Becky Hammon Barriers To Leadership

In today’s society the need for inclusion and diversification has created a mass number of opportunity, for women to be familiarized with the ranks of professional coaching. One of the prime examples is Becky Hammon, who is the newest member of the San Antonio Spurs coaching staff. Becky being offered this chance to coach gave her an opportunity to break the gender barrier for the first full time female coach in league history. This allows the understanding that Becky setting a trailblazing trend within sport that adds a component to the sports world. NBA commissioner Adam Silver states that “ I think just like we’ve seen enormous change in our society, just in the last decade, I think that's another ceiling, another barrier that will be broken”
Each of these situations helped her build her leadership approach. Not being drafted and criticized for her size allowed her to form an understanding that all leaders have to overcome some type of adversity. Overcoming adversity is what helped her throughout her playing career and was a huge aspect of coaching career. Having the ability to have success in troubling circumstances is what makes a leader influential. Hammon winning the summer league tournament was huge despite all of the naysayers, served as an example of the criticism she suffered throughout her championship run. She even understood that “those summer league guys are the future. Guys that are trying to shape and hone to come and be impact players for the Spurs, to give me the responsibility to lead those guys… that was a huge opportunity and experience and responsibility that he gave me”(Almasy, 6). Becoming the summer league coach allowed Becky to become very self-regulating in the way she coached the players as a summer league head coach. However her ability to make decisive decisions to benefit the organization was huge especially because this was her first chance to show her skills. It also gave her an opportunity to present a perception that she could handle the job of coaching men. Gaining the respect of the players is what was significant towards the trustworthiness within a coach player relationship. Her summer league team winning the championship, essentially put a stamp on her critics that believed she was not the right individual for the job. Overall Becky did everything it took to be prosperous or even puts herself in positions to be successful. During 2013, “she tore a knee ligament and instead of playing