What would YOU do if you simultaneously had weight on your shoulders, which included:
- 16 months of a Covid-19 pandemic and its ensuing disruptions
- A life goal delayed by one year
- 365 days of added high-performance work
- Restrictions on your mobility beyond a specified “bubble” within arguably one of the largest performance stages in the world
- Constant virus testing and mask-wearing, knowing that one incidence of a “positive” virus result could keep you from a goal you might never again have the chance to attain
- Zero family and friends supporting you at a crucial time in your life
- Knowing that you not only impact your team’s performance but also have your country and the world thinking they depend on you
- Regular Internet and social media intrusions
- People’s unrealistic expectations of you
- Working through sexual abuse while still operating within the organization that silenced the abuse
- Continual media interviews while you’re trying to focus on your performance
- Age considerations that could affect your results
- Advertisers, sponsors, and post-event plans that could potentially disappear should you not meet expectations.
Plus you were…
- Female
- A person of color
- Adopted into a mixed-race family
- Designated as the greatest of all time (for the present moment) in your area of expertise
Yes, you most likely could not escape the media coverage of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and Simone Biles. Consider also that most of these points pertain to Naomi Osaka, the Women’s Softball team, Katie Ledecky (though not as drastically), and untold others who are not yet identified as of this writing.
As I remain glued to the 2020 Olympics (in 2021), I ask myself what lessons I can garner from these dealing-with-pressure instances in my own life-long pursuit of leadership development. I hope you also take the opportunity to seek leadership lessons from these leading athletes for yourself. Here are some take-aways I’ve identified from these GOATs – Greatest of All Time performers – that I can apply to my own personal and professional leadership roles.
- While the pressures that public figures experience are public, we “everyday folk” experience private pressures that weigh just as heavily on us as theirs do on them. So, too, for the people we lead. Our empathetic decisions and actions come from taking moments to walk in our follower’s shoes.
- Being transparent, open, and honest about the impact of pressures we experience is less about complaining and whining and more about conscious communication. Conscious communication enhances emotional well-being with our ability to clearly communicate what we want (and need) in life. The key principle of conscious communication involves making it as easy as possible for another person to meet our needs by asking for the specific behaviors that will fulfill them. It is self-care, not selfishness.
- Speaking out on issues others would rather avoid is brave, and necessary, if a change is ever to take place in society or in the workplace. If you’re experiencing a situation, best believe that others are experiencing the same situation too. Be the leader for change.
- Being a high-performer, or leading high-performing people, involves both benefits and drawbacks. Be clear about your “why” with goals and aspirations, and be willing to make the sacrifices that balancing the positives and negatives entails.
- Be ready to make tough decisions and take “stuff” from other people when your time comes to release the pressure. Sometimes a graceful and gracious release of a personal goal may be necessary for supporting and advancing a team goal.
- You do not owe sacrificing your own personal well-being to someone else’s expectations. Self-care feeds strong leadership.
If we dig deeper into what is happening most-visibly in the elite sports world, yet also more prevalently for people returning to work and public life after a year-and-a-half of Covid-19 pandemic disruptions, we can learn more lessons and gain greater awareness of what the people we lead are going through. I acknowledge that we bring some pressures upon ourselves. I also challenge myself and encourage you to find and absorb the “pressure lessons” from these experiences. Determine how to lead empathetically so that those we lead feel that we care about them.
Keep in mind that GOATs’ public pressures may mirror your people’s private ones!