Champions As Leaders

Watching the Youth Olympic Games over the past 11 days has yielded for me many moments of thrill, suspense, drama and epiphanies. The many sports have a way of melding your ‘armchair mind’ to actively think on many levels about the individual and team performances. Every point scored or placing earned was done with decisiveness and deliberateness. Flukes and coincidences are few, and carelessness can be highly punitive.

Sporting competition is tense. The athlete undergoes an emotional rollercoaster as complex and tongue twisting as the colourful vocabulary of a passionate commentator. It is stressful, and the athlete draws upon his cache of values including resourcefulness, resilience, determination and passion. If all goes well, he may emerge the champion.

The champion is the eventual winner, who stands on the pinnacle of the rostrum. He bows the deepest as the gold medal is hung on his neck; he stands the tallest as he is both outstanding and stands out from the rest. The corporate champion is significant as he leads with new initiatives, interventions and implements them in innovative and intuitive ways.

The champion’s mindset is complex, a cerebral cauldron of intellectual, emotional and social intelligences. When corporate initiatives are introduced, he has to engage his sense of clarity, commitment and confidence to sell in ideas  (sometimes, farfetched), and gain buy in by the masses. It is a transaction of expectation and effort, married with optimism, aligned visions and sense of relevance. The champion must have a mindset of a winner, of imagining that the race is won before it is started. Why compete if you don’t want to win? Competition is vital for deciding standards, excellence, and ambition. Be the best, or not!

You can champion the cause of learning, top-notch service, healthy lifestyle, and a courteous and gracious culture. You can champion a cause or charity, and raise funds to support other initiatives. However, you will need to stick to your guns and blast forwards, clearing a way that makes the pathways clear and safe for others to follow through. Hannibal the Conqueror said: ‘If we cannot find a way, we will make a way!’ We need to take aim, like the youth archer and marksman, before we can release our arrow or round onto the target. We must ensure we hit home with our message, the relevance of our cause, and then vision of our intended future.

How do you become a champion of your corporation? How do you actively lead with your ideas, initiatives and strategies? How do you uniquely champion your cause? How pronounced do you make your target?