Leadership lessons…from Wimbledon

 Q: I thought it might be good to reflect a bit on the Wimbledon Championship and think about what it might teach us about leadership?

A: Oh for goodness sake! Last time it was kindness, and this time its tennis! Don’t you think it’s all a bit obvious?

Q: What do you mean?

A: Oh come on…to win Wimbledon requires enormous skill and incredible amounts of work to prepare; tremendous self-belief, but also determination, resilience, the ability to set a strategy and focus relentlessly on its execution, and…

Q: It sounds….

A: …and to support the player, the mobilisation of a support team who become essential to success.

Q: To say nothing of the value of getting a great coach! Sounds as if you think there are resonant elements of leadership behaviour there to think about….

A: The point is that it’s all pretty obvious and I reckon you are just triggered to think about it now because of the hype and the historic victory and the years it’s taken, blah blah blah! In the end, though, it’s an individualistic sport; it’s not about leading a team to deliver on a great purpose, and it’s only possible for an unbelievably tiny minority of people. I don’t think there are really transferrable lessons here…or if there are, they are probably the same as I could derive if I reflected on how I would go about buying a bottle of vintage champagne from the sale at Fortnum and Masons!

Q: What do you mean?

A: Well, I would have to work hard and plan, to save up the money to afford the bottle in the first place; I would then need a strategy to get to the shop just in time to beat the queues, and that might even involve mobilising friends to stay the night before with, or get a lift; I would need focus and execution and resilience to beat the queues, and finishing power to get the job done to buy the bottle. Do you see? It’s not really the kind of leadership that is going to matter in my organisation, especially when you remember that in the tennis example, the supporters are mostly paid help with specialist skills.

Q: Hmmm….well I guess that raises an interesting question….

A: Which is?

Q: It makes me think that there are two kinds of lesson we are interested in here, because there are two relevant dimensions of leadership; there is the obvious dimension you have spotted and gunned down, which is about what it takes in the leader (for now let’s not argue about whether a tennis superstar is, or is not, a leader) to sustain role and purpose in the face of toil and tribulation and challenge. Then there is a second dimension with some less obvious lessons…..

A: Like what?

Q: Like what it is that the leader needs from others to be able to lead….and I don’t mean the support team who I think, incidentally, have lots of discretion to do amazing things way beyond what they are paid to do….and making that happen is relevant to leadership.

A: You’ve digressed. Get back to that point about what the leader needs from others.

Q: Well….leadership is sometimes described as the "management of meaning". The leader sets out the context and the organisational narrative for those who are led. Whether you call it “truth-telling” or “sense-making” or “holding the boundary”, the leader is charged with being the guardian of the meaning of the organisational work, by turns conserving meaning or changing it, one moment to help the organisation hold onto core values connected to its past, the next adapting and changing to survive into the future.

A: And?

Q: You see, that second leadership-related activity is not done for the leader (in the way that winning the championship is). It is done by the leader and for the led. But the thing the tennis makes me realise is that it’s also done by the led….they also have actively to participate in the creation of meaning and purpose. That’s what makes Wimbledon and your champagne-buying expedition so different. The latter example really is of no interest to anyone but you….but Wimbledon is of interest to millions upon millions. Without the audience and the interest, the contest would have enormously less meaning.

A: The crowd creates the meaning?

Q: As much as the players do. And with thousands in the court and millions of them watching globally, that is quite a lot of meaning for the leader to hold.

A: Hmm…no wonder he was tense at times!

Q: No wonder. It’s a huge amount to hold and it requires huge support. You can’t just make our tennis leader hold all the hopes for success from millions and millions of people….they have to be offering a lot of goodwill as well, to hold the leader up.

A:  I often think supporters just create tension in an unhelpful way, but you are saying they are offering much more than that…

Q: I would guess so.  We have social brains evolved to respond to the emotions of others, and our emotion circuits are wired directly into other important functions like cognition and memory. Our emotions are affected by those of others, and our emotions affect how well we perform. What those emotions will be, towards us from others, will depend on the relationships we make and nurture with those we lead. Even if the relationship is just how much strangers feel affection for our tennis player, compared to other emotions they might have, like irritation or jealousy.

A: So it’s a good idea if his supporters really like him?

Q: I think, if you really push the argument, maybe he could not have won until he had previously lost….

A: What?!

Q: Seriously…. because in the process of losing, he revealed something of himself that allowed all those millions of people to really connect with him in a profoundly different way, supporting him, from then on, at an entirely different level.

A: That’s pushing it! You are saying he needed a kind of support that was different to what he got last year and that he only got this year because he lost last year?

Q: Well, not only because he lost. It’s harder to affiliate to loss, after all….it often depresses us. But how he spoke (and wept) afterwards, last year, was pivotal I think….because as a result, we saw someone who really seemed not only to fulfil of all the qualities you mentioned earlier (and so was admirable as someone who “deserved” to win) but who was also deeply human in his desire and vulnerability, and entirely authentic in his distress at losing. After that, we were drawn deeper and in vastly greater numbers to affiliate with his cause and his ambition. Perhaps we had wanted the victory, until then, for ourselves; now, we surely wanted it for him.

A: You are saying that leaders need to fail first in order to succeed?

Q: I am saying that leaders need to remember that while all things are clouded by emotion, without emotion we are not human. Revealing some of our emotion and passion to those with whom we want to share purpose demonstrates our values and our humanity. We can’t let that frighten them, or overwhelm us, as we also saw in some of the other matches where players lost all composure. In healthcare, there is a lot out there to overwhelm us, and patients and staff need to see leaders and clinicians remain in control of their emotions. But to maintain the connection with those we lead, they have to see us as human and, through our leadership, as giving meaning to their humanity and that of their patients. They need to feel a connection.

A: Hmmm…..I am not sure I am going to start weeping at my senior management briefings just yet.

Q: You don’t need to. But you do need to let them know that sometimes, you feel like it….because of bad care or great care….and that those feelings are normal and healthy. They are a part of the great privilege and mystery that is healthcare, and must be managed within the organisation if we are to keep it a place of healing. Those you lead….your would-be supporters….deserve nothing less.

A: OK….I get it. Don’t suppose you fancy a game of tennis?