Top Five Lessons Leaders Can Learn from Sports

#1 Lesson Leaders can learn from sports, be obsessed with improving: The only way teams get better is through continuous practice. Sports teams are constantly training, practicing and devising new plays. They push themselves physically and mentally daily and that’s because if they’re not in top form their opponents will have the edge. If a team doesn’t train and seek new ways to better their opponent and improve their own game, they risk stagnating and falling behind. Leaders need to do the same with themselves and with their teams. There should be a culture of continuous improvement, growth and learning, one that comes up with new ‘plays’ regularly and reviews how old ones are working.

#2 Lesson Leaders can learn from sports, accept what you can’t control and focus on what you can change: As much as a team practices and trains and creates plays for each scenario, there’s only so much you can control in an actual game. Players control their plays as much as they can, how hard they run and how much they focus, but they can’t control the weather, for example, and they can’t control how the other team or players will react to how they are playing. What is in their control however, is how much their heads are in the game, as sports is 90% mental. Players can control their own physical levels of fitness and they can control how they react to what is going on during the game. They can also adapt to the game if their opponents are using strategies that they weren’t expecting. They can get creative. Just like sports teams, leaders need to focus on what they can control and not worry about things they can’t change. That only creates stress and tension, which fuels an anxious culture in which to work.

#3 Lesson Leaders can learn from sports, break down the plan into manageable parts: Every play in sports requires planning and strategy, but plays can be complex and take time to memorize. In sports, coaches break down plays into small chunks so the whole team can see it. They draw each move on a board so everyone is aware of what happens when and how, and where each person fits into the play and the role each person has.

#4 Lesson Leaders can learn from sports, dealing with success and failure: Few things in life have stark successes and failure like sports do. Teams or individuals either win or lose, but what is crucial is how they win and lose. Athletes can be reprimanded for being sore losers or for showing inappropriate behaviour, such as a tennis player throwing their racket on the court after losing a point. Players shake hands before and after every game, no matter how devastating the loss, to show the importance of winning and losing with grace and respect. Athletes and coaches also spend a lot of time analyzing wins and losses to understand what went well and what could go better. They go over video footage and stats, to see where the gaps lie and what the weaknesses are. Leaders should do the same with their companies, first by encouraging people to win and lose — healthy competition is always good — but more importantly, by emphasizing that successes and failures at work will met with respect from all sides. They can also use company wins and losses to dissect what went wrong and look at what can go better.

#5 Lesson Leaders can learn from sports, communication and teamwork are key to success: Sports teams cannot succeed without incredible teamwork and communication. Teams spend their time talking about how to talk to each other on the field or the court.