The Olympics have been a source of inspiration for Three Things this month.
While we’ve seen many individual and team success stories in Paris (including 6 Gold, 4 Silver and 1 Bronze for Australia as we press send on this newsletter), we think there’s some important leadership lessons to be had from the stories of three former Olympians.
Sally Robbins (Rowing)
Sally Robbins is a two-time Olympian. She represented Australia in the women’s four at the 2000 Olympics and in the women’s eight at the 2004 Olympics. After she stopped rowing during the final in 2004 in Athens, which she later said was due to fatigue, she was widely derided and dubbed “Lay Down Sally” in the media.
For leaders, Sally’s story is an excellent example of how critical it is to put the right people in the right seat at the right time. In a team effort, one person’s poor performance can have a catastrophic impact on the overall results and create discontent and disconnection in other high performers. In this case, a crewmate post-race was reported to say “I will go back to single sculls for a while… there is a little bitter taste in my mouth.”
The 2004 women’s final is also a cautionary tale about what can happen when leadership and communication skills break down. When the Australian eight pulled into the dock, the only people waiting for the crew were the media. Had they been met instead by their coach or support team, and their leadership skills included understanding how to manage the fluctuating nature of resilience and emotional pressure, the experience may have been quite different for Sally and her teammates. Additionally, if the eight had been trained in how to manage communication under pressure the global media coverage may not have gone the way it did.
Sam Kerr (Soccer)
It seems wrong to talk about Sam Kerr as a former anything. She’s widely regarded as one of Australia’s greatest athletes and is one of the best strikers in the world. She represented Australia in the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games, but was ruled out of contention for Paris due to injury.
As we saw in the 2023 World Cup and this week in the preliminary round against Zambia, the Matildas consistently perform strongly because the sum of the team is more than the individual contributions of their superstars. While Sam will no doubt be missed, the Matildas are an adaptive team with widely distributed leadership and capability – a model that organisational leaders would do well to emulate.
Stephen Bradbury (Speed Skating)
Sure, Stephen Bradbury’s gold medal effort in the short track 1,000m event in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City is an epic tale of an underdog never giving up. He won that race by literally becoming the last man standing after all four of his competitors fell. His effort has now been captured in the phrase “doing a Bradbury”.
Many said Bradbury was lucky, but luck is not a magical thing that happens. It’s better described as being in a situation you can make the most of because you have invested in ensuring you have all the necessary skills and attributes ready to do that. That’s why it’s in the years leading up to that gold medal win that one of the most important leadership lessons can be found in the story of this three-time Olympian.
Speed skating is a risky sport. In 1994, during a World Cup event, Bradbury collided with another skater whose blade went clean through his thigh and cut all of his quadricep muscles. It took 111 stitches and 18 months to recover. In September 2000, Bradbury broke his neck in a training accident. He underwent surgery, spent six weeks in a halo brace and was told he would not be able to skate again.
But Bradbury was determined to get to the 2002 Olympic Games. So, he did what every leader should do. He gave himself time for recovery and regeneration so that he could sustain and maintain his high performance.
How JOST&Co can help
We’re not professing to be able to help anyone to become an elite athlete. But we can help leaders achieve high performance in their teams.
We support leaders to develop compassionate leadership skills, adaptively meet changing requirements and build high performance through motivated learning, including in areas of new, performance-enhancing technology.
With our team diagnosis tools, we can also provide an evidence-based view of team strengths and gaps, and what’s needed to achieve optimal performance.