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Can playing soccer help you become president?

Whether you are a seasoned pro, or a weekend warrior, there is a lot to love about sport. The great outdoors, the adrenaline, the competition… the winning! It seems strange to think that there may be a connection between sport and leadership, but not only does that connection exist, it’s a lot stronger than you might think. To be a successful sportsman requires more than just skills with a ball. Successful athletes recognize the importance of teamwork and trust, they know how to deal with adversity and conflict, and they know how to think strategically and shift course when necessary. It’s these very same skills that make a successful leader.

How playing sport teaches leadership skills:

  1. Teamwork

Teamwork is one of the most fundamental skills that sport teaches: working together to achieve a common goal (or try!). Sport also teaches delegation skills – one player can’t be good at everything. A goalie can’t be a striker, and vice versa. So tasks, like protecting the goal post, are allocated to those players who are stronger in that department. The same applies to a successful leader – they must use their team’s strengths to achieve business success. A team player must learn to develop strategies and work with teammates to enable their victory. Same goes for a leader – they must set realistic goals and solve problems effectively to win an advantage over a competitor.

  1. Communication

Whether it’s hand signals, number combinations, or a made-up language, communication on the sports field is an essential skill to ensure that everyone knows the game plan. Successful leaders must know how to use verbal and non-verbal cues to communicate their vision for the business and how to deal with potential conflicts that may arise within their team.

  1. Decision making

Playing sports helps athletes learn to make quick decisions by observing and interpreting information as it happens. An effective leader must be equally decisive. Athletes don’t know the competitor’s game plan and they never know what curved ball may be thrown at them next. A business leader doesn’t know what the market might do, or what curved ball their competitor might throw at them! By learning how to make clear, quick and calculated decisions, successful leaders are able to steer their team towards the winning podium.

  1. Organisational skills

Teamwork and communication are not effective unless supported by organisation and strategy. Sports and team activities give opportunities for athletes to come up with a game plan and winning strategies. Similarly, leaders must always keep ultimate goal in mind and use strategies to ensure that their team’s time is spent both effectively and efficiently.

  1. Self-Discipline

Whether its bowling and endless number of balls in the cricket net, or increasing your mileage to marathon distance, getting up day after day requires self-motivation and self-discipline. To excel both on and off the sports field, self-discipline is essential. Learning about your own strengths and weaknesses through practise, trial and error, allows you to recognise what you need to do to improve.

No great leader is ever perfect, and no great leader ever stops learning. However, just like the greatest athletes of our time, every great leader continually challenges themselves to improve and develop new skills…. Every day!

References

How to build better relationships at work

How much time do you spend at work? Most of us spend at least 5 days a week in an office, on a site, shop or other working space. On average, that adds up to 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime! That is about a third of your lifetime.

With that in mind, it’s no surprise that our colleagues play a key role in our lives. Seeing that we interact with people at work for about a third of our lives, how can we cultivate more nourishing, engaging, mutually enjoyable relationships?

Working better together

  1. Communicate openly and honestly
    Communication can be tricky. Since we all come from different cultures, backgrounds and even language groups, it’s useful to remember that we don’t always come across as clearly as we would like. To help create the best opportunity for creative communication, it always helps to assume the best from others. If you think someone said something that offended you, ask for clarification. A lot of meaning can be lost in language, so you might find that what you thought someone said may not be what they actually meant.
  1. Share appreciation & praise
    We all can be hard on ourselves. If all you hear from your colleagues is about what you need to change and improve, it can leave you feeling drained at the end of the day. See if you can cultivate a culture of praise at work. One simple way to do this is to create random “Shout-out” group-emails where, for example, you commend a colleague for a job well-done. You can also host more regular meetings where you have the opportunity to share appreciation & praise more formally.
  1. Listen twice, speak once
    One of the best ways to show colleagues that you’re listening is to repeat back what you hear: “So what I’m hearing you say is….is that correct?” Not only does this help your colleagues feel heard, but they also have an opportunity to clarify their intention and minimise confusion.
  1. Make people feel like people, not machines
    When work gets busy and meetings tend to flow into each other, it’s easy for relationships to become ‘all work and no play’. In fact, when someone shares their personal lives, you may even find yourself feeling impatient. It may be helpful to create down-time sessions with colleagues where you have the opportunity to connect on a more personal level. Building stronger connections with your colleagues will add meaning, satisfaction and joy to your day-to-day tasks.

 

The challenges of remote-work

With the coming of COVID-19 many organisations switched to remote working options. Although this has brought certain benefits, one of the biggest losses is physical interaction with your colleagues. When we’re in a physical space together we can gradually build relationship with chit-chat, grabbing lunch together, or in the small-talk after a meeting. Now, with everyone working via video-calls, it can be hard to find those little pockets of human interaction, without scheduling a meeting.

To overcome this barrier, we need to be more intentional with our working relationships. Here are some ideas you can try out, or that you can suggest to your colleagues:

  • Create a regular virtual lunch/drinks opportunity. During these online events try to avoid talking about work; rather sharing experiences of your personal lives: family, friends and hobbies.
  • Schedule 1-to-1 chit-chats. Although online group socials can be fun, unlike physical events, it’s not possible for everyone to mingle at the same time. This usually leads to some people dominating the air-time and leaving others just listening. Why not arrange a regular catch-up with a colleague, either via phone or video-call, where you both share ideas about your own hobbies, challenges, and dreams? Even a quick chat to catch up about weekend activities can help you reconnect to your work-mates. You may even discover things about them that you didn’t know before.
  • Create a dedicated social share channel that incudes your workmates: If you already use Slack, or other chat-platforms, why not create a channel that is dedicated to personal stories, random events, jokes, favourite songs, or photos of your kids? By opening up about this part of life, you get to peek into the worlds of others, and you’ll immediately feel closer to them as well.

 

Together, while apart

Now, more than ever, we all feel the sting of isolation as we each work in our own little bubbles. Why not take the initiative at your workplace to build bridges across the divide? Not only will it help you work better together, but you will also help create a warm, inviting and caring culture, that will benefit you and those around you.

Resources:

Don’t know what to say at your next work social? Why not ask your colleagues to download the conversation starter app, or this party1s app? It’s a fun way to get to know each other, without having to force awkward small-talk conversations.