the day before, whether it be in our webcasts, our social media or video content, just to name a few. You can’t expect to be great at all those things all the time because unfortunately, it’s unrealistic for that to be sustainable.
 
So, how to manage that?
 
At Adelphi, we’ve gotten our strategy right where we want it in terms of what our office can handle from a creative content perspective and what our expectations are across the board for what we are distributing to our community. I urge others – at every job level - to always be working with others in your department and on campus on understanding the strategies behind your messaging and branding.

 

Dorko received both her undergraduate (2013) and MBA (2015) from Adelphi, and was a two-sport athlete (volleyball and softball), earning First Team All-America softball honors as a senior. She was named Associate AD in February 2017 and then was given added responsibilities as Senior Woman Administrator in November of 2019. She oversees all communication efforts for the department, including the branding and marketing strategy for all social media platforms. Dorko started her career as Adelphi’s SID graduate assistant before serving at NYIT for several years before returning to her alma mater.  

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