Leaders aren’t made overnight. Sally Roberts, former elite wrestler, sport psychology consultant, and founder of Wrestle Like A Girl, explains how coaches, parents, and all role models play a part in developing leadership skills in athletes that help them and their communities.
Learn more about Sally Roberts.
Being a great leader does not happen overnight, and it’s not something that we fall into. I never woke up and said, “Today I’m going to be a great leader.” Each and every one of us, we go through our life and we learn things, little things along the way from different people we’ve encountered from different experiences and from different role models, coaches and leadership that we’ve had privy to. And when we are able to provide a safe space where there’s going to be no abuse, no assault, where there’s going to be good information on what eating healthy looks like, what drinking water does to you, and that embraces all of the championship life skills that sports can teach, that’s where we’re able to help show our kids that there’s more than a few ways to become a good leader.
And as we support them in their own evolution, then we’re able to support each and every one of the athletes that are under our tutorage in different ways because we all know that not everyone is going to take the same path, not everyone has the same abilities, not everyone has the same introverted, extroverted outputs. So when we’re able to look at each of the athletes and say, “I believe that I know what it’s going to take to help you be as successful as possible,” and we support our athletes in finding that within themselves, that’s when, not just the sport, not just the athlete, not just the coach succeeds, but that’s when we as a nation are really able to raise the level of leaders that we have across our nation.
