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Title: Winning Strategies: What Business Leaders Can Learn from Olympic Coaching

My friend is a pickleballer, and he’s learning a lot from his coach about how to become a champion. The high-stakes environment of Olympic sports can teach business people lessons about performance, resilience, and leadership at every level. I’m an Olympic gold medallist. Having won medals, watched elite sports from the inside, and experienced coaching from the perspective of both an employee and employer, I’ve learned that the world of sports furthers crucial lessons about leadership and teams.


The Foundation of Trust and Communication


Great Olympic teams know that developing trust between coaches and athletes (even if it is difficult) will help the team succeed – ‘The most critical element is what happens between us, coaches and athletes, and how honest we are with one another. There is a lot of sharing all the time and checking in with one another,’ says a high-level coach. Business leaders can apply this approach, too. They can build trust and foster flow through open dialogue with teams, including regular one-on-ones, team meetings, and feedback sessions.


Goal Setting and Accountability


Olympic coaches are experts at setting clear, measurable, stretch goals for their athletes (for example, running a 5:25 mile is a specific goal, but running fast enough to make the games bigger). The long-term goal — making the Olympics — is sliced up into smaller, more achievable interim goals. So it is with corporate leaders — goals have to be appealingly stretched yet largely achievable for both the company as a whole and individual team members. These goals should be clear as to what the expected outcome is when performance is required, and in the context of larger organizational visions. Progress checks and reviews throughout the year up until the (Olympic trials) goal date ensure accountability.


Embracing and Leading Through Change


Adaptability is an Olympic necessity. As coaches know, they plan for any possible competitive scenario but must be ready to change tactics on the fly if needed. Business leaders can take a page from their training playbooks by planning ahead for surprises, be they in the market or in their own company. Leading through change means you aren’t just planning for what you’ll change, but for how you can prepare your team to deal with those transitions well. That might mean training for new skills, building a culture with accountability for agility, or investing in tools and processes that encourage ingenuity everywhere.


Continuous Learning and Development


Olympic players have to train and learn and become more skilled continuously. The same approach is true for organization development. Employees have to learn and enhance their skills and knowledge continuously. The business leader has to create a culture of learning to encourage employees to train regularly, conduct workshops, and continue to learn regularly. This encouragement to employees keeps them in a nexus where they stay ahead of the competitors in becoming innovative and helps the organization to grow.


Performance Feedback and Constructive Perspective


While athletes might hear nasty feedback about their performance almost instantly, they rarely have to wait months to get proper feedback. Coaches and teammates are immediately present to offer their thoughts. The feedback isn’t just about putting athletes down, it aims to make them better – and faster. In the corporate setting, good behavior and performance sometimes get rewarded but they almost always get punished much sooner than truly terrible performances. Leaders can follow the cue of Olympic coaches and offer timely feedback that is constructive, specific, and actionable. When they work to understand athletes’ motivations and behaviors, giving high-performing employees a vision of what’s next can make them feel valued and supported in their personal and professional growth.


Building Resilience and Team Spirit


One of the most important lessons we can take from Olympic coaching is to foster a sense of resilience so that your team tackles their next challenge as welcoming a new opportunity rather than facing a new threat. This is why the very best Olympic teams are not merely groups of solo performers working in tightly knit clusters; they are also cohesive units where individuals are willing to support others to reach their collective targets. Business leaders must provide the same resilience to their teams when others might want them to give up. This happens by acknowledging people’s efforts, celebrating small gains, and making your work environment the place to be when things get tough.


Conclusion  


Olympic coaching: teachable, scalable, and sustainable lessons for business leadership There are lessons for business leaders they would do well to learn from Olympic coaches. Those lessons concern a superlative commitment to excellence and improvement and the ways in which those goals can best be enabled in dynamic teams of human beings. Coaching for excellence is about moving from impulsive action (‘spring from the block’) to more considered and nuanced behaviors. More at medium.com.  


Just as a coach who never has an athlete on the podium is eventually fired, the success of a business leader is measured by the success of her team. Embrace these principles and in no time you’ll watch your team sprint to the top with the discipline, skills, and spirit of Olympic champions.

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