Kirk Kendall | What Youth Coaching Taught Me About Leading Engineering Teams

Kirk Kendall

Kirk Kendall coaches youth soccer. It's not directly connected to his engineering work. But if you watch him think about leadership, you realize it probably taught him more about managing complex teams than any MBA could have.

The connection isn't obvious until you think about what actually matters in both contexts. In youth soccer, you have young players with different skill levels, different comfort in different positions, different thresholds for frustration. You have matches where the conditions are unpredictable—mud, rain, wind, varying referee interpretation. You have very little margin for error in communication because players need to understand what they're supposed to do quickly, while they're thinking about other things.

Sound familiar to a jobsite?

On an industrial construction project, you have trades with different expertise, different experience, different ways of working. You have conditions that change. You have multiple competing priorities. And you need everyone to understand their role clearly because projects move fast.

One thing coaching reinforced for Kirk: clarity is kindness. On the soccer field, young players aren't performing because they don't understand what's expected. So the coach's job isn't to be frustrated with them—it's to make the expectation crystal clear. Where should you be positioned? What should you do if the ball comes to you? How do you support your teammates? Make that clear, and suddenly performance improves.

The same is true on a project. Most mistakes don't happen because people are careless. They happen because the expectation wasn't clear. A superintendent on one side of a site doesn't know when equipment is arriving because nobody told him clearly. A supplier misses a deadline because the deadline and the consequences weren't communicated directly. A safety issue develops because people didn't understand the actual hazard they were managing.

Good leadership removes ambiguity, Kirk says. That's a lesson from coaching.

Another thing coaching teaches you: systems matter more than individual heroics. In youth soccer, you could have one player who's significantly more skilled than everyone else. If the team structure is just "give the ball to that player and let them solve it," you're limited. But if you build a system where good positioning helps everyone, where people know their role in moving the ball forward, where defense is organized—suddenly the whole team plays better.

Same on projects. You need strong people. But strong execution comes from having systems and processes that let people do their best work, not from individual effort compensating for poor organization.

Coaching also teaches you something about motivation that's different from what business school teaches. In business theory, you assume people are motivated by money or advancement. And sure, that matters. But coaching a youth soccer team teaches you that people—including adults on jobsites—are motivated by being part of something where they feel competent, where they understand the goal, where their contribution matters.

Kirk watched it happen repeatedly. A crew that was dragging suddenly became engaged when they understood how their work affected the critical path. A superintendent who seemed disengaged became invested when he was involved in problem-solving about logistics instead of just being told what to do.

Coaching also normalizes mentorship in a way that office settings sometimes don't. A coach is constantly teaching young players. Showing them better technique. Helping them understand positioning. Debriefing about what worked and what didn't. That's mentorship as normal management, not something special that happens with "high-potential" staff.

In his best projects, Kirk has seen site leadership that operates similarly. Good superintendents aren't just managing the current day's work—they're developing the people around them. They're showing foremen better approaches. They're taking time to explain why something matters, not just that it needs to happen. That kind of mentorship creates better operators, which creates better projects.

There's also something about coaching that removes some of the ego dynamics that can poison technical teams. When you're a coach, your goal is explicitly the team's success, not your personal credibility. That changes how you engage with problems. You're not afraid to admit when you don't know something. You're not defensive when someone suggests a better approach. You're looking for what works.

Some of the best technical project managers Kirk has worked with have that same orientation. They're secure enough that they don't need to be the smartest person in the room. They're genuinely interested in better solutions, even if someone else thought of them. That makes teams want to work hard.

The hardest part of both is consistency. In soccer, coaching isn't one great game or one perfect practice. It's showing up, week after week, holding the standard, giving feedback, adjusting, repeating. Same on projects. You don't build a culture of safety by having one great safety meeting. You build it by managing safety as a function of planning, every single time. You don't develop people by having one mentoring conversation. You do it by teaching and supporting consistently.

And you don't build a high-performing team through charisma or heroics. You build it the way a soccer coach builds a team: clarity on what matters, systems that enable good work, consistent investment in people, and a focus on collective success rather than individual brilliance.

Some of Kirk's best insights about managing engineers came from standing on the sideline with a group of young soccer players, thinking about how to help each one understand their role and do it better.