Flo Laing of Scotland Rugby discusses her work with the Scotland Women’s national team.
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“It’s got to be the World Cup,” says Scotland women’s Lead Physiotherapist.
The competition will be hosted across the border in England and starts in August. Laing says it has been the Scotland team’s “north star” for several years.
During the course of our conversation – the second of three in this Keiser podcast series – we spoke about her work in women’s rugby at a time where the sport is starting to capture the public’s imagination and performance standards are rising faster than ever for the women players who compete [4:00].
Elsewhere, Laing discusses her leadership style, which is very much about putting people at ease [18:00]; she also talks about the most pressing issues in female athlete health [28:40]; as well as the transferable skills she’s learned from her time working for Sport Scotland [12:30].
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The Adelaide Football Club’s General Manager of Player Development & Leadership reflects on his journey with the club.
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“I can’t teach leadership,” he tells the Leaders Performance Podcast. “I can help unlock what’s already in there.”
On that note, he is certain that leaders are not born. “Leadership is 100 per cent made, but it’s made from a very young age.”
Beyond the origins of leadership, Dan spoke to Henry Breckenridge and John Portch about the importance of prioritising others [10:40]. “Great sustainable teams are built in environments where everyone’s looking to help someone else out,” he adds. “When you fill someone else’s bucket, it fills yours.”
Also on the agenda were the importance of humour and enjoyment [22:00]; the argument against ‘refreezing’ culture [48:30]; and the practical steps that help leaders to manage team operations [32:00].
Henry Breckenridge | LinkedIn
John Portch | LinkedIn
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In November, we discussed those elusive leadership skills, the notion of collaborating with your rivals for the greater performance good, and the question of what it takes to deliver an effective mental skills programme.
We definitely saw some of you there but, if you didn’t make it, don’t worry. We were sat in the front row with a notepad and, having deciphered our handwriting, compiled a list of six factors for turning setbacks into springboards. It was one of the main themes across both days.
The summit wasn’t all that was happening at the Leaders Performance Institute during November and we reflect on insights into the fields of leadership, coaching, data and human performance and pose five questions.
Perhaps the answers will provide one or two nuggets to help you with your next project.
Do you have all the skills you need to lead?
Perhaps you’ve heard of the of the Peter Principle. The concept, devised by psychologist Laurence J Peter, states that people tend to be promoted to their ‘level of respective incompetence’. Think of the supreme technician who, upon promotion, finds themselves overwhelmed as a manager tasked for the first time with leading people.
Carole Mundell, the Director of Science at the European Space Agency, told the audience at the Oval that while she viewed herself as a creative and independent scientist, that wasn’t going to cut the mustard in an organisation designed by engineers.
“I’m learning to think like an engineer,” she said. “All of ESA’s structures and processes and how we operate comes from the mind of an engineer… We have a whole quality assurance system where we set our objectives and we say ‘what will we do?’ ‘What did we say we’d do?’ ‘Did we do what we said?’”
Take time to consider the missing element that might make you a better leader.
What is to be done during losing streaks?
David Clancy, a Learning and Development Consultant at the Houston Texans and Director at The Nxt Level Group, wrote that the answer lies in purpose. ‘In elite environments, whether you’re a player, coach, or part of the front office, the pressures and expectations are immense,’ he wrote. ‘But the best leaders, those who guide their teams with purpose, know that long-term success is rooted in meaningful work.
‘This drives individuals to not only execute their tasks but also to find value in how those tasks contribute to the big picture. Leaders who strive to inspire meaningful work allow individuals to not just survive pressure, but thrive under it, empowering them to embrace challenges as part of their career journey.’
Clancy highlighted three principles to cultivate meaningfulness in your teams:
Who are your friends in high performance?
You don’t need us to tell you how competitive things get at a world championships, Olympics or Paralympics, but there are things that transcend rivalry.
One such area is female athlete health, where the UK Sports Institute, US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Australian Institute of Sport and High Performance Sport New Zealand have clubbed together to form the Global Alliance. This enables them to share resources and insight in this one particular field.
“We are all under-resourced, we’re overstretched in terms of the time that we’re wanting to spend in this space,” said Dr Rachel Harris, the Lead of the Female Performance & Health Initiative at the AIS. “We really wanted to try and allow the people that are working in our sporting organisations to be more proactive.”
Her peers are just as effusive. “I think it’s a natural step to build an international community; and we do have them, but they’ve been a bit ad hoc,” said Dr Helen Fulcher, the HPSNZ Athlete Performance Support Lead. The Global Alliance is, as she added, an opportunity to raise standards across female sport. “The focus is not just on individuals having great connections but what can we collectively do better for this group of athletes that we all care about.”
The Alliance has every expectation that its membership will grow in the near future.
How do you solve a problem like innovation?
Professor Fabio Serpiello, the Director of Sport Strategy at Central Queensland University, told attendees at Leaders Virtual Roundtable that the best way to approach innovation is to start by defining your problem.
To that end, he employs a range of models, including David J Snowden and Mary E Boon’s Cynefin Framework.
‘Cynefin’, which is pronounced ‘ku-nev-in’, is a Welsh word that signifies ‘the multiple factors in our environment and our experience that influence us in ways we can never understand,’ as Snowden and Boon wrote in their 2007 Harvard Business Review essay titled ‘A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making’.
The Cynefin framework, they continued, ‘helps leaders determine the prevailing operative context so they can make appropriate choices’.
Source: HBR
Snowden and Boone identified five operative contexts – simple, complicated, complex, chaotic and disordered. Serpiello touched upon each:
Simple contexts are stable and one can observe a clear cause-and-effect relationship (although there is a risk of oversimplification).
Complicated contexts are the world of known unknowns; multiple right answers exist, but they require analysis.
Here, there are unknown unknowns; and cause-and-effect relationships are only apparent in hindsight.
These are domains of no clear cause-and-effect relationships and high turbulence.
Is your mental skills work simple, relevant and applicable?
Mental skills coach Aaron Walsh wanted to understand the perceived gap between value and impact in his field and embarked on a research project.
It furthered his understanding and, as he wrote in an exclusive column for the Leaders Performance Institute, Walsh alighted on three principles for making mental skills work meaningful:
What we learned about turning underperformance into success at the Leaders Sport Performance Summit.
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A rich seam of answers ran through both days of this month’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the Kia Oval in London.
We listened to speakers from various sports organisations discuss their responses to setbacks. Teams including Chelsea, Racing 92, Harlequins and the Sydney Swans laid it all on the table. Several explained how they managed to turn things around.
Stephan Lewies, for example, captained a Quins team to victory over Saracens in October; their 17-10 win ending a miserable run of eight consecutive defeats to their Premiership rivals.
“Coming off a record like that,” said the South African lock, “you often look for answers in the wrong place.” Lewies explained that season after season Quins would change their usual approach when facing Saracens. This season they stuck to their guns and it paid off.
“When the pressure came on in this game, [we turned to] something we’d done for the whole season, for years previously, versus something new in the pressured moment.”
Kudos to Quins, but neither they nor anyone in sport has dealt with the difficulty of landing a probe on Mercury or the conundrum of trying to thaw a microscopic strand of ice on the lens of a space telescope 1.5 million km from Earth.
For Carole Mundell, the Director of Science at the European Space Agency [ESA], such stories represent another day at the office. Crisis after celestial crisis is routinely averted on Mundell’s watch by some of the brightest minds in astrophysics.
Of ESA’s triumphant run-in with the intrusive ice, she said: “Data gives you information. Information gives you knowledge. Knowledge only gives you insight and wisdom for action if you really understand what it’s telling you and how to interpret it with your own experience on top of that.”
Mundell feared impostor syndrome when stepping onto the Oval stage but her words instantly resonated with an audience of coaches and practitioners.
They also lead us nicely back to our original question: how do you turn setbacks into springboards? We bring you six interrelated smart tips from across both days of the summit.
1. Find the right skills to help you in a crisis
How does it feel to be under the cosh in your role? What tools do you lack in those moments? Carole Mundell has allowed herself to be shaped both by the crises she’s confronted and the organisation she leads. Instinctively, she’s a creative scientist, a physicist with the urge to investigate independently. Yet her work at ESA requires her to think like an engineer and commit to the team; these newly acquired skills have proven crucial in moments of crisis.
Carole Mundell
2. Seek key allies above you
Racing 92 were treading water in France’s Top 14 league when they appointed Stuart Lancaster as Director of Rugby. Lancaster, whose tenure began in 2023, was hired to transform their fortunes, but faced considerable obstacles. Language was one, culture another; he also knew he’d be working under his predecessor, Laurent Travers. Nevertheless, Lancaster felt that he was “pushing on an open door” thanks to the quality of his coaching work with England (2011-2015) and, in particular, Leinster (2016-2023).
The big question he asked himself was: should he tiptoe in or smash down the door? As Racing’s revival required more than a cosmetic makeover, he opted for the latter. With the help of his French coaching staff, Lancaster introduced a new working week, a new playbook, and called time on Racing’s long lunch culture. He could disregard those who labelled him an ignorant ‘Anglo-Saxon’ thanks to the relationships he forged with Travers and the Racing board.
Stuart Lancaster
3. Who are your key influencers?
The Sydney Swans had to dust themselves off following their 2022 AFL Grand Final defeat. John Longmire, who this week stepped down as the Swans’ Senior Coach, led them back to the Grand Final again this year. Since leaving London, he has handed the reins to his assistant Dean Cox, who will renew the team’s fight for a first flag since 2012. The factors that propel a team one season will not necessarily apply the next, but Cox is sure to emulate Longmire in learning and applying the lessons from another painful defeat. In dealing with setbacks, Longmire always leaned heavily on the key influencers in his “ecosystem”.
John Longmire
4. Don’t be afraid to let the wrong people walk away
When Chelsea won the Champions League in 2021, the club would not have expected to slump to a 12th-place finish in the Premier League just two years later. Nor would they have predicted the organisation narrowly avoiding oblivion and a subsequent change of ownership. Bryce Cavanagh was hired as Performance Director in the summer of 2023 and, while he has long been considered one of the best in the business, an arduous task awaited him.
He admitted his presence created a sense of risk and vulnerability in some quarters, but he was fair in setting out his stall. Some relished the challenge of staying to help build a fresh performance strategy (a work in progress, he admitted), but others sought roles elsewhere. Cavanagh was willing to let them go.
Bryce Cavanagh
5. Have the difficult conversations quickly
As captain of Harlequins, Stephan Lewies regularly faces difficult conversations. They are of added importance when the chips are down and tempers are frayed. Time and again, as Lewies explained, he has been able to plot a path out of disharmony by being proactive, acting fast and ultimately putting the team first. A leader should also strive to understand multiple points of view without leaping to conclusions.
Stephan Lewies
6. Prioritise your stress and emotional responses
Success and failure both present psychological and emotional challenges. In 2021, the UK Sports Institute introduced its ‘Performance Decompression’ tool to help athletes and support staff transition back to daily life following intense competition periods. The tool consists of four phases: first there’s the post-event ‘hot debrief’ followed by ‘time zero’, which, as the UKSI website explains, focuses on ‘restorative care in a soothing place’; then it’s ‘process the emotion’ and, finally, a ‘performance debrief’.
The tool can be used anywhere. British 1,500m runner Jake Wightman, for example, chose a sofa in a Twickenham café to unpick his underperformance at the Tokyo Olympics. A year later he was world champion and, while there was much more to it, psychologist Sarah Cecil believes the tool helped Wightman to plot his comeback. She and the UKSI’s Head of Performance Psychology, Danielle Adams Norenburg, are also happy to teach their tool to any individual or organisation who may find it useful.
Sarah Cecil
So says Fabio Serpiello of Central Queensland University, who explains that innovation will remain elusive if all the technology does is complicate your problems.
Your answer is likely to be governed by your levels of confidence in a tech modality, which will be influenced by its accuracy and reliability, its ability to help deliver insights, and its applicability to the performance problem at hand.
In the second session of this three-part virtual roundtable series titled ‘How to Approach Innovation’, Professor Fabio Serpiello, the Director of Sport Strategy at Central Queensland University, led a discussion on how coaches and practitioners might employ a decision-making framework to inform how they use technology to innovate.
“I think we’re on a plateau in tech when it comes to innovation,” he told the virtual roundtable. “Technology needs to solve problems for the decision maker. The definition of ‘innovation’ is finding new ways to solve problems. Technology needs to support the decisions you make – if tech is not supporting that, then you have a problem.”
This session explored David J Snowden and Mary E Boon’s Cynefin Framework to help attendees better understand and define both their innovation challenges and the role technology might play in solving them.
Software: the difference-maker
Serpiello contemplated the future and is in no doubt where tech will best aid innovation work. “If you look at hardware or software, there is some cool innovation coming in the hardware space with patches and smart materials,” he said. “But I think the future is in the software.”
He feels that effective software will be defined by its ability to:
The Cynefin Framework
Serpiello spoke of his efforts to find a framework for decision-making and adapting it for tech in the world of sport. He alighted upon the Cynefin Framework.
‘Cynefin’, which is pronounced ‘ku-nev-in’, is a Welsh word that signifies ‘the multiple factors in our environment and our experience that influence us in ways we can never understand,’ as Snowden and Boon wrote in their 2007 Harvard Business Review essay titled ‘A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making’.
The Cynefin framework, they continued, ‘helps leaders determine the prevailing operative context so they can make appropriate choices’.
Source: HBR
Snowden and Boone identified five operative contexts – simple, complicated, complex, chaotic and disordered. Serpiello touched upon each:
Simple
Simple contexts are stable and one can observe a clear cause-and-effect relationship (although there is a risk of oversimplification). “Your job as a leader is to make simple, quick decisions based on categorising the information available to you,” said Serpiello. “The technology that we use in the simple domain should be able to categorise information and communicate it easily.”
Complicated
Complicated contexts are the world of known unknowns; multiple right answers exist, but they require analysis. Serpiello said: “Your job as a leader is to sense, analyse and respond” and “the tech in this space needs to be focused on analysing the environment and then communicating a response”.
In Serpiello’s opinion, training falls between simple and complicated from a decision-making point of view. “The majority of what we do happens in training and it’s where we can control the most variables,” he added.
Complex
Here, there are unknown unknowns; and cause-and-effect relationships are only apparent in hindsight. “Most sport competition is complex,” said Serpiello. “You have relationships between athletes, coaches, the environment, the scorelines etc.”
Here, “your role as a decision maker is to probe the environment, sense, and respond,” he continued. “So probing, as in inserting something into the system to get a reaction, to get an answer – technology should be able to support that.”
Chaotic and disordered
These are domains of no clear cause-and-effect relationships and high turbulence. “In a chaotic environment,” said Serpiello, “you act first, then you sense, then you respond”. This tends to refer to catastrophic events, although if an athlete failed a doping test, for example, the team may be thrown into chaos and disarray.
“If you’re using tech, it needs to be able to support your quick action. So I don’t think it applies often in performance,” he added. “So, in my opinion, performance happens between a simple, complicated, and complex environment.”
Load monitoring: from the complex and complicated to the simple?
Using load monitoring as an example, Serpiello explained how tech use in the complicated or complex domains can lead to confusion and leave decision-makers overwhelmed.
“Most of this technology is sold to us as allowing you to do complex stuff, complex analysis, 100 metrics,” he said, “and you collect all this data, but perhaps it’s not the right way to use it.” Instead of focusing on sensing and analysing, “tracking technology should be used in a simple decision-making framework”.
He emphasised that technology should simplify decision-making rather than complicate it; and perhaps load monitoring technology currently has its best application in categorising the outcome of drills. “Your athlete management system tells you ‘yes, you’ve met this goal’ or ‘no, you haven’t’,” he added.
Serpiello also suggested that once the simple aspects were well-managed, organisations can then explore more complicated or complex analyses. “Is the decision maker at training – the coach – actually making the right decision with their tech? I don’t know.” He explained that he would use the aforementioned frameworks if he were a coach. “I would use an innovation framework first to inform the performance challenges and a decision-making framework to say, ‘OK, do we actually have the right tech for the right decisions?’”
Final thoughts
Can technology help define problems more effectively? By leveraging technology, perhaps a coach or practitioner can identify the necessary expertise and perspectives needed to tackle their challenges.
Sustained innovation may appeal for its perceived lower risks, but it is important to first define the problems you face. With this in mind, should the focus, in fact, shift to better research?
There is immense value in engaging external experts who can provide different viewpoints on interpreting data and findings.
The Cynefin Framework can help people to organise their thoughts around decision-making and technology. It also allows for a better understanding of how to align technology with the specific needs of their environment.
Further reading
‘Innovation’ Means Different Things to Different People – No Wonder Progress Can Be Hard to Track
The Leaders Performance Institute reflects on an afternoon of learning at the Tate Modern.
Clancy, a learning and development consultant with the Houston Texans and Director at The Nxt Level Group, was speaking at the October launch of his new book Essential Skills for Physiotherapists: a Personal and Professional Development Framework at London’s Tate Modern Gallery.
“Maybe this day will make you think a little bit more into that question,” he continued.
The gallery’s East Room, with its panoramic views of London, is a suitable backdrop for some of the brightest minds in sports science and medicine. Each of them knows there’s more to their success than talent.
“When we’re in college, we’re taught the technical, clinical, hard skills, but it’s the soft skills that make a difference,” said Clancy.
Essential Skills is an effort to address that reality, bringing together as it does experts who, in some cases, had never previously met in order to collaborate. “That’s the beauty of the book because it shows we can all get better together.”
The book’s proceeds will go to Children’s Health Ireland [CHI], a cause dear to Clancy and his family given the care they have provided to his four-year-old daughter Grace. “This way I can help people like my daughter and her friends.”
Clancy then introduced his roster of speakers – friends, collaborators and mentors – all of whom had wisdom to share.
Here, the Leaders Performance Institute picks out five thinking points to help you reflect on Clancy’s original question: are you doing what you want to be doing?
1. Define the behaviours that will take you from potential to peak
First onstage was James Kerr, the author of the renowned Legacy, who detailed the lessons leaders can take from New Zealand’s All Blacks.
He explained that the right behaviours are the real “force multiplier”. Good behaviours, whether you’re an athlete, coach or practitioner, will “take you from potential to peak more consistently”.
For the All Blacks, that may mean ‘sweeping the sheds’ but how does that look in your environment? What will enable you to show up more often and apply the right behaviours?
2. Seek to understand, find common ground
Behaviours shouldn’t be separated from your values, but how comfortable are you calling out poor behaviours? Any discomfort you feel may be amplified if you’re a woman trying to progress in a male-dominated environment.
Alicia Tang, the Head of Academy Medicine & Physical Performance at Derby County, recognises this “internal battle” well enough and believes the first step is to speak to the relevant stakeholders. “Seek to understand, find common ground, and then work on the resolution,” she said during the second session.
This view is shared by business consultant Michelle Carney, who said, “If you meet people where they are, you’ll find the right people”. They will not only be colleagues but allies.
“I think it’s definitely empowering when you have those people around you,” says Ashar Magoba, the Lead Academy Physiotherapist at Charlton Athletic, who is also starting to work with the club’s first team. “Perhaps those people can see something in you that you don’t quite yet see yet.”
3. Take a look over the fence
Where do you look for insights and inspiration? Jack McCaffrey, a six-time All-Ireland Senior Football champion with Dublin GAA, enjoys himself in his day job as a paediatric doctor at CHI at Temple Street in Dublin. “I get to hang out with kids all day; and kids are just great,” he told performance coach Ronan Conway during their fireside chat in session three.
In some ways, McCaffrey’s medical career is a sanctuary from his Gaelic football (particularly following a bad result). One could say the players of the strictly amateur Gaelic games in Ireland have a natural separation between the athlete and person that can often be lost in professional sports.
During his intercounty career, McCaffrey’s work also gave him lessons to take back to the Dublin panel, where the training environment was, to all intents and purposes, a professional setting.
“Most of my learning of dealing with high-pressure situations has come from work,” he said. “How to remain cool, how to have feedback loops, how to make sure you’re sticking to algorithms.”
4. Find the information in your trauma
In sport, we continually speak of ‘controlling the controllables’ and yet 95% of human brain activity is subconscious. It is a troubling thought for life coach Mark Whittle, the Founder of the Take Flight performance consultancy, as he told us during the fourth session.
His presentation returned to the question of behaviours, which he said are governed by both our drive towards pleasure and wish to avoid pain. Tied up in that avoidance of pain is fear, which can be born of trauma.
Consider a setback you’ve suffered: how can you learn from that event and respond appropriately? “What can you make it mean?” Whittle asked the audience.
5. Identify your gaps
It takes humility to recognise what it takes to excel in a new role. In the final session, Jeff Konin and Trevor Bates warn of the Peter Principle. The concept, devised by psychologist Laurence J Peter, states that people tend to be promoted to their ‘level of respective incompetence’. Think of the supreme technician who, upon promotion, finds themselves overwhelmed as a manager tasked for the first time with leading people.
For Konin, the important thing is finding your ‘where’ when looking five or ten years into the future. “What skills do you need that you don’t currently possess?” said the Clinical Professor from Florida International University.
Similarly, Bates may be the President & CEO of Mercy College in Ohio, but he has no problem with being the “pupil”. He said: “I might be the one who moves a programme forward, but intellectually I might be a pupil in that space.”
Essential Skills for Physiotherapists: a Personal and Professional Development Framework is available now from Elsevier.
David Clancy and Alexia Sotiropoulou set out strategies for leaders to inspire meaning, fulfilment and belonging in their people.
Purpose is the north star that guides us through adversity, keeps us focused amidst distractions, and fuels our long-term engagement. When leading yourself and others, the power of purpose cannot be understated. It’s about creating an environment where every individual finds meaning in their role, feels fulfilled in their contributions, and experiences a sense of belonging to something greater than themselves.
Purpose-driven leadership is not just about results. It speaks to human connection; when one feels seen and heard. Great leaders cultivate deep relationships with their teams, which comes by empathy, trust, and support. The connection between a true leader and their team hinges on a shared understanding of what motivates everyone on a deeper level. As John C Maxwell puts it, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
It’s more than just retention
Gallup and studies reported in HBR often highlight that employees who find meaning in their work show increased productivity and retention. One well-cited article is ‘Meaning Is More Important than Happiness’ by Emily Esfahani Smith, which explores the impact of meaningful work on wellbeing, productivity and engagement. Deloitte highlighted in their Global Human Capital Trends Report of 2019 how employees who find purpose in their work are more likely to stay with their employer. That makes sense. A great place to work is a great place to work.
As Simon Sinek, leadership expert and author of Start with Why, says: “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” This fundamental concept applies not only to customers but also to team members, colleagues, and leaders. By fostering purpose in yourself and others, you align actions with deeper values, creating a culture where high performance and personal fulfilment coexist.
Meaningfulness: a compass in uncertain times
Meaningfulness isn’t just about liking what you do; it’s about understanding why it matters. In elite environments, whether you’re a player, coach, or part of the front office, the pressures and expectations are immense. The need to win, deliver results, and meet expectations often dominates the narrative. But the best leaders, those who guide their teams with purpose, know that long-term success is rooted in meaningful work. This drives individuals to not only execute their tasks but also to find value in how those tasks contribute to the big picture. Leaders who strive to inspire meaningful work allow individuals to not just survive pressure, but thrive under it, empowering them to embrace challenges as part of their career journey.
Three principles to cultivate meaningfulness:
Fulfilment, fuel for high performance
Fulfilment is about finding personal satisfaction in the work you do. It’s that feeling of deep contentment that comes from using your strengths to their fullest potential and knowing that what you do matters. In high-performance sporting environments, the external pressures can sometimes overshadow personal fulfilment, but when fulfilment is present, individuals feel more locked-in and resilient.
Fulfilment creates a ripple effect throughout the entire organisation. When team members feel fulfilled – filled full if you would like – they bring their best selves to work, inspiring those around them to do the same.
Four ways leaders can foster fulfilment:
Case in point, Dennis Rodman. Here is a prime example of where recognition can be seen, by how Head Coach Phil Jackson managed his Chicago Bulls squad during the 1995-96 season. Jackson often recognised Rodman, not just for his defensive prowess, hustle and rebounding, but for his unique role, style and intensity on the court. By publicly acknowledging Rodman’s contributions, Jackson built Rodman’s confidence and reinforced his core value to the team, despite his unconventional approach. This clear recognition played a critical role in fostering trust, thereby maximising Rodman’s performance. The Bulls had a historic 72-win season.
Belongingness, the glue that binds it all
At its core, belongingness is about feeling valued and accepted by the group. High-performing teams that experience a strong sense of belonging operate on a different level.
One of the guiding principles within the All Blacks is the Māori concept of ‘Whānau,’ which means ‘family’, but it extends beyond immediate relatives to include the team as a whole unit. Players are taught to understand that when they put on the famous black jersey with the silver fern, they are not just playing for themselves, but for their teammates, their country, and the generations of players who came before them.
Belonging. Part of something bigger.
It’s a powerful feeling to know that you are a part of something bigger than yourself, like helping to put someone on the moon.
Four strategies to create a sense of belonging:
Final thoughts
Leading yourself and others with purpose is about much more than reaching performance goals. Before you can lead others, you must first lead yourself. Leading with purpose involves setting common value-based goals, staying focused in the choppy seas of collaboration and motivating yourself and your team to stay on track, with eyes on the prize.
To lead yourself with purpose, you need to define your own personal mission, vision and values.
Start there.
These are your guiding principles to help shape decisions and actions aligned with your purpose. You must also set clear goals for yourself and develop a plan to make them happen. This will take discipline and fortitude. Give it a go, starting today.
As with anything in high performance, you need to find what works for you first. So off you go.
David Clancy is a Learning and Development Consultant at the Houston Texans and Director at The Nxt Level Group. He is also the Editor of Essential Skills for Physiotherapists: A Personal and Professional Development Framework, which is available now from Elsevier.
Alexia Sotiropoulou is a Co-Founder & International Markets Specialist at the The Nxt Level Group. She is also a Public Relations & International Sales Specialist at the Isokinetic Medical Group.
If you would like to speak to David and Alexia, please contact a member of the Leaders Performance Institute team.
