What do the most powerful leaders have in common?
Nicole Smartt Serres
Grew Company to $36 Million w/ No Sales Team | I Acquire and Scale Small Businesses | Want Free Strategies to Grow Your Business? Subscribe to My Newsletter ??
Sports.
Research has consistently shown the correlation between women in leadership roles and a history of competitive athletics.
Ernst & Young surveyed 821 high-level executives and found that a whopping 90% of women sampled played sports. Among women currently holding a C-suite position, this proportion rose to 96%.
As a former high school basketball player who still holds the record for most points in a season for the Casa Grande Gauchos, I can speak from experience about the strong connection between athletics and leadership.?
When I sank that winning three-pointer at the buzzer against our rivals, the adrenaline rush taught me how to perform under pressure. When we didn’t make it to finals, I learned accountability and resilience. As captain, I had to understand each teammate's strengths and weaknesses in order to bring out the best in them - not unlike managing different personalities in an office setting.
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The study showed that qualities like goal-setting, competitiveness, teamwork and grit translate powerfully into positive leadership capabilities. Female executives who played sports were more likely to display confidence, resilience, empathy and willingness to take risks than those who did not.
Business is a lot like sports - it takes strategy, endurance, collaboration, and the ability to pivot when the market changes. As an athlete, you expect to get knocked down from time to time. What matters is that you get back up again and analyze where things went wrong to improve for the next game.?
The confidence and competitive spirit instilled in me from years of practices, games, wins and losses absolutely translated into the courage and drive needed to start my own company later on. I firmly believe that executive leadership requires the kind of tenacity, integrity and heart that sports teach young women.
If you want more female CEO’s, executives, and entrepreneurs, we need to get more girls off the sidelines and into the game. The teamwork, competitiveness and determination baked into young female athletes is the secret playbook for raising a generation of confident, resilient leaders.?
We need more women calling the shots in the business world.
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4 个月I agree with this!
Chairman, Affiliated Staffing Group
1 年Good post! That said we should focus on who is the best candidate and not filling numbers to meet diversity requirements. All for it as there are so many to women as men out there. My orthopedic surgeon is a woman who has achieved so much as 2 sport athlete in Division I at Princeton University while in there pre-med program. Incredible person. Med school at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
Loan Officer at All California Mortgage, a Division of American Pacific Mortgage, Licensed by the Dept of Financial Protection and Innovation under the CRMLA. NMLS#282974
1 年That is the truth, Nicole! Thats true in business and politics! I'd like to see at least half of the Congress be female!! We are better at compromising!!
Turn Chaos Into Cohesion: Empowering CEOs to Align Leadership, Retain Talent, and Scale Culture | Fractional Chief People Officer
1 年Love it. I ran cross country in high school but danced for most of my childhood.
Speak Truth to Power
1 年My father thought sports would help me with teamwork. Since I am not a fast runner I was more of a hindrance to any team. Once I stopped playing sports- my current job is surprisingly athletic. People work together in the way I wanted and never had on teams. Since I am athletic now on a job; it feels like a midlife crisis. It's never too late.