The summer was full of great sporting events such as the Ashes, the Women’s Football World Cup and the Tour de France. Although we often watch sport to be entertained, you can also take away many leadership lessons from watching your sporting heroes, says Hays CEO, Alistair Cox, in his latest
LinkedIn Influencer blog.
Alistair lists five lessons that can be taken away from watching your favourite sports.
- Winners are good delegators - Alistair says “Winning teams and sports stars require excellent managers and coaches, and the best coaches and managers are brilliant delegators.” As a leader you must give each of your team a clearly defined role and prepare them to perform to the best of their abilities. Alistair continues “In business we can often find ourselves trying to micromanage everything, especially the more senior we get. But just like in sport, we need to empower teams by delegating roles and responsibilities to ensure tasks get the focus and expertise they deserve.”
- Look after your talent, on and off the pitch - Creating a support network for your employees, such as helping recently relocated staff settle in to their new environment and beyond, can help to ensure your talent performs well and consistently. Alistair says “It’s essential that any team, whether in sport or business, is not only hiring the best talent across all roles and disciplines, but also creating an environment in which they can thrive, focus and be successful.”
- Know your competitors, but don’t get obsessed - In order to win against your competitors, you must first know how to do so. When you lose a business pitch you need to understand why, while not losing sight of your own strengths during the process. Alistair says “In business, decide which members of your team need to focus their time and energy on what your competitors are doing, and the rest of you should concentrate on being the best in the business.”
- Strength of character - To be a strong leader you must be able to not only learn from your mistakes but to be able to come back from them too, showing great strength of character. Alistair says “To be a good leader you need to be more than just the fastest runner or the best strategic thinker, you need to be mentally robust. This is vital to make the right decisions when the pressure is on, learn from failure and bounce back from criticism.”
- It’s not only about the big wins - The big wins are often the ones that are talked about, but it is important to remember that success doesn’t just happen overnight and these big wins are a result of smaller wins along the way. Alistair says “It’s just as important to celebrate and relish these smaller victories, as setting and hitting plenty of small goals and targets can help to keep the team on track and motivated to work towards the next big one.”
Alistair finishes by saying that as a business leader it is important to look for inspiration and lessons from other walks of life and there isn’t a better example than sports. Alistair says “Leaders and managers from all walks of life would do well to remember that motivating and inspiring teams requires more than just personal raw talent.” So the next time you are watching a sporting event, think about the coaches and the captain of the team, “You have more in common than you think”.
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About Hays
Hays plc (the "Group") is a leading global professional recruiting group. The Group is the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in the UK and Asia Pacific and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe and Latin America. The Group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments. As at 31 December 2014 the Group employed 8,748 staff operating from 244 offices in 33 countries across 20 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2014:
– the Group reported net fees of £724.9 million and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £140.3 million;
– the Group placed around 57,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 212,000 people into temporary assignments;
– 24% of Group net fees were generated in Asia Pacific, 42% in Continental Europe & RoW (CERoW) and 34% in the United Kingdom & Ireland;
– the temporary placement business represented 59% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 41% of net fees;
– Hays operates in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA