Five ways that competitive sports prepare athletes for leadership in life after sports, and three ways that they don’t.
Competitive people tend to look for ways in which to advance, in most of the different areas of their lives. Professional advancement, and in particular leadership opportunities, are no exception. It is one of the most common ways in which former athletes apply their competitive nature to life after sports. We grow up defining ourselves by our attainment, our performance, and the degree to which we move ahead in our sport. Why would careers be any different?
Focus on career advancement and attainment of a leadership position is understandable, but they are certainly something to examine relative to the distinction between success and fulfillment. As we have established many times before on Competitor Shift, the two are not the same thing. In a previous post, we dug into the difference between attaining a position of leadership and actually functioning as a leader. Here, we go a step further. What skills do we bring to the challenges of leading that have been honed by years of competition? The news is both good and bad.
Five abilities we bring from competitive sport to leadership in life after:
- Ability to remain calm under pressure.
This attribute is inherent in sport, and becomes more prevalent as we move up into higher levels of competition. The pressure of competition is one of the things that drives us. We learn to channel the positive stress we experience into energy that advances our performance. This isn’t something that is either common or inherent in many people, and yet for us, it is a necessity. It is also a very real skill when it comes to leading both within sports, and in life outside of competition.
- Decision making when stakes are high.
Just as #1 above speaks to the ability to moderate our temperament/emotions serve as an advantage in leadership, so does the same quality apply to our ability to slow down our cognitive functioning in that same environment and make good decisions. It’s invaluable in the strategic parts of any sport – the ability to make sound adjustments, to react to tactical changes, and to make changes in the middle of the flow. The same is true of leadership in the world beyond. Successful leaders can manage their thinking when the heat is on.
- An ‘adjustment mindset’ – we are used to planning, but then adjusting that plan.
Tactical thinking becomes more and more important as we rise up through the levels of competition, regardless of what sport we may play. First, we generally develop an approach to competition that we feel gives us the best chance of success, but it rarely ends there. Good plans also include good adjustments to various circumstances. We learn this as we play, and as we move up. It is, however, something that is taught explicitly in many management courses and seminars. Athletes often arrive at these training sessions with the plan-adjust thought process well established.
- Value of team success over our personal egos.
Team sports bring these expectations with them to the first day of practice. Those rejecting this notion learn early that their individual performance is very much reliant upon others, often to their own detriment. Even individual competitors experience elements of team success over time, as they rise to levels such as the Olympics, Ryder Cup, or even collegiate teams. The takeaway is that, though many competitors have healthy egos, we do understand that our ability to compete and win is very much linked to others around us. In some cases, our teammates can be good friends, and in others they can be people we can’t stand on a personal level. We learn to put away personal connections and animosities when it comes time to compete. The goal becomes the focus, and we collaborate as is needed to get there. Nowhere is this more important in life after sports than within the responsibilities of leadership.
- Willingness to endure short term pain in order to achieve greater long term success.
Sacrifice is another of the givens that we experience as we move up the ladder of competition, and it is a key quality of a leader of any kind. Advancement isn’t given lightly, and success follows hard work and sacrifice. These are more than just platitudes that we see on inspirational posters. They are a central element of both success in competitive sports and in organizational success in life after. There are moments of incredible frustration in leadership, and most former competitive athletes recognize them as a part of the path. We are used to battling and falling down, only to rise up again with the accompanying insights that led to the downfall. Failure and sacrifice are great teachers and great motivators when experienced in proper context. We learn this in competition, or we fail and walk away. So it is when applied to leadership.
While there are still more ways in which the experiences of competitive athletics equip us for leadership, any examination of this transition is incomplete unless we also look at the ways in which competition does NOT prepare us for the challenges of leadership. These are numerous as well, but here are three that at least set the conversation.
Three ways in which leadership is different in after sports
- Outcomes are not always as neat as a ‘win or loss’
Outcomes in sport are almost always obvious, regardless of the manner in which scores are tallied. There is a number, an order, or some other form of quantifying performance, and that tells us who wins and loses. Obviously this is an oversimplification, but the point is given. There are also times when a leader either succeeds or fails in life beyond sport, but the score card is generally not so straightforward. There is far more ‘gray’ in life after sports. We can both win and lose, we can succeed in some elements and fail in others. Measurement varies, or in some cases is absent entirely. Former athletes who are tied too closely to concrete quantification of an outcome are setting themselves up for frustration. Certainly not always, but more often than not. It can lead to a less fulfilling outcome to a leadership experience, or to a tendency to reduce the organizations we lead to quantifiable terms as a way to feel better about them.
- There is seldom a clear ending to your efforts
On the topic of outcomes, most organizations do have calendars or schedules to which they adhere, and yet very few have horns that sound signifying the end of the contest. If the clear punctuation of competition is something upon which a person relies to experience moments of fulfillment, it’s possible that the opaque timeframe of many leadership positions may be frustrating or at least less fulfilling to them. Leadership of organizations beyond the world of sport is reliant upon the demands of that organization, and the environment in which it exists. Yes, there are elements of time such as financial quarters, events, or promotions that lend some form of order to time, and leaders will adapt to them. That said, the comparison to the orderly cycles of most competitive sports ends there. We grow up bracketed by our seasons. Competitors lean on them to create order. Moving into fulfilling positions of leadership after sports relies upon drawing a distinction between these experiences and adapting to the differences.
- Advancing to a position of leadership can have little to do with ability.
We can’t draw these distinctions without an acknowledgement of the politics of leadership. Yes, there are politics in sports as well, though they are often more obvious as the quantification of performance enters the equation. The coach’s son might be the pitcher in a peewee baseball league, but eventually a 68 MPH fastball is going to be a 68 MPH fastball. Effort, talent, and performance are going to rise. Positions of leadership in corporations, civic organizations, or the many other possible opportunities to lead are not always this neat or this based upon merit. The equation starts to get murky as personal connections, loyalties, and extraneous attributes start to enter the equation for potential leaders. The ethics of this kind of environment are regularly examined and questioned, but their influence is evident in most organizations. There isn’t always much that aspiring leaders can do about it.
In the final analysis, there are many different parts of life as a competitive athlete that prepare us for the challenges of leading organizations when we are finished competing. That said, there are also ways in which elements of sports can not be assumed to be present in that world. Like most of the elements we examine in Competitor Shift, the key to finding a fulfilling path forward becomes finding a focus that is consistent with your core values. By doing so, the sacrifices and the effort become worthwhile, and the achievements all the more rewarding.