Leadership: real lessons to be learnt from athletes!

Article by Anne- Laure Pams, Director Grant Alexander ( French member of InterSearch Worldwide), Leadership Development for FocusRH.

Paris Olympics Games perspective and Roger Federer’s stirring speech, at the Dartmouth College graduation ceremony a few days ago, have prompted us to look again at the analogy between business leaders and top-class sportsmen and women, and to ask ourselves a question that is no longer open to debate: would bosses and leaders benefit from drawing on some practices from the world of competition? In other words, would they benefit from developing the athlete’s mind?

Besides, what is an athlete’s mind? If you ask many people, the vast majority will tell you that it means displaying certain character traits such as strength, a taste for effort, unfailing determination, and ambition… It means having the morale of a conqueror, « the win », « the stamina ».

TURNING VULNERABILITY INTO STRENGTH

But it’s not just that… We must look beyond that if we are not locked into a rigid and mystified conception of power and success. In reality, there is a whole side to it that we too often forget or don’t want to see. While an athlete’s life is geared toward victory, it also includes counter-performances and failures. What makes champions so special is that they have been able to deal with them, to accept them. It’s about being fully aware of oneself and abandoning a delusion of superpower in favour of a humble, in-depth analysis of one’s strengths and weaknesses.

It’s about accepting that the environment is by nature unstable and partly manageable. It’s about finding the resources to adapt to it, to gain perspective and stay focused on your objective. Lifting the veil on this little-known reality opens up a wider field of reflection on what a manager’s performance is and how to achieve it.

To do this, it is essential to get off the beaten track and explore the field of emotions, self-awareness and the personal resources that can be mobilised. It’s a process that requires openness, curiosity and also lucidity! And it’s only when this work is done that, we can turn our vulnerability into an assumed strength.

About the French member of InterSearch Worldwide, Grant Alexander

For over 30 years, Grant Alexander has been a partner in the performance of organisations and their leaders, providing them with comprehensive support for all their skills management and development needs, always with a tailor-made response.

A multi-specialist HR consulting and services group, with 4 activities (Executive Search, Executive Interim, Leadership Development, HR & Organisation Transformation), it operates in all sectors, on all functions (managers/experts /rare profiles), throughout the world. It has several offices in France (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Toulouse), and is an active member of InterSearch, of which it is the exclusive partner in France.

A socially committed player, Grant Alexander is Lucie 26000 certified.

Our mission: “We are committed, every day, to enable organisations and their leaders to build an enthusiastic future by opening up new perspectives and helping them to develop their full potential.”