Archive: Reflections on leadership in elite sport

“You need to be yourself – with skill.” Andy Flower borrowed that phrase from the lexicon of leadership consultants Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones but here, onstage at the 2014 Leaders Sport Performance in London, he delved far deeper into his own approach to authenticity. Flower, who at the time had just finished a highly successful stint as Head Coach of the England men’s cricket team, was joined by John Longmire, who is still the Head Coach of the AFL’s Sydney Swans. The pair chatted at length about leading high performance organisations and pulling together the different strands that enable their players to be the best they can be. Other topics covered that day included: - Harnessing the hunger for continuous improvement - The importance of mentors in your senior playing group - Enabling players to focus on a simple range of performance factors - Avoiding the creation of a dependency culture - Experiential vs classroom-based learning