Learning Leadership Through Sports

The Washington Post’s Tom Heath’s “Value Added” column this week is about a company with which I partner quite a bit – Bookkeeping Express. As a former college football player and coach (Navy), I agree with the premise that there are great life lessons learned not only on the football field, but in any endeavor where victory comes only through teamwork. Team sports happen to be an excellent opportunity to have multiple chances at winning or losing, but there are others (debate, writing, science competitions, politics, business, etc.). One of the comments on the column asserted that there were probably other skills that CEO Greg Jones learned at Penn State that were “Value Added” other than football, but I would have to disagree with the comment writer that public speaking is what ultimately provided more leadership skill.

Being a good public speaker qualifies someone for being a leader like having a computer qualifies someone to be a writer. Yes, public speaking is a valuable skill, but it is only one component of leadership. If I had to boil down leadership into two words, I would say that leadership is about ACCOUNTABILITY and HUMILITY, and those are the biggest lessons I learned from playing football – especially in college (man, did I learn a great deal about humility). I’d like to focus on accountability, though, since I feel it is the harder of the two lessons. If Greg didn’t do his job as a nose guard, he would have allowed the front side offensive guard to seal off the backside linebacker (for example), taking the backside linebacker out of the play. If I didn’t do my job as the “blindside” offensive tackle, I would have gotten my quarterback killed. There’s no place to hide on the football field – if you don’t do your job, the team will suffer. You can’t blame anyone else for your inability to do your job – you are held accountable for your actions.

Certainly accountability can be learned in many fields of endeavor, and I believe that team-based endeavors are the best. We learned many leadership lessons at the Naval Academy; developing leaders is what the school is all about. However, there’s a reason why every midshipman is required to participate in sports – whether the sport is intramural or intercollegiate – and that’s to learn accountability, humility, and teamwork. Did we learn public speaking? Yes. Did we take leadership courses? Yes. Did we have many opportunities to apply and hone our leadership skills? Absolutely. However, I have come to understand that accountability and humility must be deeply appreciated before they are embraced or learned. Team sports such as football are one of the best ways to teach these lessons.

Grow Strong!

Coach Grev