By Sarah Evans

Recommended reading

Why the Key to Successful Leadership Is Now Influence, Not Authority

‘Where the Science Shifts Towards the Art of Coaching and High Performance Leadership’

Three Simple But Important Steps to Earning the Trust of your Athletes

Framing the topic

In our first Leadership Skills Series Session of 2023, we look at how our members can build skills to facilitate great conversations within their teams. We began the session by asking the members to think of times when they have had good and bad conversations. What made them this way? We then went into some stimulus, providing ten top tips in facilitating great conversations. These were aimed at not being some of the obvious things that everyone would think of straight away, but rather the nuances which can make a difference when handling a specific conversation.

1. Clarify your outcomes

• Getting your own mindset right before you begin a discussion.
• What do you want people to think, feel and do as a result of the discussion?
• How do you want to show up yourself, and how do you want to be perceived? What’s the impact you want to have on the discussion?

2. Specify outcomes for each agenda item

• For example: ‘Item 1, Project X – We’re looking for fresh ideas.’ This gives you a heading, which allows you to bring the conversation back if it drifts off.

3. Contract – the ‘future pace’ approach

• Let’s assume we are going to be successful, it is another part of getting your mindset right for the conversation.
• You might begin the discussion saying ‘Let’s imagine we have a great conversation here, I’d like you to put yourself on the edge of this conversation in your mind and look back, what did we do to make it successful?’.
• It is then important to get people to write this down, and have them commit to the behaviours they themselves have suggested.
• You are not imposing ground rules, but suggesting these come from the group themselves.

4. Build rapport – match pace and lead

• If you mismatch the group and get your energy and mood wrong, you are going to lose them right from the start.
• One example might be when we go into a group that has low energy, we might go in and try and lift the energy in the group and be a dynamic leader. This can tend to have the opposite effect, and what the group really want is for you to be alongside them energetically, for a while, so they know you’re with them – this is called ‘matching’.
• Going along with them for a while is then called ‘pacing’. Once you have been along with the group for a while at the same energetic and mood level, you can then start to lead on something more resourceful, and gradually build up the energy and the pace.

5. Sensory acuity and early intervention

• Paying attention to what is going on.
• It is better to get in early and deal with something before it gets too big to deal with.
• This is about spotting some of the small behaviours which might indicate that somebody is unhappy, disengaged or feeling in opposition to what is being discussed. It may be as small as a shake of a head, an eye movement, a whisper to someone. All of these things have meaning and are part of the group dynamic, and we need to be paying attention to even the minutia and intervening straight away.
• You can intervene by asking someone, ‘how are you doing in this conversation?’, ‘Is there something you wanted to say?’
• It is about making sure that we acknowledge behaviour early and address it as early as we possibly can.

6. Listen for the unspoken

• It is useful to assume what has not been said, it might be a feeling that has not been expressed, a tricky topic that’s too difficult to mention. The elephant in the room.
• Some of these things which aren’t given voice, are the agenda.
• You could say ‘I’ve noticed, nobody has said how they feel about this subject’ or ‘I notice, when we approach this subject the room gets a bit quiet, I’m just wondering what’s going on here?’
• Express it to the group, you may get it wrong, but more often than not, if you feel it and feel there is something not being said, you can do a lot for the group by bringing attention to it.

7. Offer a ‘clean’ summary

• This is about making people feel heard, and allowing people to reflect on what they have said.
• ‘Clean’ means summarising without putting our own thoughts or feelings in the summary. There is no judgement.
• Use their language and their terminologies, people then feel deeply heard and not judged or misunderstood.

8. Offer ‘BIFF’ Feedback

• BIFF: Behaviour, Impact, Feeling, Future.
• When giving feedback, begin by describing someone’s behaviour without judging or interpreting it. Simply describe literally what they have done.
• Then say what the impact of this behaviour is.
• Proceed to tell them how you then feel about this.
• Finally, agree what you will do about this going forward.

9. Acknowledge positive intention

• It is useful to assume that any behaviour anyone exhibits in a group at some level has a positive intention. It may not have a positive effect but behind it there is positive intention.
• If you acknowledge the positive intention it can allow the person to feel respected and can sometimes take the emotional sting out of what they are trying to say.

10. Silence is not commitment

• It might not even mean agreement, let alone commitment.
• It is good to check in with them, saying ‘you haven’t said anything about this, I just wanted to check your agreement with it?’

By Sarah Evans

Recommended reading

Leaders Performance Support Series: Making Wellbeing A Core Component Of Your Organisational Culture (Session 1)

Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche

How Can You Better Support the Subcultures Within your Teams?

Framing the topic

This was session one of our first Performance Support Series of the year, which focused on ‘The Performance Paradox’. Across these sessions, which are led by our Performance Advisor and performance expert Dr Meg Popovic, the aim is to explore the trade-offs, and considerations in the quest to win for staff, athletes, and their wider organization. There are two more sessions to follow.

“Feminine consciousness is concerned with process. It sees the goal as the journey itself and recognizes that the goal is consciousness of the journey. Being is consciousness of becoming.”

Marion Woodman, psychoanalyst and author

Definition of paradox:

• A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.
• A situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities.
• ‘In a paradox, he has discovered that stepping back from his job has increased the rewards he gleans from it.’

How does paradox connect with transformation and learning?

• It is the twilight zone between past and future that is akin to the precarious world of transformation within a chrysalis.
• Individuals who consciously accept the chrysalis, whether in analysis or in life experience, have accepted the life/death paradox, a paradox which returns in a different form at each new spiral of growth.
• If we accept this paradox, we are not torn to pieces by what seems to be intolerable contradiction. Birth is the death of the life we have known; death is the birth of the life we have yet to live.
• We need to hold the tensions and allow our circuit to give way to a larger circumference.

Meg returned to her study of subcultures to further explore the performance paradox. She began with a reminder of what constitutes a subculture:

• Commonalities individuals share with one another – guidelines of social B, overarching values that guide and reflect B, symbols and modes of operation that convey meaning to persons in a shared system.
• Individuals of a subculture are socialized to adopt cultural definitions and perspectives, assert cultural identity and sense of community and belonging.

Meg then reintroduced the concept of ‘shadow work’, which she also discussed last year. It is the practice of working to illuminate the aspects of yourself that you bury or repress. It comes from ‘depth psychology’, which is defined by Susan Clayton and Gene Meyers as ‘the psychological theory that explores the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious as well as the patterns and dynamics of motivation and the mind’.

Why do we bring depth psychology into high performance sport?

• Making sense of our workspaces.
• Restoring wholeness.
• Competitive advantage.

Establishing the known and the unknown:

Conscious – ego

• Parts of self or group that are fully aware of and present to the world.
• Our values, our thoughts, our goals, our fears, our strengths.
• Includes the negative qualities that we own/take responsibility for (are conscious of).

Unconscious – shadow

• Not presently conscious of, or within our awareness, or suppressed for some reason.
• Impact emotions and actions, whether we are aware of it or not.
• The part of the ego we repress; what we cannot acknowledge about ourselves.
• Often thought of as dark parts of self or group, but not accurate – neither good nor bad, just is.

Example: snowboard culture vs Olympics culture

Snowboard culture

Conscious – ego:

• Creative
• Freedom
• Grunge and punk
• Rebelliousness
• Youth
• Community/camaraderie
• Individualistic
• Push boundaries
• Clothing Style

Unconscious – shadow:

• Conformity
• Simplicity
• Mischievousness
• Intelligence
• Judgemental of outsiders
• Exclusive
• Groupthink
• Maturation
• Rigidity

IOC/Olympic Culture:

Conscious – ego:

• Faster, higher, stronger
• Winning: gold, silver, bronze
• Discipline
• Ritual
• Hierarchy
• Global/universal
• Sacred/holy/oath
• Symbolism
• Omnipotent

Unconscious – shadow:

• Achievement
• Creativity
• Freedom
• Inner and Outer Beauty
• Intelligence
• Control
• Power
• Corruption
• The Show
• Arrogance
• Dominance

Task 1: Spend some time on your own, think of an example within your environments of the known and the unknown, the conscious and unconscious, the contradictory tensions that exist. Within small groups, share your insights with your team.

“The Miracle of Paradox” – from Owning the Shadow by Robert Johnson

• To transfer our energy from opposition to paradox is a very large leap in evolution.
• To engage in opposition is to be ground to bits by the insolubility of life’s problems and events. Most people spend their life energy supporting this warfare within themselves.
• A huge amount of energy is wasted by modern people in opposing their own situation. Opposition is something like a short circuit; it also drains our energy away like a haemorrhage.
• To transform opposition into paradox is to allow both sides of an issue, both pairs of opposites to exist in equal dignity and worth.
• If you can stay with conflicting impulses long enough, the two opposing forces will teach each other something and produce and insight that serves them both.
• This is not compromise but a depth of understanding that puts life in perspective and allows you to know with certainty what to do.
• That certainty is one of the most precious qualities known to humankind.
• The solution must rise from the dynamics of the opposing energies that are facing each other.

Task 2: owning the shadow

• Think of a challenging situation you would like certainty on.
• What are the opposing energies that face each other?
• How are you doing in this time of holding these energies?

Challenge between task 1 and 2:

In a challenging problem to solve, strive to hold the tension of opposing energies. See what emerges.

By John Portch

As 2022 comes to an end, there has already been some considered reflection upon the last 12 months – but what about the year ahead?

At this year’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at London’s Twickenham Stadium, the Leaders Performance Institute spoke to a number of our speakers to ask: what are they most optimistic about heading into 2023?

There answers were varied and spanned two articles – Part I can be found here – but learning and development kept creeping up in these conversations.

For example, Neil Saunders, the Director of Football at the English Premier League, spoke onstage about the league’s Elite Player Performance Plan. “We are 10 years since the launch of the Elite Player Performance Plan and we’ll be updating our strategy and setting new aims and objectives for the system moving forward,” he said. “And that’s really exciting because there’s a great opportunity to build on some of the amazing work that’s taking place already but also to address areas of opportunity and try to improve what we’re doing to make sure that our work in player development is not just fit for now but also for the future.”

Joel Shinofield, the Managing Director of Sport Development at USA Swimming, answered the question in a similar vein. “We just launched a brand new technology product, we’ve revamped it completely, we’ve revamped all of our coach education, so those are at their very early launch stages and seeing those become more mature, seeing coaches access the new data we’re going to provide to them,” he said.

“The idea behind our data project and our technology project was to make more resources available to our members; and so what I want to see is the utilisation of that because I know that’s going to be the value of the whole project is that our clubs, our teams, our coaches, our membership has access to data that will help them improve the sport and improve their experience.”

USA Swimming is one of the most mature programs in elite sport and stands in contrast in some respects to a newer sport, such as competitive climbing. “We’re in the process of putting a full-time coaching team in place, seeing them evolve and develop in support of those athletes, and really just continue the learning,” said Lorraine Brown, the Head of Performance at GB Climbing.

“We’ve got a huge amount to learn, not only just about high performance sport but actually more about the sport and what it takes to support these amazing athletes. We’ve got brilliant athletes who despite the system have really achieved some amazing things. So how do we really help to facilitate them to continue to do that and provide some added value to their own environments? And part of that is making sure that as well as the experiences, actually the medical support around them and making sure that they stay fit and healthy as the volume and pressure increases. The pressure can have that negative effect of making them more susceptible to injury and illness. So how do we stay on top of that?”

Beyond performance itself, Jatin Patel, the Head of Diversity & Inclusion at the Rugby Football Union, is optimistic that his work can continue to have an impact on the sport of rugby union.

“I’m really looking forward to having more conversations around and spreading the importance of inclusion from grassroots all the way up to professional,” he said.

“Guiding and advising people how we can do it better, learning more myself, being new to rugby, and ultimately the longer-term aim of bettering the game and future-proofing it and ultimately reaching our objective and wanting to be a sport that’s more reflective of society.”

These sentiments are shared by Patel’s session moderator, Shona Crooks, the Head of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion at Management Futures.

She said: “I’m excited to learn more in this space. I think because I work in DE&I everyone expects you to have all the answers and it’s nice as I evolve, as organisations evolve, as society evolves, and so coming up with new ways to do things, new options, new training, new skills; how I can help to upskill people, how I can bring and move the conversation on. Because, ultimately, the end goal is that I do myself out of a job, that, actually, we’re so inclusive and everyone feels that sense of belonging, that DE&I just doesn’t exist anymore. How do I help each year to chip away at that?”

We then wrap up this two-part series with a reminder that in times of uncertainty, whether that be through growth or a more general sense of volatility, your fundamental principles will be invaluable.

“There’s always the unknown of what’s coming,” said Craig McRae, the Senior Coach of Collingwood FC, who are developing as a team under his tutelage. “That’s an attraction and an excitement in itself. For us, it’s about repeating behaviours. Putting ourselves into a position that we were last year and in our game like any game, you don’t start at the top, you’ve got to work your way up the ladder. I think that’s part of the excitement of our journey.”

By Luke Whitworth

Recommended reading

Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

Performance Journal 24: The Anatomy of a Champion

Intelligence Debrief – November 2022

Framing the topic

In this final virtual roundtable of the year, we wanted to look ahead to 2023 and think about what some of the key focuses for our members will be. Are there any industry trends that might impact you for the year ahead? Reflecting on the themes that are coming through strongly, what are you seeing?

Last year’s trends to reflect on:

• Wellbeing becoming a foundational pillar of performance.
• The role sport can play in society – how we are thinking about higher purpose and inspiration.
• Working with experience – how that works with programme periodisation.
• Connection engagement with families as well as the players/coaches.
• Being more holistic in our athlete development models.
• Simplifying technology integration.
• Less is more.

Thinking for 2023:

• What are we doing to make sports as safe as possible? Time is precious and we have to be creative around where and when we can engage with coaches and what messages / learning we can get across to them. Do we try and target 500 people who become advocates who can then cascade the learning to others?
• Forecast of returning to profit has been pushed back due to the cost of living etc. We have a hearts and minds exercise in the next 12 months as we will not be able to fund things we would like. The way the professional end of some sports is funded is not sustainable. We need to move towards a professional game model which is self-sustaining and then more funding can be reinvested into grassroots levels.
• Budget pressures. Although things aren’t bringing in funding now, we are investing in grassroots and the women’s game where they will have an impact in the future. Understanding budget cycles and growth models. How do we become more skilful in showing impact?
• Player welfare. Understanding impact injuries and welfare pitch side. How do you make your sport safer? How do we reach and engage with people? How do we use technology to engage with the younger generation, the use of videos and e-learning?
• The shift in personal development has shifted again. We’re back to more ‘normal’ programmes and personal development has been moved to the back burner again.
• More professionalisation in women’s sports – increased funding from clubs / teams. But more things need to be professionalised within the team environment too. There is the challenge of keeping the fun element of when it wasn’t professional when there is increased funding now. Increased pressures come with increased funding.
• Understanding players’ motivations.
• What is the deliberate action you are taking to help your performance team stay healthy?
• Is it harder now more than ever to be building a thriving culture when you are fighting against the actual culture that is going on? Social pressures, social media etc.
• Change in recruitment of both staff and student athlete, and the retention and values of them staying has shifted.
• Much more opportunities in recruitment – what people want, job satisfaction, ties in to the reputation, culture and values of the organisation. Are the criteria on the job title actually essential? If we are recruiting for the same things each time are we just recruiting the same people and making an echo chamber? What are we missing in the roles we have and what should we recruit? This ties into the diversity and wellbeing piece and are we an organisation that goes after development? The area for growth is retention.
• Need to work harder to connect people to the sport emotionally and culturally.
• How do you keep people in their roles? Let them be an exceptional coach and keep them there and not just move them up to management when we want to increase their salary.
• Collaboration – see more between sporting organisations and universities, between rival sports and across sports.
• The marketing of women’s sports needs to be different to men’s – they are different and it’s important to recognise this and not just assume things are the same. Having presence around the decision making tables so that the target audience are being hit and it is marketed as effectively as possible. Capturing the unique stories of the women’s teams.
• People are willing to pay for experience. In football, how can the clubs invest in women playing on the bigger pitches because it will grow the game whilst balancing the cost to the club in the short term?
• Interdisciplinary working. Everyone is still searching for the magic bullet to be thriving in that space.

By Sarah Evans

Recommended reading

Make It Stick

Starting With Why

How Great Leaders Inspire Action

Framing the topic

In our final Leadership Skills Series Session of 2022, we look at how our members can enhance their influencing skills within their environments. We began the session by framing what influencing is and how we might be able to enhance these skills and be more effective with our communication. Influencing doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it’s linked to who you are, your personal brand and how people feel about you. It is something that has to be nurtured and worked with over a period of time.

‘The key to successful leadership today is influence not authority’ – Kenneth Blanchard, American business consultant

What influencing meant to our members:

• People like to be treated and influenced in different manners. You can’t influence them when you’ve just met them, it takes time to build the relationship and trust.
• Empowering ideas in others alongside your own so they have added buy-in.
• Influence can create stronger buy in than telling someone to ‘do something because I said so’.
• Influence is a process of education.
• To influence can be to work to make the thing look like a good idea, so the team move to a position to want to do it.
• Enabling and empowering others to ‘do’, ‘act’, ‘change’.
• Influencing is an element of leadership, involving ‘moving people’.
• An emotional bank account with others – if that is in credit it is easier to do the moving and shifting.

What behaviours do we see from those that influence well?

• Clarity of purpose and values.
• Trust and relatedness is a feeling of positive influence.
• Listening and empowerment, they ask a lot of questions to get to understand you – empathy.
• They listen, they take in your opinions, they are objective. They state the inconvenient truths.
• People feel heard, valued, engaged.
• People feel trusted, empowered, and are invested in the outcomes.
• They have power without playing authority.

Outcome thinking:

Event + Response = Outcome

Focus on what you want to achieve and then, because of that, think about how you need to behave.

Wheel of Influence:

Pull behaviours

Responsive:

• Seeking to understand & explore the other person’s point of view.
• Explorative questioning.
• Staying open.

Passive:

• Giving in too soon.
• Feel ‘unworthy’/low status.
• Not challenging.

Push behaviours

Assertive:

• Sharing our perspective.
• Clear on what we want.
• Evidence-based persuasion.
• Giving effective feedback.

Aggressive:

• Aggressive/attacking.
• Refusing to listen.

How do we make our points ‘stick’?

1. Simplify – strip your message down to its core. Less is always more. What is the key message you want your audience to go away with?
2. Grab their attention by surprising the audiences expectations.
3. Make your communication more concrete and less abstract:
   • Use relevant examples/personal stories to bring your points to life.
   • Add weight and quantify your point with relevant and compelling facts.

Four Ps model – for getting people on board with the need for change, and giving confidence in our new direction.

1. Picture (what) – setting out a positive vision of success. The outcome we are determined to achieve.
2. Purpose (why) – explain the reason for it. What’s the problem we’re solving?
3. Plan (how) – a step by step plan as to how we are going to phase-in the change and support people – the aim here is to reassure people.
4. Part (who) – give individuals clarity on where they can best add value.

Thoughts and reflections from our members about the model:

• It helps in reviewing a current programme – picture what we want it to look like in three years’ time and how we get there.
• The model provides a logical flow of information.
• We discussed What (1) vs Why (2) and which should come first in the framework.
• One of the group suggested that the person and credibility of who is delivering the message is probably most important.
• It is not just a one-off pitch but how you weave some of the stuff into every conversation and interaction; keep them mindful of it and provide reminders.

By John Portch

As 2022 comes to an end, there has already been some considered reflection upon the last 12 months – but what about the year ahead?

At this year’s Leaders Sport Performance Summit at London’s Twickenham Stadium, the Leaders Performance Institute spoke to a number of our speakers to ask: what are they most optimistic about heading into 2023?

There answers were varied and cover two instalments – Part II will be available on Thursday – but there were also some common themes, such as a general sense of excitement and anticipation.

“Personally, I’m really excited about travelling more,” said James King, the author of Accelerating Excellence. “I cannot wait to get back out to the States more and get in front of some of the top organisations out there to test what I’ve been learning about and working on behind the scenes over the last few years.”

For some, such as actor Dom Simpson, star of The Book of Mormon in London’s West End, there is optimism to be found in a return to the usual routine. “We’re looking forward to some normality in the performing arts world,” he said. “We’ve obviously just come back after the break for the pandemic, the theatres were closed for about 18 months. We’ve had closures for Covid in the building; audience numbers haven’t been the same. You’ve seen shows closing that you wouldn’t expect to close because of the knock-on effect of the finances involved.

“I’m looking forward to a bit of normality and seeing new and exciting projects happening. We’re allowed to see those flourishing because the world is so back open again and we’re given that opportunity to create new shows. Seeing the West End as a real entertainment source for the UK.”

Sport is a step ahead in that regard, with the England women’s national football team winning the Euros this summer in front of almost 90,ooo spectators. They head into 2023’s Fifa Women’s World Cup as one of the favourites to wrest the crown from the United States.

“I’m excited by the growth of the team,” said Kay Cossington, the Head of Women’s Technical at the Football Association. She spoke the day after England drew 1-1 in Norway and five days after the Lionesses dispatched Japan 4-0. “Over the past week, I think we can see the depth of squad that we’ve got with these players. We’ve got some fantastic players who are coming through the system and that’s credit to the national coaches and the development teams that are part of the pathway and I’m really excited to see how good we can be by 2023, as a team and as a sport too.”

The growth of women’s football in England is part of a wider societal shift and offered some diversion during a year of hardship for society at large. It is perhaps with the struggles of the latter in mind that Carl Gombrich, the Academic Lead and Head of Teaching & Learning at the London Interdisciplinary School, spoke of his cause for optimism in 2023.

He said: “I don’t think the old ways of doing politics, probably back to Thatcher, are working any more. There are some people out there with some very radical and interesting ideas. Whether they get heard or whatever they can attach themselves to a mainstream political party or not to get traction, I don’t know. But it this way, I am positive in a sense because I don’t think the status quo can go on that long, that means there will be change, which might be quite exciting change.”

Back in the world of sport, British bobsledder Montell Douglas, relishes the change that 2023 will usher in on a personal and professional level. “I’m most excited about change,” said the athlete who switched from sprinting to the bobsleigh, becoming the first British athlete to compete at both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

“I am an ever-evolving human in sport and away from sport, but I love a challenge and I always have done and I think that’s how I’ve got to where I’ve got to regardless of what I’m doing whether it’s life, family, home work. It’s the same thing, she continued.

“I love having constantly trying to grow and push myself, but when it’s outside your comfort zone, which it very much right now is, I’m taking on stuff that I’ve never done before ever in life. Even if I use my experience, I’m most looking forward to seeing how I fare in those circumstances and, actually, what are you going to be like? Now that you are actually going to take on this challenge, what’s that going to look like for you? And also seeing the result of me as a human and me as Montell not the athlete, what becomes of that.”

By Luke Whitworth

Recommended content

Learning to Learn – A New Take on Senge’s Learning Organisation

Peter Senge & the Learning Organisation

The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organisation

Framing the topic

The intention of this series on learning was to stimulate thought, curiosity and reflection around the overarching theme of learning. (The summary of Part I is here and the summary of Part II is here.) Across this series, we have explored a number of concepts to support thinking around how learning can be a source of competitive advantage for your organisation. We need to learn faster because the rate of change will be faster than ever.

Learning objectives:

• The role of leadership in learning organisations.
• How have you learnt your leadership to date?
• The skills and attributes of leadership who create learning cultures.

The role of the leaders

‘The wicked leader is who the people despise. The good leader is who the people revere. A great leader is he who the people say, “we did it ourselves”’

Lao Tzu, circa 500 BC

‘Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time leading yourself – your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers’

Dee Hock (Founder of Visa Inc.)

You are the leader of the ship… What should be your role?

• Captain.
• Ship designer.
• Helmsperson.
• Navigator.
• Head engineer.
• Entertainment officer.

Author Peter Senge believes that the role of the leader should be the ship designer. The reason for that is that the designer had the concept and vision for the ship – it is about the whole thing. The other roles outlined are specific roles and not necessarily the wider system.

A Leader as a designer

What are the traits of the ‘designer’ leader?

• Sees the ‘whole picture’.
• Vision, targets and metrics.
• Role and responsibilities.
• Systems and processes.
• The learning environment – teacher / mentor / coach.

The fundamental thing a leader can do to create and sustain a high performance organisation is creating a learning environment. The leader has the responsibility to create a space for learning.

A leader designing a climate of safety

What are the conditions to create a learning environment? Psychological safety is a fundamental part of this.

Leaders can increase the likelihood of a team member’s psychological safety by demonstrating specific behaviours. A study by McKinsey looked into the relationship between leadership behaviours and outcomes, outlining coefficient effects around: significant effect (+) and conditional effect (-).

We talk a lot about challenge and support in high performance environments. The research suggests you can’t challenge without trust and also developing consultative and supportive leadership. Combining the above led to a positive impact on team culture.

Question: How have you designed your thinking about your environment to enhance learning opportunities in your team/organisation?

• The art of listening and how important this is as a leader. It takes time, dedication and persistence to get good at this and start asking quality questions in your teams.
• Understanding self and how you show up. It’s important to state that this is a journey but the notion of understanding how to lead yourself before others is important.
• ‘Heat moments’ – when things are challenging and stressful, these are growth opportunities. Allow your team members to have these moments so they can learn and grow.
• Self-values. Leading by the values you believe in yourself rather than leading by what the textbook says – being true to yourself in how you lead.
• Understanding context and speed of change around us, and how that affects learning.

How to create a learning organisation

• Be curious.
• Lead by being a coach / mentor / Teacher.
• Plan to Plan.
• Design the system for people to learn on the job (peer coaching).
• Lead by seeing initiative as a series of experiments.
• Use data to get to the facts.

Leadership styles

The most effective leaders used the most ‘styles’ in a given week.

Rules of thumb: pacesetting and commanding leadership should be used sparingly, and the visionary, democratic, affiliative coaching styles should be used regularly and in larger proportions.

Daniel Goleman’s six leadership styles:

1. Visionary: motivates people towards a vision. Language such as ‘come with me’. Give their team a general direction and goal to achieve, but let them reach that goal in whichever way they deem appropriate providing self-confidence and empathy.
2. Coaching: developing people for the future. Language such as ‘try this’. Skills of this style include developing others, self-awareness and empathy.
3. Affiliative: creates harmony and builds emotional bonds. ‘People come first’. Characteristics of this style are empathy, building relationships and communication.
4. Democratic: forges consensus through participation. ‘What do you think?’ Collaborative, team leadership and communication.
5. Pacesetting: sets high standards for performance. ‘Do as I do now!’ Conscientiousness, drive to achieve and initiative.
6. Commanding: demands immediate compliance. ‘Do what I tell you’. Drive to achieve, initiative and self-control.

Speakers:

Lorraine Brown, Head of Performance, GB Climbing

Rob Pountney, Chief Operating Officer, Breaking GB

Moderator: 

Edd Vahid, Head of Academy Football Operations, The Premier League

At the 2022 Leaders Sport Performance Summit at London’s Twickenham Stadium, we heard from Lorraine and Rob who have been at the forefront of two new sports, and how they preparing for Olympics whilst staying true to the culture of their sports.

• We have had a cultural shift in climbing from participation to performance.
• We have to make sure the pathway is really clear, and look at ways to identify how to add value on a daily basis.
• You have to stay true to your own sport, it is easy to think you have to be like the other sports who have been well established. Keep the roots and culture of the sport whilst making the transition to Olympic sport and the increasing demands it brings.
• What does talent look like? Once we have talent, how do we help them progress? How do we create the experiences to help them fulfil their potential?
• Lots of athletes coming from other sports, migrate to climbing for its culture. How can we still be an outlet for other athletes who want to try something different?
• Breaking is about pushing the individual boundaries of your own creation which makes the training environment very challenging.
• The idea of making sure it is fun has to be top of the pile. We don’t have the fear of change right now, we are trying to find the way the sport should look based on the culture of the sport. We have the freedom to make bold decisions.
• Every day we have to accept the different behaviours from our athletes, they are more independent and have more control over their schedules. Coaches and team managers have to work with the athletes whilst embracing the individuality and creativity of the athletes.
• How do we maintain that cultural element but also raise the standard and expectation and develop the right environments for athletes and coaches to thrive in.

Speakers:

Andrea Furst, Sport Psychologist, England Rugby and Surrey County Cricket Club

Helen Richardson-Walsh, Performance & Culture Coach, Tottenham Hotspur FC

At the 2022 Leaders Sport Performance Summit at London’s Twickenham Stadium, we had a peer-to-peer interview between Andrea Furst and Helen Richardson-Walsh, who worked together as psychologist and athlete to win Rio 2016 Olympic Hockey Gold for Great Britain. The pair talked us through how they were able to create a winning team environment and the importance of the role psychology can play in performance.

• Fostering trust between the psychologist and athlete is key. The athlete trusting that they are having a confidential conversation has such a positive impact.
• Allowing the players to sit down and set the culture helped to get player buy-in straight away, and it was credit to the head coach to allow that to be the starting point.
• When your vision is ‘winning’ it can leave you with a very empty feeling or feel very disappointed even if you’re on the podium. There is something more than just winning.
• The biggest thing a head coach can do with regards to culture work is give it time. To have the whole staff and players group involved and integrate it into every day behaviours.
• ‘How do you want to be remembered?’ It is about what can you do on the hockey pitch, but also who can you be off it. To be role models for women in sport, to stand up for what you believe and use your voice for good.

GB Women’s Hockey Vision:

• Be the Difference; Create History; Inspire the Future.
• The vision, values and behaviours make you accountable. The language was everything everyone had bought into and would use regularly. You knew what was expected of yourself and of one another.

Individual mindset: Knowing your ‘A Game’

• It is so important for every individual to understand their performance mindset before they go out to play and take responsibility for this.
• Knowing this allows you to understand how to be consistent.
• This is a skill and it can be learned.
• You then share your A game with the rest of the team, and the team understand you better plus they know how they can help you to stay on your A game. It is for a team work on; and it normalises it.
• If it matters to the head coach, it matters to the athletes. The head coach sets the tone, if they disregard psychology or integrate it, it filters through to the players and makes a huge difference.

A session brought to you by our Partners

Speakers:

Joel Shinofield, Managing Director, Sport Development, USA Swimming

Jatin Patel, Head of Inclusion & Diversity, Rugby Football Union

Moderator:

Shona Crooks, Head of Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, Management Futures

We kicked off the second day of the 2022 Leaders Sport Performance Summit at London’s Twickenham Stadium with Joel Shinofield and Jatin Patel delving into how they are able to weave Inclusion & Diversity work into the fabric of their organisations.

Inclusion:

• Be inclusive first, and be really intentional with it. You want to foster an environment where people can be themselves and contribute.
• You need to ensure that when you bring in diverse talent, you have to provide them with the support to ensure they thrive.
• If you understand inclusion better, it will make engaging with diverse groups much easier.

What are you doing to make your organisations inclusive?

• Bystander training – how do we get teams to have more effective conversations and have the confidence to speak up? How do you ask better questions of each other?
• You have to invest in it. USA Swimming have a grant programme for clubs to move into new facilities. If you are able to access to the sport in your community, you are much more likely to be involved in the sport.
• Water has been an incredibly divisive tool in American history – pools were off limits to black families, so we have to acknowledge that first and intentionally increase greater access. We have to look at the ways in which we have excluded people to then help us find ways to include them.
• Rugby United – primarily aimed at black and Asian communities. England Rugby first looked at insights from these communities, their engagement, positive and negative experiences and tailor the approach to the specific communities. Ultimately it is about how we bring that cultural awareness into the broader game of rugby.
• Education is key, how to take responsibility of how to be more inclusive.
• On each of our teams there is someone who has DEI training. It is therefore woven into our coach development programmes. You have to make it part of your fabric.
• It is a strategic imperative as well as an outcome and output. ‘Drip drip’ it, don’t just have milestone big events, have it woven into every day and make sure it is pushed on the agenda constantly.
• Cognitive diversity starts with inclusion – how are you welcoming people in with new ways of thinking into your organisation?
  • Weekly department meetings, anyone can put something on the agenda, no matter your role.
  • How we approach specific groups where we know we haven’t done enough with in the past – there is a big gap in female coaching at the moment. Therefore we need a better pathway for young female coaches.
  • Data is crucial to understand how you haven’t served communities in the past so you can change it.
• Talk about it! Make it part of your everyday thoughts and conversations.