Leadership skills are invaluable and draw many parallels in the world of sports and corporate. Just as athletes need strong captaincy on the field, businesses require capable leaders to navigate the complex challenges of fast-changing situations.
Introduction
Sports are very often associated with Physical fitness. It obviously helps to be healthier and stronger. However, sports can also immensely help to develop mental fitness & social bonding, which are essential building blocks of prominent leadership.
The Public Health Agency report (https://www.publichealth.hscni.net) also highlights the importance of playing sports for mental well-being, reducing anxiety, combating negative emotions, and protecting against depression, that enables building strong leadership.
This blog will highlight the TOP 3 leadership skills essential for anyone to rise through leadership excellence. They include – team collaboration, strategy planning & quicker decision-making.
Sport is a place to practice and ace these leadership traits and apply the same in the corporate world.
I play a lot of football and am a competitive badminton player. Thus, the insights in this blog are from my own practical experiences, emotions & observations, on-field & off-field.
TOP Skills for Scaling Leadership
Teamwork & Collaboration
A famous quote, “To go fast, go alone; to go far, go together”, illustrates the power of collaboration in leadership.
In sports, the emphasis is always on the team’s success, not individual glory. The strength of the team is directly linked to their weakest link. Thus, only when the team wins does everyone win.
Collaboration fosters a sense of connection and belongingness. It encourages sharing of hopes, dreams, sorrows, challenges, and working towards a shared goal. It allows to understand each other’s motivations, strengths, and weaknesses.
A highly skilful striker is well-positioned to score the goal. Still, a striker’s talent is under-utilized without a midfielder feeding him the perfect passes or a defender creating opportunities. Passes are timed, and everyone should be in the right position at the right time. It’s the teamwork that enables breathtaking goals and those crucial saves during penalty shootouts. That’s collaboration in action.
Now, look at the defence setup. Without collaboration, there’d be chaos – defenders leaving gaps, midfielders failing to connect passes, and strikers isolated up front. It’s nothing but disaster. However, with fine collaboration, Players move in unison, closing gaps and intercepting passes. It’s like a spider weaving its web, trapping opponents, and denying entry to opponents.
Teamwork definitely impacts the scoreboard. It also boosts the unity of the team, the trust between players, and the sheer joy of playing the game as one cohesive unit.
As leaders, we must align with the organization’s broader goals and collaborate seamlessly with various teams. The handover between team members must be smooth from coding to testing and deployment. Designers, engineers, and marketers must work together to create a seamless user experience. Each needs to work in harmony to score big in the business world. A hiccup in collaboration can disrupt the entire project flow.
There are two predominant things to notice-
1. Firstly, teamwork amplifies individual strengths. The synergy and teamwork turn an ordinary team into a winning one. Collaboration even extends beyond the primary players on the field/ project.
2. Secondly, for a team to excel, “the whole MUST BE greater than the sum of its parts.” It’s about understanding that you are part of something bigger than yourself, and your success is tied to the entire team’s success. Read more about this @ 1 +1 +1 >3.
A team sport gives you that platform and space to practice & experiment with new things, to scale up your collaboration skills and cohesive working. Translating the same into your boardroom will make you a gem of a leader.
Next time you watch a football match, pay attention to the teamwork behind the scenes, and you’ll realize the impact of profound collaboration.
So, remember the football field’s lesson in the stadium or an office: collaboration is the ONLY WAY to turn a group of individuals into a winning team-up.
Strategy Planning
Picture this: You are watching a football match between 2 strong teams. At the blow of the whistle, you see teams spread out in different formations (such as 4-4-2, 4-3-3, or 3-5-2). Then, the teams could play aggressive attack, high press, Counter-Attacks, Set Pieces, Wing Play, Parking the Bus, Tiki-Taka, patiently build from the back, or play defensive.
Did you think they were kicking the ball around? NO. They are all different strategies that a team can tune to. These are the choices that can define the steps to victory or defeat. It’s not just kicking the ball; it’s about executing a pre-defined game plan.
Strategy planning is a well-crafted blueprint, and forms the core of leadership. Coaches and captains put in huge hours of study, observe and research on their players and opponents.
For big games, the coaches even track the records of each opponent and their coaches, how they contribute, what circumstances they break out, what makes them counterproductive, etc. And then, along with teams, they devise tactics, formations, and game plans to exploit the opposition’s vulnerabilities and capitalize on their strengths.
It’s like preparing for battle, where each move has a purpose, each formation gives a winning edge, every player’s position is carefully planted, and every decision is critical. It’s the actions happening “behind the scenes”. The right strategy gives you a competitive edge and sets the stage for mesmerizing emotional winning moments.
Strategy planning in the boardroom is equally complex. It’s a high-stakes game plan. Corporate leadership and managers must draft a clear strategy to navigate the competitive landscape and achieve organizational goals. Like captains & coaches, they must thoroughly analyze market trends, upcoming opportunities, competitive intelligence, and their organization’s strengths and weaknesses and craft business strategies.
Corporate strategic planning must also include effective risk management. It is a crucial aspect that helps to strategize aggressive proposals, competitive pricing, collaborations with other vendors & teams, acquisitions, mergers, etc.
Not every project contributes to the same profit margins, and not every project is a game-changer. Biting the losses in a few projects for a bigger trade-off is also part of a broader strategy.
At the project & program level, a strategy could mean identifying the critical path and non-negotiables of the program, effectively breaking down the modules & components in line with the critical path. Also, strategically positioning people, devising mechanisms for robust governance, stakeholder comms & meticulous execution are all part of it.
A strategic plan should also include a careful study of the key stakeholders, & categorize them as promoters, neutral, and detractors based on their interests, influence & involvement. Accordingly, draft a communication & engagement plan.
A key aspect of strategic planning is also to leave room for adaptability. It should be tweakable if the conditions change during a match/ program. Strategic planning is also an ongoing process, not a one-time event. Companies should regularly review and update their strategies to stay relevant and competitive.
So, the next time you watch a football match, pay attention to the strategic moves of players. It’s not just a game but a play of strategies. And those brilliant minds of coaches & leaders behind those players orchestrate a strategic plan.
It’s a reminder that it’s not just a 90-minute game we watch, but a game plan that starts much ahead of the game.
Quicker Decision-making
No matter how thoughtful and robust the strategic plan is, the moment we get onto the field, things are bound to surprise us. So, leaders and captains need to continuously assess the moves and make quick decisions to alter the course & stay relevant.
Picture this: The crowd is roaring in a World Cup football final match, and the clock is ticking. A striker is sprinting towards the goal, defenders are closing in, and the goalkeeper is poised for action. In a split second, the striker must decide whether to dribble past the defender, pass it to others, or take a daring strike. When he is about to kick the ball, the referee issues a RED card to a player and a penalty shootout.
In the flash of a moment, options change. A striker could kick around the goalkeeper, chip it over, or slot it into the corner. Instantly, the goalkeeper decides to dive left or right to make that crucial save.
Does it put you off the seat? Welcome to the world of quick decision-making, where the course of a match can change within a blink of an eye. It’s nothing less than a fast-paced action sequence.
There’s no time for second-guessing. A wrong choice could cost a glorious goal or a missed opportunity, and a right one will lead to victory
Hundreds of people will be watching, including your senior management, stakeholders, investors, team members, competitors, etc. So, there is already too much skin in the high-stakes game.
Speedy decision-making is like a secret superpower. It’s the ability to read the game, anticipate your competitor’s moves, analyze the changing situation, and make quick decisions in the heat of the moment. It’s the essence of brilliant leadership.
REMEMBER – NOT deciding or delaying a decision is also a decision, but a negative one. Hesitation to decide can result in missed opportunities or costly errors. So, stay away from analysis paralysis and act faster.
So, the next time you watch a football match, observe the concord of those split-second decisions that make the game more exciting and engaging.
Whether on the field or in a boardroom, the game cannot stop. So, Trust your instincts, make those quick decisions with available info, and march the project to success.
Conclusion
Sports and business, though, are two separate fields, but they crave the need for effective leadership very closely. Without strong leadership, it’s impossible to succeed in either.
Team sports provide a training ground and an open opportunity for harnessing, experimenting, and acing leadership skills. Collaboration, strategy planning, and quicker decision-making are key things that could be easily tried, tested, and implemented in the sports field. Post that, one can easily translate these learnings into boardroom leadership.
Incorporating the skills honed in sports into your leadership style can be a game-changer.
Whether you’re leading a sports team or a business organization, your leadership skills will lay the path to success. So, keep harping on your leadership abilities, play to your strengths, and lead your team to victory.
