By Richard Young PhD

After years of school drop-offs, assemblies, and reading logs, one word has followed our family like a soundtrack: literacy.

It’s on every classroom wall for a reason: literacy is foundational. It’s the skill that keeps on giving.

In high performance, we need a different kind of literacy — one that helps us lead, perform, and sustain success amid noise, pressure, and constant change.
It’s the ability to navigate complexity with clarity and intent.

That’s what I call performance leadership.

Over eleven Olympic cycles, I’ve seen what separates one-off winners from serial champions. It isn’t more talent, motivation, or resources.

It’s three deeper literacies that repeat medallists — and the systems around them — consistently master. I call them The Three Literacies of Repeat Medal-Winning Systems.  This idea is explored in my book Amplify: The Keys to Performance Leadership.

Beyond the surface

There’s a difference between reaching high performance and sustaining it. The first is an achievement. The second is an art.

Sustained success isn’t about pushing harder or repeating what worked before, it’s about finding and releasing the hidden friction — the small resistances that quietly wear performance down over time. Grit may get you to the summit, but clarity, alignment, and rhythm are what keep you there.

Too often, leaders chase short-term wins or mistake movement for momentum. These distractions drain energy and blur focus. Exceptional leaders rise above by cutting through the noise — focusing on the vital few forces that sustain performance over time. That’s where the Three Literacies come in: the disciplines that keep clarity sharp, alignment strong, and rhythm alive.  Let’s explore each of these.

Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes defining it and five minutes solving it.” Most teams flip that ratio.

1. Problem literacy

Problem literacy isn’t about tackling a high volume of problems, it’s about knowing which problems matter most and gaining alignment around them. It’s the discipline of naming the real issue, not just the visible one.

In medal-winning systems, people don’t confuse activity for clarity. They slow down to diagnose, ask uncomfortable questions, and map the terrain before they march.

I once worked with a cycling team convinced their problem was bike technology. Our analysis revealed the real limiter wasn’t the equipment, it was the decision speed between coaches and mechanics during live races. Once they solved that, medals followed.

Try this:

Before your next big decision, pause and ask: what problem are we really trying to solve?

Then get the people closest to the action to describe it.

If you hear ten different answers, you don’t have problem literacy yet.

2. Preparation literacy – building what matters

Once the right problem is named, preparation literacy ensures you build the systems, habits, and routines that hold under pressure.

A gold medallist once told me, “When I feel pressure, I return to my basics. That’s my anchor.” True preparation is quiet, repetitive, and often invisible — like a rhizome spreading beneath the soil. You don’t see the roots growing, but they’re forming strength, connection, and resilience long before anything breaks the surface. When pressure comes, those roots hold everything together.

When the right problem is identified, the solution becomes leverageable and sustainable.

As a great leader once told me, “Think once and deliver often.” That’s the essence of preparation literacy: finding the root issue and creating a systemic solution that can deliver again and again. It’s not about reacting faster, it’s about building better. The deeper the root, the stronger and more repeatable the performance.

Try this:

Audit your preparation. Ask, “If the pressure doubled tomorrow, would our routines still hold?” Preparation literacy isn’t about doing more—it’s about building deeper. Because when the surface shakes, only what’s rooted endures.

3. Performance literacy – delivering when it matters

Knowing what to do and doing it under pressure are two different skills.

Performance literacy is the capacity to act with clarity when the stakes are high and the conditions unpredictable. It’s the meeting point of preparation and reality where plans are tested, emotions surge, and choices define outcomes.
Champions train for this space. They prepare their systems, minds, and relationships to hold steady when the environment doesn’t. High performers don’t wait for calm. They rehearse in the storm. They build familiarity with chaos, practice decision-making under fatigue, and refine communication when time and pressure close in. Over time, they develop a kind of internal rhythm that holds even as everything around them speeds up.

Performance literacy shows up in the small details — the pause before reacting, the deep breath before deciding, the steady tone in the middle of noise. It’s the mark of someone who has built trust in their process and belief in their preparation.

Try this:

Pressure-proof your moments. Rehearse them. Run “what if” scenarios. Expose yourself and your team to the demands of performance before the real moment arrives. Each deliberate repetition builds readiness, confidence, and flow.

The best don’t rise to the occasion; they return to what they’ve trained for. Performance literacy ensures what you’ve trained for is enough when it matters most.

The Performance Leadership Triad

Together, the three literacies form a Performance Leadership Triad:

• Problem literacy focuses your energy on the right target.
• Preparation literacy builds the foundation to hit it.
• Performance literacy ensures delivery when it counts.

Miss one, and the system wobbles. Solve the wrong problem and effort is wasted. Prepare poorly and pressure exposes it. Neglect execution and planning stays on paper.

Literacy never ends

School teaches reading, writing, and arithmetic. High performance demands Problem, Preparation, and Performance literacy—the hidden grammar of sustained success. Because literacy doesn’t end at school — it evolves. And when you master these three, you don’t just win once; you create a system capable of winning again and again.

In my book Amplify: Performance Leadership, I explore these three literacies in depth, with stories from Olympic campaigns, diagnostic tools, and practical frameworks you can apply immediately.

Richard Young is an internationally renowned performance advisor. He has been involved with 11 Olympics as an athlete, coach, researcher, technologist, and leader working across more than 50 sports and seven countries focused on sustained high performance. He has won international gold medals and coached world champions. He founded international performance programmes including, the Technology & Innovation programmes for Great Britain and New Zealand, and a Performance Knowledge & Learning programme for the New Zealand Olympic, Winter Olympic and Paralympic teams. Across seven Olympic cycles he has researched the differences between medallists and non-medallists, their coaches, support staff, leaders and the system they are in to unlock the keys that separate them from the rest.

By Jack Nayler

In part one of this series, we explored what complex environments are, and some of the hallmarks that define them.

The second part looked further at the implications for this in a sporting organisation, notably that complexity is fractal, exists at different levels, and that each person within the organisation will exert different levels of influence over the performance at any given moment.

This brings us onto this third instalment, where I begin to look at what this means for those in leadership positions.

Leadership in complexity requires you to have the humility to accept the ignorance of your position and the understanding that autocracy won’t work. It is impossible to micro-manage every decision in the fast pace and short turnaround of games in a professional sports season. You will not be present to control every interaction that occurs and you will not possess all of the information available to make every decision.

With the inherent fluctuations that occur in a complex environment, it is incumbent on the leaders to provide a framework within which everyone can operate as effectively as possible, in a transdisciplinary manner.

I believe there are four pillars to this framework, that are characteristics of high-performing environments.

1. A clear direction of travel
2. Solid collective decision-making processes
3. Processes robust to pressure
4. A culture of curiosity and learning

Your role as a leader is to ensure that these are in place so your team operates as effectively as possible.

Below, I will run through the first two on that list. I will tackle the third and fourth pillars in another piece.

1. A clear direction of travel

Previously we spoke about how in a game, the influence over performance grows or diminishes in relation a player’s proximity to the ball, peaking whilst they are in possession. At the complexity scale of the wider organisation, this becomes the person (practitioner) stood in front of the player.

As a leader, whilst you may previously have had boots on the ground, chances are when stepping into a leadership role, your player-facing time has diminished. You are now generally removed by at least one, if not several degrees, from working directly with players.

The challenge you face is that the responsibility for the decisions taken around the athlete(s) is still ultimately yours and, as you rise higher, the difficulty factor of the decisions increases.

As your time with athletes diminishes, so does the amount of knowledge and information you have about them. There should be no way that a head of performance in an organisation has more ready information on an athlete than the therapist who has hands on that athlete daily. The paradox is that the closer you get to the centre of the complex system (the athlete), the more difficult it is to see the whole.

There is an Indian proverb about five blind men who are presented with a different part of an elephant, each perceives that they are touching a different object (e.g. the tail is a rope, the trunk a snake etc) because they have not been presented with the whole. The more reductionist we become in complexity, the narrower our focus, the more we are reducing our bandwidth and leaving ourselves open to larger errors.

Thus, your ability as a leader to frame the nature of the problem, provide an understanding of what the wider landscape looks like and cut through noise with your team is essential. This creates your direction of travel, a clear understanding around what you expect as a leader that frames the decisions made by your team on a daily basis. You may need to do this at larger scales (philosophy setting, season planning, game model development) as well as smaller scales (planning end stage rehab and return to performance, or where to place team meetings in the training week). Whatever the scale, you need to be able to provide a consistent thread of behaviour and values that will underpin how decisions are taken, and you need to do this regularly.

You also need to ensure that the vision you are setting fits the wider organisational goals. If necessary, this can be accompanied by some relevant key performance indicators (KPIs), but caution is advised. The aim of KPIs should be more of an outcome measure than a target in and of themselves. They should be the resultant of good practice, not become the embodiment of it. When numbers become targets, they can become a form of control placed on the complex system and, as per Goodhart’s law (1), can be gamed. A case in point is player availability. If the target is above a certain percentage availability for the team, it can lead to under-reporting by practitioners who do not want to negatively affect the standard by which performance is being assessed.

If the behaviours and values that underpin your vision can be co-created with your team, then the understanding and buy-in from the members of the team will be much greater. This will provide the basis for how your team will operate. This is less about the tacit knowledge in your team or the operational decisions that are being made (as these will be constantly adapting to the changing situation or player) but should include the values and behaviours the team want to exhibit and hold each other to. These are akin to the ‘why’ in Simon Sinek’s famed Golden Circle (2).

A clear vision with underpinning values set by the leader (with their team) creates a north star that will guide the decisions made by the team.

2. Solid collective decision-making processes

Even though cause-and-effect aren’t obvious in complexity and there is a degree of uncertainty in every decision made, we should not become fatalistic about making decisions and leave them to chance. We can absolutely increase the quality of the decisions that we are making.

As a part of the complex system, you are inherent in the decision-making process, but as mentioned above, you often have less information than those you lead.

In a hierarchical command structure, it takes too long to gather all of the relevant information and pass it up the chain of command to make a decision that is then passed back down again. Remember that the more you try to control a complex system, the more you leave yourself open to bigger failures.

David Marquet is a retired US naval captain who illustrates this problem well in his book Turn the Ship Around (3). He describes how he was trained to command one class of submarine and, at the last minute, was switched to another ship of a different class (at the time, the worst-performing ship in the Navy). He decided what the crew needed was licking into shape with training.

On their first voyage, Captain Marquet gave an order that was passed down the chain of command to the sailor whose job it was to enact that order. When the action didn’t happen, Marquet thought he had to gotten to the bottom of the problems that beset the boat. He marched over to the sailor demanding an explanation, and the sailor calmly informed him that what he had ordered wasn’t possible on this class of submarine. Marquet didn’t know what he didn’t know.

His experience speaks to another truism of complex environments: there is always a gap between expectation and reality, it will never play out exactly as you think. Crucially, Marquet stepped into this gap; he learned from the experience and changed the command structure from top-down order to bottom-up intention. Sailors had to declare to their superior that they intended to carry out an action, and this was then either approved or denied. The boat went from worst to best-performing ship in the US Navy the following year.

General Stanley McChrystal recognised a similar challenge whilst commanding US forces during the Iraq War in 2003 (4). US forces were picking up suspected insurgents off the streets and taking them back to base for interrogation. The information gathered was assessed by analysts before leaders made decisions and then issued orders back down the chain of command. The trouble being that by the time it took to do this, the message had been passed around the insurgents’ network, which immediately went to ground.  McChrystal recognised the complexity of the situation and pushed decision making closer to the centre of the action on the front line. He trained troops to be able to question insurgents on the street and empowered them to act on what they found. This is credited as a key tactical change that helped to swing the tide of the insurgency back in the favour of the US forces.

Accepting then that in complex environments, we need to empower those in our team to make to make decisions, the most obvious way to improve decision making is to hire the best skillsets available to you. The art comes in blending these skillsets and setting them up to make good decisions.

As each person in the staff is their own complex mix of upbringing, education, skillset and experience, all may have a different viewpoint on the same set of information. Played correctly however, this is a value-add and is a key part of why diversity within your team is beneficial, each person will see things others cannot (5). Leading means you need to be able to synthesise what others are seeing and hearing and bring that together in a coherent decision.

There can be a temptation (which I have fallen for) to think you need to gather as many people/opinions together as possible when making decisions, allowing everyone in the team the opportunity to contribute. In fact, there is a limit beyond which the quality of decision-making drops. As the number of people involved in the process increases, there can be a reduction in the trust that the group members have in each other. This reduces psychological safety, and you lose agility.

For the kind of agile decision making necessary in and around a heavy fixture schedule, quality discourse will begin to reduce with as little as 5 people involved in the decision (6). A key task for the leader therefore is to figure out what the key decisions are that need to be made, and then set their team up accordingly, with the appropriate individuals correctly assigned.

Once you have your best people in place to make decisions, the next step is to ensure they are set up for success. Whilst we want people to bring all of their experience to bear on the decisions being made, we also need these to be informed by the available evidence. We should be collecting data and turning this into information (visualising it) so that the team members can then begin to process the evidence and reflect on it in relation to their existing knowledge. (I will describe this process  in more detail in part four).

Leaders need to check and challenge the decision-making process effectively. They should ensure that those involved have all had the chance to contribute, check that the team have used the available evidence and provide the greater context held, if appropriate.

Also crucial is to break an impasse when it occurs, you hold the casting vote. As the leader, the more difficult decisions will be yours to make when they are beyond the scope of your team (who can help advise). You may well be in your position due to your greater level of experience. Your team will expect you to bring all this to bear when influencing the final decision that is being made. Whilst not everyone will agree with the final decision, ensuring the relevant people have had the chance to contribute and then explaining your decision will help to unite everyone behind a course of action.

Disagreeing and committing is a key skill for high performing teams, particularly when the stakes are high.

Future thinking

• How are you able to cut through the noise to create clarity for your team in a complex environment?
• Are you able to remain consistent in your convictions?
• How able are you to let go of decisions and instead empower your team to make better ones?
• What information do you possess as a leader that you can share with your team to help inform their decisions making?

In the fourth and final part, I shall explore the remaining pillars: processes robust to pressure and a culture of curiosity and learning.

References

1. Goodhart, C.A.E., 1975. Monetary Relationships: A View from Threadneedle Street. In: Reserve Bank of Australia, Papers in Monetary Economics, Volume I. Sydney: Reserve Bank of Australia.
2. Sinek, S., 2009. Start With Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. London: Penguin.
3. Marquet, L. , 2012. Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders. New York: Portfolio Penguin.
4. McChrystal, S.A., Silverman, D., Collins, T. & Fussell, C., 2015. Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World. London: Portfolio Penguin
5. Syed, M., 2019. Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking. London: John Murray.
6. Camilleri, T., Rockey, S. & Dunbar, R., 2023. The Social Brain: The psychology of successful groups. London: Cornerstone Press.

By John Portch

“I knew it was a mountain,” said Johann van Graan, “but I didn’t know it was Everest.”

The South African, then with Munster, had agreed to become the Head Coach at struggling Bath in December 2021.

A few days later, he switched on the TV only to see Bath go 0-28 down after just 25 minutes of their Champions Cup tie with Leinster.

It prompted the Everest comment, as Van Graan told an audience at the 2025 Leaders Sport Performance Summit at the Kia Oval in London.

He eventually took the reins at Bath’s Recreation Ground in July 2022 and, over the next three years, led one of the most remarkable transformations in English rugby history.

In May, Bath lifted the European Challenge Cup, Premiership and Premiership Rugby Cup.

The tale of Van Graan’s ‘Rec Revolution’ set the tone for an international gathering of over 300 high-performance leaders to share knowledge, best practice and inspiration.

The agenda took its lead from our Trend Report in which more than 200 performance leaders from almost 40 sports told us how they expect the industry to develop in the years ahead.

Five trends stood out:

1. Alignment is now a competitive advantage
2. Leaders increasingly seek to empower and collaborate
3. Teams value resourcefulness over resources
4. Psychology will be a game-changer
5. Teams are engaging in a tech arms race

Van Graan is at the vanguard of several of these trends and, across both days, the Leaders Performance Institute delivered a range of guest speakers from organisations including England Rugby, the Royal Air Force, and the Haas F1 team to speak to each trend.

The following is a snapshot of what they said.

1. Alignment is now a competitive advantage

For evidence of the stock placed in being aligned, look no further than Bath’s transformation from a rabble to the best team in England in just three years.

Van Graan said: “I put up a picture of Twickenham on the very first day. I said ‘I can’t tell you how we’re going to get there, but we will get there.”

He wanted his playing group, coaches and other performance staff to coalesce around three values: connection, clarity and commitment. The trick was then bringing those to life.

“One of the things that we underestimate is what alignment really looks like. We can never communicate enough. Do we really let people know what standards actually look like, what we actually are, what are we actually going to attack?”

Johann van Graan

Bath Head Coach Johann van Graan in conversation with host Iain Brunnschweiler.

2. Leaders increasingly seek to empower and collaborate

John Mitchell offered another inspiring story from the world of rugby union.

In 2023, when he signed on as Head Coach of the England women’s national team, it was Mitchell’s first time coaching a women’s team.

The Red Roses had a genuine shot at winning the Women’s Rugby World Cup on home soil in 2025, but a talented team needed an experienced guiding hand.

The team delivered, with Mitchell receiving plaudits for his role as England secured their first world title in 11 years.

Two months on from that achievement, the audience found Mitchell (affectionately known to his peers as ‘Mitch’) in typically reflective mood alongside the recently retired Emily Scarratt, who was part of the Red Roses’ winning squad.

Sport (and rugby union) grows ever more complex and yet, after 30 years, Mitchell feels he has never been better equipped to coach.

“You don’t have the full scope,” he says of his early coaching days in the mid-90s. “You have strengths early on that are recognised but then also you sometimes don’t know the whole of yourself. So you take the time to understand the whole of yourself.”

He came to a critical understanding. “When I was younger, I was going to try and be right. Maybe I was trying to prove myself as a coach.”

“You don’t have to be absolute or right when making decisions. Just use your people. Listen to your people. They’ll give you information; and probably enough information – you don’t need it all – to be able to make decisions.”

John Mitchell

England Red Roses Head Coach John Mitchell shakes hands with former England fullback Emily Scarratt at the conclusion of their panel session.

Emma Keith built on the theme of empowerment in her presentation on officer training in the Royal Air Force.

“Cultures and environments can only grow when everybody takes accountability,” said the Commandant of the RAF’s Tedder Academy of Leadership. Keith, a group captain, is the first female to run RAF officer training.

“The standard you walk past is the standard that you accept. That can be poor infrastructure that you don’t report; it could be poor behaviour. If you walk past it, you’re saying it’s okay. And that’s a slow rot from within.”

Emma Keith

Group Captain Emma Keith talks to UK Sport’s Alex Stacey following her presentation on officer training in the Royal Air Force.

3. Teams are prioritising resourcefulness over resources

As Team Principal of MoneyGram Haas F1, Ayao Komatsu knows as well as anyone that his team is competing with better resourced and more illustrious teams.

The team has 375 staff members, which may sound like a lot, but it pales in comparison to the likes of Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren.

“If we cannot work together, if you’re not supporting each other, if you’re not aligned, we’ve got zero chance against organisations minimum three times our size,” said Komatsu, who had just flown in from the Brazilian Grand Prix in São Paulo where Haas’ Oliver Bearman achieved a creditable top-six finish the weekend before the summit.

“I know we have good people. It’s a matter of putting it together, giving them clear direction, and an organisational structure that promotes – forces – communication.”

Ayao Komatsu

Ayao Komatsu, the Team Principal of Haas F1, shares insights into life in the pitlane.

Similarly, albeit in vastly different circumstances, the Red Cross must make the most of its limited resources when emergencies strike.

Chris Davies, the Director of Crisis Response and Community Resilience at The British Red Cross, cited his team’s core operational process:

“First off, ensure that you’re not over-promising and under-delivering. So you know what resource you have and work with key partners to make sure that you know which resources are available to you so that you get that embedded into the planning; and then we’re really clear on the capabilities that we have. It’s the basic forms of: what capabilities do you have? What can you deploy and when? What’s your deployment times?”

Chris Davies

Chris Davies of the British Red Cross in full presentation mode.

4. Psychology will be a game-changer

The mental and behavioural side of performance was an ever-present topic on both days of the summit. Our guests discussed several elements:

The importance of individual expression and acceptance

“People need to be themselves. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what language you speak, the colour of your skin – everybody’s mum and dad loves them.”

Johann van Graan

Belonging as a contributor to wellbeing (and performance)

“There is potentially 40 women in a group and they’re all going to be quite different and they’re going to need something different, but nonetheless, they’re all as important as each other and need to be valued in the same way.”

Emily Scarratt

Psychological safety

“If you’re afraid of failure, nobody’s going to move. So you’ve got to give them a clear message that, ‘come on’, you’ve got to almost take yourself out of your comfort zone every day. If you haven’t taken yourself out of your comfort zone once a day, actually, I don’t think you’ve done your job.”

Ayao Komatsu

5. Teams are engaging in a tech arms race

Professor Tom Crick spoke in his capacity as Chief Scientific Adviser at the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

He presented on the growth of AI and continually stressed how important it is to keep “the human in the loop” regardless of whatever advances are coming.

To this end he offered Leaders Performance Institute members a series of recommendations.

You must be able to explain why you are using an AI tool…

“You can’t just say ‘the computer says so.’ There has to be some understanding and explainability, and there has to be trust.”

An AI tool should not replace your people…

“AI should not erode or disempower or remove agency for people within your domain. It should augment human capability, not replace it,” said Crick. He added: “It is about co-design, co-decisions and co-evolution as we go forwards – keeping humans embedded in the process.”

Don’t assume your AI tool is right…

“Don’t automatically trust the system. Always ask: is that the right data? Does that feel right? Can we verify and validate it another way?”

Tom Crick, the Chief Scientific Adviser at the UK Government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport, answers questions from Leaders Performance Institute members.

Next stop for the Leaders Performance Institute

Leaders Meet: Australia

By Dr Benjamin Kelly

The 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black provided a masterclass in how behavioural psychology determines team performance outcomes.

Whilst traditional analytics focused on individual statistics and course fit, the tournament results validated what behavioural economics could have predicted: personality compatibility matters more than raw talent in team formats.

As Europe secured a commanding 15-13 victory, several US pairings failed spectacularly despite strong individual credentials. These failures weren’t random—they were predictable through behavioural analysis. Equally important, Europe’s successful pairings demonstrated the power of complementary psychological profiles. Here’s how the science of decision-making under pressure explains both the failures and the successes.

Prospect Theory in action

Before examining specific pairings, it’s necessary to understand Prospect Theory, the Nobel Prize-winning framework developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. The theory reveals that people feel losses approximately twice as intensely as equivalent gains, evaluate outcomes relative to expectations rather than in absolute terms, and shift their risk-taking behaviour depending on whether they’re protecting a lead (becoming conservative) or trying to recover from a deficit (becoming aggressive). Understanding these principles allows us to predict when players will make poor decisions, even when they’re emotionally calm and technically skilled.

The gold standard: Seve Ballesteros and José María Olazábal

The most legendary Ryder Cup partnership in history provides the perfect template for behavioural compatibility. Playing together 15 times between 1987 and 1993, Seve and Ollie won 11 points with a record of 11-2-2—the most successful pairing in Ryder Cup history.

Why they worked:

• Complementary leadership: Ballesteros (dominant/leader) + Olazábal (supportive/executor)
• Complementary pressure responses: Ballesteros (aggressive/risk-seeking) + Olazábal (steady/consistent)
• Complementary energy: Ballesteros (extrovert/generator) + Olazábal (introvert/stabiliser)
• Clear role definition: Ballesteros told Olazábal, “José, just play your golf and I will take care of the rest”

Ballesteros’ aggressive, risk-seeking approach was balanced by Olazábal’s steady precision. Different styles, unified purpose, perfect synergy.

At the 2025 Ryder Cup, Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood demonstrated the same principles, going 4-0 in their matches. McIlroy’s aggressive, expressive leadership paired perfectly with Fleetwood’s steady, supportive presence. It was a modern validation of the Ballesteros/Olazábal template.

The English-Morikawa disaster

The most glaring failure at the 2025 Ryder Cup was the Harris English and Collin Morikawa pairing, which DataGolf retrospectively ranked as the worst possible combination (132nd out of 132 pairings for Team USA).

They lost 5&4 to McIlroy/Fleetwood on Friday and lost 3&2 to the same pair on Saturday.

Behavioural analysis tells us that both players share problematic psychological profiles for team play.

These include:

• Introverted processors: Neither naturally communicates or generates energy
• Similar pressure responses: Both become conservative when stakes increase
• Analytical personalities: Both overthink rather than trust instincts
• Internal focus: Neither provides external motivation for their partner
• No leadership dynamic: Both are supportive personalities with no natural leader

When facing the aggressive, crowd-energised McIlroy/Fleetwood duo, they had no mechanism to generate counter-momentum or break negative cycles. Their conservative tendencies amplified each other, creating a downward spiral that traditional coaching couldn’t address.

The contrast with Ballesteros/Olazábal is stark: Where Ballesteros told Olazábal “I will take care of the rest,” English and Morikawa had no such clarity. Both waited for the other to lead.

Scheffler’s team format struggles: when strengths become weaknesses

Perhaps more surprising was Scottie Scheffler’s continued struggles in team formats. Despite being the world’s most dominant individual player, his Ryder Cup record tells a different story: 2-4-3 overall, 0-3 in foursomes.

The behavioural explanation is that Scheffler’s individual strengths become liabilities in team play.

More specifically:

• Control orientation: His need for complete control conflicts with shared decision-making
• Perfectionist mindset: Partner mistakes trigger frustration and tension
• Internal processing: His quiet confidence doesn’t translate to team energy
• Self-reliance: Dependency on partners creates anxiety rather than support

The same psychological traits that make him unbeatable individually (complete control, perfectionism, internal focus) become obstacles when success depends on partnership dynamics. His pairing with Russell Henley (both introverts, both analytical, no clear leadership dynamic) lost 5&3 to Jon Rahm and Sepp Straka, the match effectively over after the front nine.

These Ryder Cup results offer crucial insights for organisational team building:

1. Complementarity over similarity

Traditional thinking suggests pairing similar personalities for harmony. Behavioural economics shows the opposite: complementary traits create stronger partnerships. Successful teams need energy generators AND steady influences, communicators AND processors, leaders AND supporters.

Evidence: Ballesteros/Olazábal (complementary) = 11-2-2. English/Morikawa (similar) = 0-2.

2. Context changes everything

Individual excellence doesn’t guarantee team success. The psychological skills required for individual performance (self-reliance, internal focus, personal control) can become liabilities in collaborative environments. Leaders must assess team readiness separately from individual capability.

Evidence: Scheffler is world No1 individually but 2-4-3 in Ryder Cup team play.

3. Role clarity is essential

Every successful partnership has clear role definition: who leads, who supports, who generates energy, who provides stability. Without this clarity, decision-making becomes paralysed.

Evidence: Ballesteros told Olazábal “I will take care of the rest”—instant clarity. English/Morikawa had no such definition.

4. Pressure responses are predictable

How individuals respond to pressure in team settings follows predictable patterns. Some become more conservative (loss aversion), others more aggressive (risk-seeking), some internalise stress, others externalise it. Understanding these patterns allows for better team composition and intervention strategies.

The Prospect Theory twist

Interestingly, as the US fell further behind, Prospect Theory predicted they would become more risk-seeking (people take more risks when in the domain of losses). This psychological shift actually improved some performances in singles play, where individual risk-taking could be an advantage rather than a team liability.

Practical applications for leaders

Team formation:

• Assess personality compatibility, not just skill compatibility
• Ensure complementary rather than similar psychological profiles
• Define clear roles: who leads, who supports, who generates energy, who provides stability
• Consider context-specific team requirements

Performance optimisation:

• Recognise when individual strengths become team weaknesses
• Build relationships before high-pressure situations
• Develop context-specific training programmes
• Monitor team dynamics for early warning signs

Crisis management:

• Understand how teams respond differently to pressure than individuals
• Prepare intervention strategies for different psychological scenarios
• Use behavioural insights to predict and prevent failures
• Apply Prospect Theory to understand risk-taking shifts under pressure

Conclusion

The 2025 Ryder Cup demonstrated that in high-stakes team environments, behavioural compatibility often trumps individual talent. Whilst the US had superior individual players on paper, Europe’s better understanding of team psychology—whether intentional or intuitive—proved decisive.

The evidence is compelling: Ballesteros/Olazábal’s 11-2-2 record and McIlroy/Fleetwood’s 4-0 performance demonstrate the power of complementary psychological profiles. Conversely, English/Morikawa’s 0-2 disaster and Scheffler’s 2-4-3 record show the cost of ignoring behavioural compatibility.

For leaders in any field, the lesson is clear: team performance is not simply the sum of individual capabilities. It’s the product of psychological compatibility, complementary strengths, behavioural synergy under pressure, and clear role definition. Understanding these dynamics isn’t just useful, it’s essential for consistent high performance in team-based environments.

The most successful organisations will be those that apply behavioural economics principles to team formation, recognising that the science of human decision-making under pressure is as important as technical skill in determining outcomes.

Dr Benjamin Kelly is the Head of Behavioural Economics & Social Impact at Kavedon Kapital. If you would like to speak to Benjamin about his work, please contact a member of the Leaders Performance Institute team.

What to read next

What Behavioural Finance Teaches us about (Bad) Decision Making in Golf

By Dr Benjamin Kelly

In professional golf, where margins are razor-thin and pressure is immense, success hinges not just on physical prowess but on decision-making under duress.

While technical skill and conditioning are paramount, behavioural biases frequently derail even the most talented players. For leaders in sports, understanding these cognitive shortcuts and emotional responses is crucial for optimising athlete performance, coaching strategies, and mental resilience.

I believe that golf, much like financial markets, is fertile ground for behavioural finance – a field integrating psychology and economics to explain irrational decisions. While behavioural finance has profoundly reshaped our understanding of investment behaviour, its application to sports decision-making, particularly in golf, remains remarkably underexplored. This is a significant oversight, as the very same biases impacting trading decisions equally affect decision-making on the golf course.

By examining cognitive shortcuts and emotional responses that derail golfers, we uncover profound lessons applicable to high-pressure environments across sports and business.

My work with investors has consistently demonstrated that reducing ‘bad decisions’ incrementally improves investment returns. This same principle applies directly to golf: eliminating poor choices on the course directly translates to saving shots and enhancing performance.

Overcoming behavioural biases is notoriously difficult; our innate cognitive architecture makes us highly susceptible. Therefore, the optimal path to mitigation is not to fight the bias directly, but to create a step in the process that prevents us from succumbing to it. In trading, a simple yet powerful example is the stop-loss order – a pre-defined instruction to exit a position if it falls to a certain price, removing emotional discretion from a critical decision.

This methodology, involving structured interventions, is evolving for golfers of all abilities.

Below, I illustrate these points with compelling examples, including Robert MacIntyre’s dramatic final round at the 2025 BMW Championship, and propose actionable strategies for correction.

1. The pain of losing: loss aversion and the ‘choke’ phenomenon

Loss aversion describes our innate tendency to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring equivalent gains; the psychological pain of a loss is often twice as powerful as the pleasure of a gain. In golf, this bias is a primary contributor to the dreaded ‘choke’ phenomenon, particularly when a player holds a significant lead. The shift from playing to win to playing not to lose is a classic manifestation. It leads to tentative play and costly errors.

Consider the ‘final day phenomenon’ in golf, where approximately two-thirds of leading players fail to convert their lead into a win on the final day of a tournament. This represents a conversion rate of roughly 33%. My work with investors has consistently shown that even a modest improvement in decision-making, leading to an increase in success rates from 33% to 45%, can yield material benefits. For a professional golfer, this translates directly into more career victories and significant financial gains. For investors, it means incrementally improved returns and enhanced portfolio performance. This isn’t a sudden decline in skill; it’s a psychological battle. A player leading a tournament, especially on the back nine, often shifts from an aggressive, winning mindset to a conservative, loss-averse one. Instead of continuing the attacking golf that built their lead, they focus on not making mistakes, which leads to tentative swings, reduced pace, and increased unforced errors. The fear of losing the lead becomes more potent than the desire to win. It paralyses their natural game.

Robert MacIntyre at the 2025 BMW Championship provides a vivid illustration. MacIntyre entered the final round with a commanding four-shot lead, having played exceptional golf through the first three rounds (carding 62, 64 and 68 for an average of 64.67 shots). However, in the final round, under immense pressure and with a significant lead to protect, he shot a 73 – eight shots worse than his average for the preceding rounds. This stark difference, which ultimately saw him lose the tournament to Scottie Scheffler, is a textbook example of loss aversion in action. The desire to protect the lead likely led to a more cautious, less assertive approach, resulting in a performance significantly below his demonstrated capability. His post-round comments when he expressed a desire to “smash up my golf clubs,” underscored the emotional toll of such a collapse, which was rooted in the psychological pain of losing what felt like an assured victory.

Correction strategy: process-oriented thinking and positive aggression

Mitigating loss aversion requires a conscious shift from outcome-oriented to process-oriented thinking. Golfers should:

• Concentrate solely on the mechanics and execution of the current shot. Treat each as an independent event rather than dwelling on the score or the implications of the outcome.
• Employ positive affirmations and visualise successful execution. This can help to counteract negative self-talk.
• Recognise that in situations where a conservative play is tempting but suboptimal (e.g., a short putt on a downhill slope), pre-committing to a firm, aggressive stroke can prevent the tentative actions often born of fear. For MacIntyre, a pre-defined strategy to maintain his aggressive, attacking style, regardless of his lead, might have yielded a different outcome.

My methodology, applied to investment, focuses on establishing clear, unemotional exit strategies to prevent such value traps, which directly improves returns by eliminating these ‘bad decisions’.

A victorious Scottie Scheffler shakes hands with Robert MacIntyre at the BMW Championship 2025 at Caves Valley Golf Club. (Photo: Kevin C Cox/Getty Images)

This translates to a pre-shot checklist that includes a deliberate assessment of risk vs reward. This ensures the chosen shot aligns with a pre-determined strategy rather than emotional impulse.

2. The illusion of control: overconfidence on the green

Overconfidence bias is the tendency to overestimate one’s abilities, knowledge, and the accuracy of one’s predictions. In golf, this often manifests as the infamous “hero shot” syndrome. Picture a golfer, slightly out of position after a wayward drive, facing a daunting carry over water or a dense thicket of trees to reach the green. A more prudent strategy might involve laying up, accepting a bogey or par. However, the overconfident golfer, convinced of their exceptional skill or believing this is their moment of glory, attempts the low-percentage, high-risk shot. The result is often disastrous: a ball splashed into the water, lost in the woods, or a double bogey that unravels a promising round.

Three-time major champion Pádraig Harrington has openly confessed that overconfidence cost him dearly at the 2025 Senior PGA Championship, particularly on a crucial 15th hole. Despite his vast experience, he felt his confidence and arrogance led him to an ill-advised approach shot, costing him a crucial hole. This mirrors countless amateur golfers who, after a few good shots, attempt to carry a 200-yard water hazard with a 3-wood, only to find their ball sinking to the bottom, convinced their recent success grants them an infallible touch. The allure of the ‘hero shot’ often blinds players to the higher probability of failure, driven by an inflated sense of their current capability.

Correction strategy: objective risk assessment and pre-shot routines

To counteract overconfidence, golfers must:

• Cultivate a rigorous pre-shot routine and an objective risk assessment process.
• Have a standardised sequence of actions before every shot – assessing the lie, wind, and distance; visualising the desired outcome; taking a practise swing; and committing to a target. This acts as a mental anchor, grounding the player in the present and preventing impulsive decisions.
• Objectively evaluate the probability of success versus the cost of failure, using data rather than gut feeling, can guide players towards higher-percentage shots, even if they appear less heroic.

My investor checklists include a mandatory step for a ‘devil’s advocate’ review of high-conviction trades, forcing a re-evaluation of assumptions. This translates to a ‘reality check’ step in their pre-shot routine, where they explicitly consider the worst-case scenario and whether the reward truly justifies the risk. This step prevents the overconfident ‘hero shot’.

Pádraig Harrington at the 2025 BMW PGA Championship. (Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

3. Seeing what we want to see: confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses. On the golf course, this can lead to flawed self-assessment and persistent errors.

A golfer might believe their slice is due to an ‘outside-in’ swing path, and subsequently only notice instances where their swing appears to confirm this, ignoring other potential causes like an open clubface. This selective attention prevents them from accurately diagnosing and correcting the root cause of their swing fault. Similarly, a player might attribute a good shot to their skill and a bad shot to external factors (a bad bounce, a gust of wind), reinforcing a biased self-perception that hinders genuine improvement.

Correction strategy: objective data and external feedback

To address confirmation bias, golfers should:

• Actively seek disconfirming evidence and diverse perspectives.
• Use shot-tracking technology (e.g., Trackman, Shot Scope) as it provides objective data on performance, revealing patterns and weaknesses that subjective perception might overlook or rationalise away.
• Engage in open dialogue with a caddy or coach, actively soliciting their unbiased opinion on club selection, strategy, or swing mechanics, can challenge pre-conceived notions and lead to more accurate self-assessment.
• Conduct a disciplined post-shot review, where the outcome is analysed objectively without immediate attribution. This is also vital.

My investor checklists mandate seeking out and documenting opposing viewpoints before making a significant investment.

This means a ‘feedback loop’ step where they actively solicit input from their caddy or playing partners on their swing or strategy, or review objective data from launch monitors, rather than relying solely on their internal, potentially biased, assessment.

4. The power of first impressions: anchoring

Anchoring bias occurs when individuals rely too heavily on an initial piece of information (the “anchor”) when making decisions, even if that information is irrelevant. In golf, this can lead to rigid decision-making that fails to adapt to changing conditions.

A common scenario involves a golfer fixating on the yardage provided by a sprinkler head or a course guide at the start of a hole. This initial yardage becomes an anchor, making it difficult to adjust for dynamic factors like wind changes, elevation shifts, or a different pin position that emerges during the round. A player might stubbornly stick to a club choice based on the initial anchor, even when conditions clearly dictate a different approach, leading to shots that are consistently long or short.

Correction strategy: dynamic assessment and multiple data points

Counteracting anchoring requires:

• Dynamic assessment and the consideration of multiple data points.
• Golfers should continuously reassess conditions before each shot, rather than relying solely on initial perceptions.
• This means actively checking wind direction and strength, re-evaluating pin positions, and considering the exact lie of the ball. Instead of just the yardage from the sprinkler head, factors like temperature, humidity, and recent performance with a particular club should inform the decision.
• Consciously hitting a “reset” button after a previous shot or hole, preventing that experience from anchoring subsequent decisions, is also crucial.

My investor checklists include a mandatory ‘re-anchor’ step, where all previous price points are deliberately ignored, and decisions are made solely on current fundamentals and future projections.

For golfers, this translates to a ‘situational awareness’ step in their routine, where they consciously disregard previous hole outcomes or initial yardage markers, and instead focus on a fresh, comprehensive assessment of all current variables before committing to a shot.

Robert MacIntyre at the 2025 BMW PGA Championship. (Photo: Jasper Wax/Getty Images)

Conclusion: cultivating mental discipline for peak performance

Behavioural biases are an inherent part of human cognition, but their impact on the golf course need not be detrimental.

By understanding how overconfidence, loss aversion, confirmation bias, and anchoring manifest, and by implementing structured strategies to counteract them, golfers can significantly enhance their decision-making capabilities. The journey to mastering the mental game of golf is one of continuous self-awareness, discipline, and a commitment to process over outcome.

Just as my work helps investors reduce the incidence of “bad decisions” to incrementally improve returns, applying these behavioural finance principles to golf can directly lead to saving shots and elevating performance. The critical insight is that overcoming biases is extremely difficult; our innate cognitive architecture makes us highly susceptible.

Therefore, the optimal path to mitigation is not to fight the bias directly, but to create a step in the process that prevents us from succumbing to it. This methodology, evolving from investment to the golf course, empowers athletes of all abilities to make optimal choices when it matters most.

For sports leaders, fostering an environment that encourages objective self-assessment, embraces data-driven insights, and champions structured routines will be key to developing athletes who not only possess exceptional physical talent but also the mental fortitude to make optimal decisions when it matters most.

This approach not only leads to more consistent performance but also a deeper, more rational engagement with the beautiful, challenging game of golf.

Dr Benjamin Kelly advises investors and professional athletes on decision making strategies in high stakes environments. If you would like to speak to Benjamin about his work, please contact a member of the Leaders Performance Institute team.

Main Image: Getty Images / Mark Thompson

By Peter Hodgkinson

I am not a fan of Teams or Zoom.

Not only is it difficult to fully see someone’s body language, it also makes it near impossible to see a leaking water pipe at the front of an engine!

In my opinion, you need to be present in a high-performance environment.

I served as Head of Build at Mercedes between 2011 and 2019, an era when we won five driver’s and five constructor’s world championships. It was a period of unprecedented success for the team and for at least part of that time I worked out of a small, tired office in the middle of the team’s factory.

It was a terrible space. It had no natural light, the AC was incredibly bad, and the ceiling tiles were water-stained. Admittedly, I couldn’t see those tiles – or the worn-out carpet, come to think of it – as easily at 7:30am when six or seven people turned up for work and squeezed into a room that was more suitable for four.

I wasn’t sad when that office was finally knocked down as part of a factory refurbishment, but it had been a home away from home. For 20 years I’d spent more time there than I did at home.

Peter Hodgkinson holds the Formula 1 Drivers’ and Constructors’ World Championship trophies in his ‘dreary’ former office at Mercedes HQ in Brackley, Northamptonshire.

This story (at least my schedule, if not the dreary office) probably sounds familiar to many of you. I was routinely on the road at 5:15am and did not leave until 6:30pm most evenings. Of course, I left my phone on just in case.

Such scenarios in high-performance are not going to change any time soon, but there are several things that you can do as a leader to protect yourself and your team from excessive workloads while still delivering the required work.

There are sure to be other things, but these five considerations make a good starting point.

1. Make the time to lead and be seen by your team – this is gold dust

I believe it was important to be seen and to say at least ‘good morning’ to as many of my team as possible. I wanted them to feel that I cared for them and I was interested in what they were working on and the issues that they faced; and it was another opportunity for information gathering.

When we were in the build period or working on a big update, I would try and get to work in time to talk to the nightshift in Build, Compbond, Inspection etc to get an understanding of the current status and get a head start thinking about what I had learnt. This floor walking – asking questions, providing challenge, learning about the current status and building relationships – as I said, I don’t think you can do this as effectively on Teams or Zoom.

2. Manage your workload so you have sufficient capacity to be able to lead in difficult moments

I’ve touched upon this before. I never tried to plan more than 30 percent of my day. Most days, meetings were added into my calendar which I needed to attend and, if I had a big gap, I would try and block it out for my work.

We think of work as writing plans, answering emails, attending meetings, doing things, etc but floor walking and talking to people is just as important and is part of the job. It might not feel like work as you have nothing physically to show for it, but it is so important as you are building relationships with your team which is an essential part of the trust equation.

As a leader, you cannot be chained to your desk doing work, looking at your feet and never lifting your head to talk to your team.

3. Think about achievement

Manage your job list by focusing on getting things done. But don’t just keep adding to the job list. Create movement.

Trying to have 70 percent of my day unplanned also meant that I had a pretty good chance of achieving the 30 percent that I did have planned, so I felt like I got stuff done and when I went home, I felt that I had achieved something.

This is important. We all like big, long job lists. It makes us feel valued, but if we just keep adding to them it is soul destroying, as you never feel like you have achieved anything. Try and get three things done each day, completed and finished. This is movement, placing a real mental focus on a task to get it completed. This is what I attempted to do from 6:00am to 8:00am each day. With the 30 percent rule, if there is a crisis that does require your full attention, then you should have some capacity to manage it without impacting too much of your day.

Dr Ceri Evans got me thinking about tasks in this way:

Name it: What is the technical task you are undertaking? Give it a name.

Time it: Add a deadline for when you are going to get this task completed. This adds pressure which gives us energy to perform.

Move it: Time to step in and perform. Complete or complain, it is your choice. Try three times a day for 15 minutes to focus on a task and get it completed. This is movement.

4. Keep building trust, don’t take it for granted

Trust is at the heart of any team’s performance. Trust is choosing to risk making something you value, vulnerable to another person’s actions. It happens in small moments when you have the opportunity to increase your trustworthiness.

For example, I tried to keep meetings to a minimum as I wanted to walk around and talk to people and follow up on issues. It was important to me to be connected to what was going on in the workshops and for the technicians to know that I cared deeply about what they were doing and the effort they were putting into their piece of the puzzle.

After clearing as many emails as possible, I would try and get out the door by 6:30pm and leave the Team Leaders to it. As I said, the phone was always on but, on the whole, it didn’t ring that much in the evenings or at night because the team knew what to do and what was required.

In short, they had my trust. I believe trust is made up of the following:

Reliability: You turn up at the same time every day, you deliver the work, you can be counted on in a crisis to be there. You are present.

Competent: You are knowledgeable and you know how to do the work to the best of your ability.

Relationship: You need to have a relationship with the people you are interacting with. Find out about what they like and dislike; be curious about them as a person.

5. Embrace the chaos – this will help your team to grow, improve and become more resilient

In F1, I tried to get to a position where 80 percent of what we did was planned and 20 percent was chaos. The chaos makes the job both challenging and fun. It’s one of the reasons you get out of bed in the morning.

When the chaos hits 40 or 50 percent, this is too much and it leads to overload and overwhelm. Cracks will start to show in the team’s behaviours and the quality of the work will decline.

As a leader, you need to manage this carefully and do everything in your power to protect your team as much as possible from the really impossible requests.

Peter Hodgkinson on the factory floor at Mercedes HQ in Brackley, Northamptonshire.

Sometimes you have to say ‘no’, but make sure you have other alternative options ready to present. You can’t just say ‘no’. There is a very fine line between protecting your team from excessive workload and delivering the required work to support the plan so if you do push back, make sure you can fully explain your concerns with facts, not just emotions.

Peter Hodgkinson is a leadership and performance specialist skilled in helping high-performers become better at what they do. As an accomplished manager and mechanic, Peter has enjoyed almost three decades of success in elite sporting environments. His work in motorsport, as part of winning teams at Le Mans and Daytona, culminated in seven Formula 1 driver’s world championships won at Brawn and Mercedes, where he led car-building operations. Peter was Mercedes’ Head of Build during Lewis Hamilton’s era-defining run of six world titles. After a spell serving as Mercedes’ Head of Employee Engagement, Peter returned to the Factory Floor as Build Operations Manager for the INEOS Britannia sailing team when Mercedes supported their quest for the 37^th America’s Cup.

If you would like to speak to Peter, please contact a member of the Leaders Performance Institute team.

Main Image: courtesy of David Clancy

By David Clancy

On a Friday night in Phibsborough, Dublin, you can feel Bohemian FC before you see them. There is something different about this team and the atmosphere under the Friday night lights.

The murals around their home ground Dalymount Park (which is to be renovated in the coming years), the ‘home of Irish football’, speak of solidarity, diversity and inclusion; the terraces hum with the sound of supporters who are not just fans. They are owners of this proud club. The Gypsies. Bohs. The home where Bob Marley and Thin Lizzy played concerts years ago. A team rich in history, rich in story.

Different, rather than better

In a football economy dominated by multi-club groups, billionaires, private equity firms, and global TV rights, Bohs are a club who stand apart. They’ve become a story about what sport can be when it roots itself not just in performance, but in people that care about the team. Their budget isn’t as large as some other clubs’, so they are creative and intentional with what they do in the football market and community.

They offer something different and offer a surprising strategic case study. They show how sustainability and a long-term engagement advantage can emerge from fan ownership, cultural clarity, and humble leadership. They play differently off the pitch. They are a fan-owned club that has survived 135 years, not through scale or capital, but rather through culture, purpose, and belonging.

They recently commissioned and sold jerseys with ‘Oasis’ emblazoned on the front (building on the hype around the band’s August gigs at the Croke Park stadium). Half of the proceeds from sales supported Bohemian FC’s football and community projects, while the other half was split between Music Generation Ireland, which helps young people across Ireland access music, and Irish Community Care Manchester, who work with the Irish community (from which brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher hail) in that city.

This club truly embodies what category design means. They have effectively practised category design and owning a niche by positioning themselves not just as a football club, but as a cultural and social movement, blending sport with music, art, and activism. By creating and owning this unique space of ‘community-powered club’, they’ve differentiated themselves in the growing League of Ireland, attracting fans from Ireland and abroad, plus partners who share those values – rather than competing solely on wins and losses in the league table.

For leaders in leagues like the NBA, NFL, AFL, and Premier League, ‘Dublin’s Originals’ could be more than just a curiosity. A relative outlier, they offer an example of a model of sustainability for a team, one that challenges the dominant logic of growth in more unorthodox ways. Their underlying structure of fan ownership is worth studying. They are a collective of supporters who refuse to separate themselves from the team. Here, sustainability isn’t a corporate ESG initiative, it’s survival, identity, and continuity.

Alignment over expansion

Bohemians filter every strategic decision through a simple lens. They ask: ‘does this strengthen our bond with the community?’ This clarity allows them to stay relevant without necessarily chasing expansion, although supporter clubs are sprouting up across other continents. These fans want the team’s special edition away jersey featuring Dublin band Fontaines DC, which was released in support of the homeless charity Focus Ireland, or their Guinness-sponsored range of merch, the proceeds of which support Refugee and Migrant Solidarity Ireland.

Purpose alignment can be a sharper competitive edge than market dominance. Bohs remind us that sustainability doesn’t come from infinite growth, but from a cycle of reinvestment. Money goes back into facilities, players, and fan experiences, not siphoned off to distant investors. Fan-owned. Fan-run. Fan-driven.

Bohs pioneered blind football, amputee football and walking football in Ireland, and, in 2021, launched their Disability Supporters Association. They were the first League of Ireland team to take part in the Dublin Pride festival. They have teams and run events for young adults with intellectual impairments. They give back because it’s important for them.

For a team still seeking its identity in some shape and form, here are some inflection points from this club study. Replace relative transactional sponsorships with partnerships tied to a community identity (e.g., environmental groups protecting a part of a region). Give players structured time each season for community immersion, not as ‘charity golf appearances’ but as integral to the team’s ethos.

One could measure impact not just in brand impressions but in school programmes launched, parks built, and neighbourhoods revitalised, for instance. This piece of nurturing culture is not for decoration; it could be for leverage. Fans want their teams to win, but also to stand for something. To build something.

NBA franchises could issue community bonds or micro-shares, giving fans a symbolic stake and reinvesting proceeds into grassroots basketball. The result? Loyalty that outlasts market cycles. Premier League clubs could implement ‘golden share’ protections, ensuring fans safeguard cultural assets such as club colours, logos or stadium names. Food for thought.

Culture and ethos

Since the 2010s, Bohs, bohemian by nature, have adopted a left-wing political identity, which one can see in their club branding, language, public messaging and community initiatives. This resembles the philosophy and ideology of the Hamburg-based Bundesliga side St Pauli.

Daniel Lambert, their Chief Operating Officer, has positioned Bohs in support of causes such as Palestinian nationalism, anti-racism, anti-fascism, LGBTQ rights, refugee and homelessness advocacy. Jerseys carry messages from Amnesty International and the Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland. This alignment further builds loyalty and that sense of belonging to something, a movement. When fans and supporters are engaged, they likely will spend more on team merchandise too.

The club doesn’t shy away from social concerns and makes a stance. Volunteers run matchdays. Players show up at community events because it’s expected, not mandated and instructed. This is the culture, and these are not just PR moves but deliberate signals. These micro-behaviours strengthen loyalty and differentiate Bohs in a crowded and competitive sports market.

AFL clubs, many still member-owned, could guard against creeping commercialisation by doubling down on symbolic choices that reflect local identity. Of course, one must look at a P&L and the revenue statements, but this is worth contemplating. NFL franchises could reposition sponsorships not merely as transactions but as cultural alignments (health, education, inclusion, etc.).

A team could link sponsorships to civic identity – environmental causes, education initiatives, small business partnerships. Instead of buying attention, they earn trust. In an attention economy, values may outperform advertising in some peoples’ marks.

Imagine if a big franchise used its platform not just for commercial sponsorship, but as a megaphone for the causes their community cares about most. The return on emotional equity might dwarf the return on traditional marketing.

Fans as stakeholders

Bohemians’ ownership model turns belonging into structure. According to the club’s Social Impact report, as of 2023 they had over 3,100 members, up from just over 900 in 2018. There is a ‘one member, one vote’ rule. Membership is open to anyone and everyone, although there are limited season ticket and membership numbers; between seasons if a member does not renew their membership, it is sold on a first-come, first-serve basis. As well as match access, a member can attend and vote at the club’s AGMs and EGMs.

Once a member has hit three years of consecutive service, they are permitted to run for a board position. Thus, there is no outside control. Clear, values-driven, long-term thinking is encouraged over short-term profits; and growing the club and the community always remains the priority. Fans are shareholders; players feel the weight of representing not a brand, but a people. The ethos at the club is that belonging is the bottom line.

Could a Premier League club, say, recapture that intimacy? Could the NBA, with its superstar ‘big player’ economy rediscover the power of collective belonging? Bohs show us it’s possible, although the scale of operation is, of course, different. A team could give fans voting rights on heritage roundel designs or community projects. When supporters are allowed to co-create, membership renewal becomes almost automatic.

Stewardship, not ego

At Bohemians, leadership is custodianship. Senior management, coaches, and volunteers alike work with humility. The aim is not public visibility but leaving the club better than they found it.

Picture a club, now acquired by a new ownership group, flush with new wealth. They could embed ‘custodianship leadership’ programmes for academy coaches and staff, thereby reinforcing the idea that the club belongs to the city, not just its new owners.

Reframing success: The Bohs Scorecard

Bohs prove that success can be measured differently, and how one can rethink what success is. Yes, they want to win games. Qualify for Europe. Fill the stands. But they care about community impact, inclusivity, and the stories they leave behind.

In the NBA or NFL, where victory is often measured in ring counts, marquee signings or franchise valuations, this can sound quaint. But consider the long arc – which clubs will still matter when television deals shrink, when fans demand authenticity, when climate and social pressures force a rejig of what ‘sport’ contributes to society? Bohemians have already answered that question. They matter because they belong to their people.

This scorecard which, for the record, is not affiliated with Bohemian FC in any way, could unpack:

1. Performance scores
2. Financial health
3. Community impact
4. Cultural fingerprint

Potential examples of cases in point: cross-league applications

• NBA: The Portland Trail Blazers created a ‘Belonging Index’ to measure cultural connection.
• NFL: The Green Bay Packers double down on authentic fan ownership as a gold standard.
• AFL: The West Coast Eagles reinvest a percentage of revenue into grassroots participation.
• EPL: Brentford FC expand their analytics model to track cultural as well as performance metrics.

 The 4-step Sustainability Playbook for leaders in sport

1. Align strategy with purpose – Test every decision against community impact.
2. Treat culture as currency – Use values, not just marketing spend, to build loyalty.
3. Build belonging – Give fans structural roles in shaping identity.
4. Lead as custodians – Think generationally, not transactionally.

 Why this matters

Front offices, director boards and ownership groups are under scrutiny and pressure: escalating player salaries, volatile media rights, and restless fan bases.

Bohs offer a reminder. Sustainability in sport is not just financial. It can also be cultural. The clubs that flourish in the next era will be those that treat belonging as an asset, culture as leverage, and leadership as stewardship.

David Clancy is the CEO of The Nxt Level Group and host of Essential Skills 2.

One for your diaries

Seán McCabe, the Head of Performance & Sustainability at Bohemian FC, will speak at Essential Skills II at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin on 28 October as part of a lineup of speakers across high performance sport, business and healthcare.

Tickets are available here.

By John Portch

“I tried planning out my days then I realised there was no point,” says Michael Italiano.

The Head of Athletic Performance at the Royal Sports Group is telling the Leaders Performance Institute about his first season working with the Rajasthan Royals in cricket’s most prestigious Twenty20 competition the India Premier League. The year was 2024.

“Every day was different,” he continues. “The IPL is so dynamic, there’s always something going on, whether it’s some sort of virus that’s hit the team or there’s some underlying niggling issue.” Throw in the compressed nature of the league (75 matches between mid-March and the end of May), plus the travel demands in a country the size of India, and minor problems can quickly escalate.

In Italiano’s first season, the Royals reached the play-offs and played 16 matches in just 62 days and travelled more than 10,000 km (6,214 miles) in fulfilling their schedule.

High player and coach turnover is baked into the format too. Ahead of the 2025 season, the Royals released 17 players and bought 14 in the IPL auction. Just six players were retained from 2024. Rahul Dravid was appointed Head Coach in the off-season and, 12 months on, has departed. His successor is yet to be appointed.

As for Italiano, during the course of an IPL campaign itself, he rises at 7am to prepare for the day ahead. He is often the first at the breakfast table and meets with his staff daily at 9:30am. The players tend to wake up at 10:30 or 11am and, during the course of the afternoon, they begin to trickle in for prehab, conditioning and recovery work before training begins at 6pm (to match the rhythm of the league’s evening-based playing schedule).

“It’s a pretty crazy tournament, I won’t lie,” says Italiano with a smile. “You spend the first two weeks back at home just catching up on sleep.”

Which is not to say that Italiano and his colleagues work without structure. Their morning meetings are designed to bring together the disparate elements of the performance team. “We run through any data and we run through all the players just to make sure we haven’t missed anything.”

This intense schedule goes someway to explaining why our interview was necessarily postponed until the off-season. As we speak, it is mid-summer in the UK. Italiano has just completed a “review week” in London with his colleagues at the invitation of the Royal Sports Group’s majority owner Manoj Badale.

In a rare quiet moment, he tells the Leaders Performance Institute how he works to ensure everyone in the performance team is on the same page.

‘I felt like I was going back to school’

Italiano arrived in Jaipur having spent six years working as a high-performance coach for McLaren F1. He had no prior experience of cricket when he was appointed the Royal Sports Group’s first Head of Athletic Performance in 2023. “I had to get up to speed on bowling loads and the other physical demands of cricket,” he says. “I felt like I was going back to school.”

Performance systems, at least, can be transferrable. Italiano wanted to replicate the effective interdisciplinary communication he enjoyed at McLaren.

“We had 85 people travel to a race weekend and everyone is just so aligned and everyone knows what the driver’s saying in the press conference, everyone knows what the car upgrades are”.

It would not be the same in Jaipur. “That was something I noticed straight away at the Royal Sports Group: a very clear cultural sensitivity in the Asian culture where people feel they’re not allowed to make a mistake and, if you do, then you don’t say anything.”

Italiano felt an instant lack of trust, from both colleagues and sceptical players. “I felt I had a really low level of compliance on a personal level, which I wasn’t used to.”

Yet from day one he used his inexperience of cricket to build bridges. “I told them: ‘you know what, I don’t have the answers right now and I need you guys to help me because you’ve been in this culture and environment way longer than I have and so I’m sitting here asking you for help’; and that was a big shift in our team because I could see them thinking ‘oh wow, he’s asking for my help’ and it got the ball rolling.”

Honesty and transparency underpinned all of the good work Italiano’s performance team did in that first pre-season.

‘You should make it safe to fail, with the right intention’

Italiano admits he had a lot of ideas of how things could be improved, but also realised he couldn’t change too much in one go.

“I just went for feedback,” he says. “I spoke to all of the players, all of my staff, I spoke to my coaches. I collated themes and then I prioritised them based on impact and execution. So what’s the simplicity of the execution? How relevant is it now and can it be done at a feasible cost?”

He compiled a list of 12 “parameters”, some physical metrics, others more structural in nature, and “brought them across to the leaders for discussion”.

Together, they decided on three or four elements that could be implemented in the first six months and a further four to be implemented over the next 12 to 18 months. “You could almost say we unintentionally came up with a three-year strategy just based on trying to fine-tune how we operate.”

Sometimes the performance team will take risks. Italiano candidly reveals that their new interventions have enjoyed no more than a 50 per cent success rate. “It never turns out the way you think it’s going to turn out no matter how much input you have.” He cites cultural, environmental and performance-based reasons. However, as he says, “once the execution phase goes on, there’s always learnings.”

Under his stewardship the Royals embrace these lessons. “When certain elements didn’t work you’d go back to the drawing board and that happens in business all the time. I enjoy the problem-solving aspect of this role and you should make it safe to fail, with the right intention.”

‘You can’t be perky in every meeting’

Italiano admits he’s “not a big meetings guy”, but he finds the expanse of a cricket field to be ideal for both formal and informal check-ins.

“The walk around the ground is just pure gold,” he says of the deep conversations a lap of the ground can inspire. “When you’re at training there’s something about walking and looking out over the ground that brings a sense of openness rather than being across the table from someone, which at times can feel, maybe subconsciously, quite confronting.”

As for those 9:30am meetings, Italiano attempts to read the room. “I’m almost like ‘OK, who do I need to check-in with? Who do I need to bring more energy to? Who do I need to be more curious with? Maybe there was a player who has been off in training the last two days and I need to be more curious with them, their data and wellness scores.”

That curiosity is a must because he cannot see everything. In fact, ‘stay curious’ is one of a series of daily reminders that Italiano has noted on his personal “cheat sheet”. The others are ‘bring empathy’, ‘listen first’, ‘be self-aware’, ‘be transparent and vulnerable’, ‘bring my authentic self’, ‘check-in first’ and ‘do the one percent’.

All of these are important during the course of an IPL season. “It’s an emotional rollercoaster so, as you can imagine, we’re not all rocking up to every meeting perky. There’s about 75 meetings in 75 days and I can’t expect everyone to always be smiling and greeting me in the best place.”

The potential monotony is a risk that Italiano understands well. “When I feel there’s been a tense week, I may start a meeting by going around the room and asking ‘what pissed you off yesterday?’ and just let them go to town. You’d be surprised what they say.” Italiano will always help them if he can.

“Other times we’ll go the opposite way and I’ll say ‘let’s label something that we’re grateful for today’. We’ll also mix up the environment. One day we’ll meet by the pool, another day we might visit our favourite roasting coffee shop in Jaipur. That perks everyone up because they have amazing pistachio croissants.”

Additionally, Italiano gives each of his staff the opportunity to lead a meeting and set the agenda. “Why should I lead when we’re a team? I did that throughout last season and it kept us going. Those meetings were the best times of the day because we’re all like-minded and we have the same goals together.”

While the team strives for success on the field, Italiano is proud of how his performance team have acquitted themselves. “Rajasthan has a clear goal of being one of the leaders in high-performance in cricket,” he says. He retains the excitement that induced him to leave the world of F1.

What about his hopes when next season rolls around? “I’m most excited about sitting down with my staff and actually knuckling out career development pathways for our team.”

He mentions player data too. “How are we showing them data? Why are we tracking what we’re tracking? We haven’t nailed that flow yet but it’s one of our focuses this year. Also making sure that the players understand and buy into the importance of their data.”

Ultimately, his focus is on making the Royals’ performance programme be as good as it can be.

“I’ve had an interesting time in cricket so far, and if anyone has better answers, then I’m all ears.”

What to read next

Adaptability: ‘Change Is Everywhere and Leaders Must Respond All the Time. It’s No Small Ask’

By John Portch

“I hear a lot these days about how the pace of change is getting faster and faster. I actually think we’re almost past that now,” said Tim Cox.

“It feels like change is everywhere all of the time, which means that we need to be as good as we can be, so that we can respond appropriately all of the time. It’s no small ask.”

Cox, the Director & Lead for High Performance Research at Management Futures, is leading a Skills Sprint Session virtual roundtable for Leaders Performance Institute members on the topic of adaptability.

It is a skill, as Cox explained, that was highly coveted by the coaches and practitioners who contributed to our Trend Report earlier this year.

Not that this is anything new. “It is well known that Charles Darwin did not talk about ‘the survival of the fittest’,” Cox continued, with reference to Darwin’s 1859 book On the Origin of the Species.

“The endpoint of Darwin’s research was that it’s not the strongest or the most intelligent of the species that survives, it is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Over the course of 25 minutes, Cox discussed traps that people can fall victim to in pursuit of better adaptability. He also brought into focus the qualities of adaptive leaders and the skills that can aid adaptation.

Firstly, those four traps that inhibit adaptation:

1. Operating on outdated assumptions. Look at the decline of ’90s giants Nokia and Blockbuster: what works today will not always work. As the business author Jim Collins half-joked, “only the paranoid survive”.
2. Being hijacked by emotions. If you’re emotionally affected by the challenge ahead, it can inhibit your response.
3. Failure to create sufficient buy-in for the change. Sharing the message is one thing, but you have to understand how others feel about it and work with them.
4. Overly directive leadership. A crisis may require directive leadership, but not indefinitely. Over time, when people look to take the cue from their leader it reduces autonomy and inhibits adaptability.

Cox then set out the four qualities of adaptive leaders and the skills and tools that support those qualities:

1. They spot the need for change

“It is important to actually spot the need for change and not just continue doing what you’re doing.”

Adaptive leaders…

Are able to shift perspective. “Adaptive leaders don’t just sit within their position,” said Cox. “They can see it from others’ perspectives, whether it’s a stakeholder’s or your competition’s.”

Are good at listening. “Our response to challenges to the status quo: how are we receiving them? Are we hearing them or are we just simply emotionally responding and cutting them down in whatever way?”

Conduct regular debriefs and reviews. Cox mentioned both the OODA Loop and the STOP framework, the latter of which he outlined:

“There are many other frameworks. You will have your own,” said Cox. “But in whatever shape or form, remove yourself and take a moment on the balcony to see things from a different perspective.”

Scan for assumptions. “What we are assuming may not be that useful. Think of an issue you’re currently dealing with and write down eight assumptions you’re currently holding about it.”

Cox then invited Leaders Performance Institute members to ask themselves two questions:

• Which of these assumptions might be holding me or holding us back?
• Which of these assumptions are worth testing?

2. They are the grandmasters of their response.

“This speaks to calmness but it also speaks to the strategic element and scanning ahead in terms of the decisions that might need to be taken.”

Adaptive leaders…

Plan for contingencies. “They red team in peace and look for what might happen in the same way that a team will plan for what happens when they go two goals down or receive a red card.”

Understand that self-care isn’t a luxury. “They put on their own mask first,” said Cox. “What might be your first response that buys you time to then consider a better, wider, more sustainable response?”

3. They empower people to contribute to the adaptation response.

“This is about understanding ideas from both within and outside the team.”

Adaptive leaders…

Convene their people and successfully convey the need to adapt.

Encourage collaboration and gather ideas. “Invite the outside in,” said Cox, citing the words of professor Alex Hill.

Test and learn. As Cox put it, they fire bullets before cannonballs. “Let’s test it small and then let’s see if it works; then we can fire the cannonball.”

4. They are adept at leading the change

“This is often where adaptation fails. It’s one thing to spot the change, it’s another to decide your response and empower people to put their mark on it.”

Adaptive leaders…

Mobilise people behind the strategy. “Key to this is understanding the roles individuals will play in that strategy,” said Cox. They communicate tangibly what they’ll be doing and what they can expect from the leader.”

Navigate resistance or conflict. “Enabling people to voice their emotions and values. Often, once they’ve been heard, even if they disagree, they’ll commit.”

Flex where flex is required. “Again, they spot the need for change.”

Main Image: Paul Gilham / Getty Images

By Peter Hodgkinson

If Sir Lewis Hamilton took a risk when joining us at Mercedes in 2013, then his first proper day of testing at Jerez in southern Spain would have done little to assuage any lingering doubts.

Lewis’ rear brakes failed on his 16^th lap and he careered into a wall at turn six, which is known as ‘Dry Sack’ corner. He emerged from the wreckage unhurt but his car’s front wing assembly, front uprights and the floor were all damaged in the accident and we had no spares at the circuit. To compound matters we also needed to supply a fix for that rear brake failure.

As the Head of Build for Mercedes F1, I was one of the first to receive the bad news from the Race Team in my office back at our HQ in Brackley, Northamptonshire. Not long after I put down the phone, Aldo Costa, our Engineering Director, came to find out the status of available spares.

The crash had only just happened so I did not have all the answers. I told Aldo I would get back to him shortly. I said much the same to Rob Thomas, our COO, when he stopped by. It was not long before a stream of people came to my office looking for answers and a plan. It was a big moment and I could feel the pressure building. I told some to stand by and others to go and gather information.

Then I told everyone I was going to lunch.

I could see the shock on their faces. How can you eat at a time like this?

For my part, I needed to get out of my office. I normally ate lunch at my desk so my trip to the canteen was out of character. People could see that. I sat on my own and ate for 20 minutes but at the same time my mind was going flat out.

When I got back to my office I knew what we needed to do.

Mercedes teammates Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton in 2013. Photo: Clive Mason / Getty Images

I called everyone to gather around for a short meeting (no one else had moved). We figured out what we knew and what required answers then came up with a basic plan and assigned responsibilities. The Composite Build team looked after the floor and the front wing along with Compbond and the design team. Sub Assembly had to look after the front uprights that were still in the Machine Shop.

I went looking for what we didn’t know because we couldn’t afford any surprises. The Race Team in Jerez needed sufficient time to rebuild the car. I needed to know both the latest the private jet could depart from the airport in nearby Oxford and if a car floor would even fit through the door of the plane. We also booked extra vans to take parts to Jerez and assigned extra people to support repairs at the circuit.

Once we had timings, we were able to understand what we could achieve in the time available. I’d like to think everyone had clearly defined roles and knew their responsibilities. There were so many details to sort out and any one of those could have prevented the car from running the next day.

Instead of meetings – there simply wasn’t time – I walked a thousand miles around the factory gathering and communicating information, asking and answering questions. That communication was dynamic. It was mostly verbal but reinforced with an email when time permitted. I kept Rob and Aldo informed of progress. The late Barry James, who was our Composite Manufacturing Manager, and Darren Burton, our Ops Director, worked with their departments to ensure we got all the support required.

The car ran the next day. It was a true team effort. The damaged parts were returned from Jerez for inspection, repair and service and a fix was sent out for the rear brake issue. It was an amazing recovery from a difficult situation, but that is Formula 1.

So, what did I learn? These moments are important, as the way you react to them is what you will be measured by as a person and a leader. If you think back on your careers, you will have good and bad moments. Some will be short, others will be longer. It will not stay tough forever, it will get better, but nor will it stay under control. Something will happen.

It is important to think about your behaviours in good and bad moments.

Firstly, Lewis’ crash hit five pressure drivers:

1. High stakes: it was Lewis Hamilton’s first drive in a Mercedes and he crashes
2. Uncertainty: what spares were we missing and what else could prevent us from running?
3. Small margins: what if we inadvertently miss a part and the car cannot run tomorrow?
4. Fast change: the car was running and then it wasn’t. That’s a fast change.
5. Judgement: as Head of Build, I felt I would be judged on how I lead my team in this moment; how did I react as an individual and how did my team behave? This would be a reflection of me and my leadership in the part we played to get the car running again.

So, why I did I go to lunch?

I want to explain my rationale with reference to Dr Ceri Evans’ Red-Blue model, as set out in his 2020 book Perform Under Pressure. I cannot recommend it highly enough for a fuller, clinically-informed account of the principles of performance under pressure and how one can gain emotional control at the times when you need it most.

Ceri proposes a three-step model:

1. Step Back: recognise your current mental state and feelings
2. Step Up: reframe and move into a logical mental state
3. Step In: engage with clarity and confidence. Take v Wait

Here, I’ll explain how I approached each in turn after Lewis hit that wall.

The Step Back

I needed to go to lunch. I was under pressure and could feel it. I had to get out of my office and away from the noise. I realised that this was a flight response. I also realised I was under both internal and external pressure. My heartrate was up and you are trying to think of numerous things at the same time. Going to lunch allowed me to move from Step Back to Step Up. It gave me a moment to move away from the emotional response and start to come up with a mental plan of what we were going to do next.

The Step Up

You need to understand what is going on and start coming up with a plan for what you need to do and the desired outcome you seek.

In Step up mode, I was moving from Red mind to Blue mind. This requires a further explanation with a little help from Ceri, who describes two interacting mental systems:

• Red Brain: this operates in the present and is driven by emotion and feelings. It is associated with fight, fright or freeze responses.
• Blue Brain: this is driven by logic, analysis and control, which helps with clarity, planning and decision making.

Neither state is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. There must be a balance, as too much Red can make you impulsive, emotional and reactive, while too much Blue can leave you detached and hesitant.

In Step Up mode, I was moving from Red to Blue, from emotions and feelings to logic and planning. I allowed my Blue to dampen the Red. I now had an idea of a plan and what we needed to do and I remember very clearly feeling energised and ready to rock ’n’ roll.

The Step In

You have a plan to start tackling the issue, using the clarity of the Blue combined with the energy of the Red system. Trust you skillset, you are the best in the world at what you do.

We talked through the basic plan and off we went to face the challenges in front of us. During the course of that day, well into the evening, I remember going back to Step Back mode as something went wrong but this was quickly followed by Step Up (planning) and Step In (doing). Red/Blue, Decide and Do.

That day I was in a purple patch, balancing the Red and Blue.

How this impacted my behaviour

I knew that how I behaved and the language I used would impact the people working on this challenge. The pressure was on and one wrong word could trigger a shift back to a Red brain response, which we simply could not afford.

I also felt trusted by Aldo and Rob, who knew I would play my part to help resolve the issues along with the rest of the team. They didn’t interfere with what we were doing and allowed us to get on with the job. We made sure to regularly check-in with them both, providing updates and seeking their thoughts on something in those moments when we were stuck. It was classic Intent-Based Leadership in action.

This was one of many situations we faced weekly at MGP and no F1 team is any different.

You will be judged on how you respond and react to these moments. It is not about placing blame, it is about movement and making extraordinary things happen using the right mindset and behaviours.

Finally, there will always be lessons from these moments, so make the most of them. They are a great opportunity to improve as individuals, teams and organisations.

Lewis Hamilton, with Lotus driver Kimi Räikkönen and Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg on his tail at the 2013 Australian Grand Prix. Photo: Ker Robertson / Getty Images

Peter Hodgkinson is a leadership and performance specialist skilled in helping high-performers become better at what they do. As an accomplished manager and mechanic, Peter has enjoyed almost three decades of success in elite sporting environments. His work in motorsport, as part of winning teams at Le Mans and Daytona, culminated in seven Formula 1 driver’s world championships won at Brawn and Mercedes, where he led car-building operations. Peter was Mercedes’ Head of Build during Lewis Hamilton’s era-defining run of six world titles. After a spell serving as Mercedes’ Head of Employee Engagement, Peter returned to the Factory Floor as Build Operations Manager for the INEOS Britannia sailing team when Mercedes supported their quest for the 37^th America’s Cup.

If you would like to speak to Peter, please contact a member of the Leaders Performance Institute team.