October 2023 Check in with the Chair

Why we need to develop more leaders now than ever

October 30, 2023 - “Leaders aren't born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.”

These are the insightful words of legendary NFL coach, Vince Lombardi. I believe that many lessons from traditional sports can be applied to esports, and this quote is relevant as well.

In the current phase of the esports industry, we need effective leaders now more than ever. At the Esports Trade Association, we have decided to help “make” leaders as a complimentary benefit of membership, and hopefully, a meaningful contribution to our community as a whole.

A point that I have consistently shared about the majority of members of the esports industry, is that our community is greatly made up of young people. This is not a criticism, but rather a recognition of reality that has both pros and cons. The main reason is that those who have committed to start a pro team, pursue a career in content creation, or start their own endemic production company, are doing so based on a lifetime experience of playing competitive video games, which simply have not been around for nearly as long as traditional sports or many other forms of entertainment. Many individuals over the age of about 40 years did not grow up with competitive gaming being a foundational part of their life experience, which is often an essential aspect to even having the awareness of the possibility of esports as a career path.

The positive aspects of being youthful are many - Young people are innovative. There are no limitations to the imagination that have not been jaded by trying and failing, being told what they cannot do, or experiencing what has been done previously. Young people have incredible energy. For those of us in the 40-and-up age group, the grind of working, all night and seven days a week, feels like much more of a grind than it did 20 years ago. Young people are digitally savvy. There was not a time in their life experience when the internet did not exist, answers were unknown and the ability to connect globally was out of reach. Programming and developing technical solutions are second nature. And most importantly, young people understand youth culture, because it is their consumer behavior. The questions of how or why they interact with content, products, and brands are not confusing, they are common sense.

One downside to youth, however, is lack of experience, for which there is no substitute. To accommodate for this, since ESTA's founding, we have striven to connect experienced subject matter experts with the younger members of the core esports industry to facilitate knowledge sharing and relationship building for all to grow better together than apart.

The next step in our evolution to support the industry is leadership coaching.

The ESTA Leadership Program, powered by Coca-Cola, will launch in January 2024. The inaugural year of this program will focus specifically on coaching the men and women who Chair our local chapters. We believe that by developing our Chairs into better leaders, we will be able to serve our members and the industry more effectively as a result. This course will take place over 12 months in the form of workshops and coaching sessions from esports industry leaders on topics including Leadership Styles, Organizational Strategy, Team Development, Relationships in Leadership, Leading Through Change, and more.

For those skeptical of coaching, I get it. I was a skeptic myself until ESTA provided me with a fantastic executive coach, Sharon Gill, to improve my mindset and skills for the association to benefit from my serving more effectively as Board Chair. To be transparent, the coaching changed my life, both personally and professionally in ways that I could not have imagined. It enabled me to start my own business and host two podcasts, but more importantly, to lead others with a servant-hearted attitude that isn’t acting, but became natural through the lessons that I learned.

I’m thrilled that our association has the opportunity to pay forward what Megan Van Petten and our leadership so graciously provided to me. If you feel the need to enhance your abilities in business, leadership, and performance, join us in being “made”, as Vince Lombardi eloquently proclaimed so many years ago, and let’s help make our industry more sustainable and vibrant as well.