Leadership Links

It is well known that the game of golf is often considered a business necessity. Business leaders play golf - in fact Mintel’s research shows that 44% of senior managers, executives and professionals in the UK have played the game (BRB/Mintel 2006). Not only will you find that golf is the game of choice for nearly half the business leaders in the UK, the game provides a wonderful prism to examine leadership in a new and enlightening way.

Whether you are an avid player, play once a month with clients, have joined a game on a company outing or you have never actually picked up a club, golf provides valuable lessons and a means of exploring your leadership journey.

Most new golfers arrive at a driving range, grab a driver and hold on to it with a tight grip for fear of their new tool flying from their grasp as they hack away at an elusive white ball. Too tight a grip on the club causes stress in the body that reduces range and accuracy - likewise, the new leader often finds it difficult to take a step back from micro-managing and setting impossible targets that usually result in teams fighting the rough spots of low morale and hiding in bunkers of blame and recrimination. Just as golf has developed a few trusted basic grips - each providing a lightness of touch with control that allows the club to do the work in the right direction, a leader learns the balance between control and letting-go. The routine of how you place your club in your hand and set-up for each shot becomes ingrained and almost instinctive - yet the best players continue to work on this most basic of the game (Mahoney, 2000) to prepare for different course, a different lie and innovations in technology afforded by new clubs.

If you have a speck of athletic ability and reasonable hand-eye co-ordination, an untrained novice golfer will, with perseverance, improve. The air-shots and ‘hitting the big green ball first’ shots will become less frequent and you will begin to strike the ball higher and further. But there comes a time, when even the most enthusiastic of beginners finds that improvement stops - the ‘natural’ talent has taken you as far as it can - you are either good in spite of your technique or bad because of it or like most golfers, plain mediocre. The same can be said of leadership. A speck of leadership ability, some reasonable people skills and a position to exercise them will show improvement with practice and time. Don’t worry about the lost balls of disillusioned staff or the odd key client left in a ditch - with enthusiasm and practice the new leader’s influencing skills are better timed, motivational feedback misfires with less frequency and team productivity gradually increases. It will, of course, plateau. The improvements made in leading others slow to a trickle and you have reached your ‘natural’ leadership level.

The best golfers in the world are not just ‘natural’ talent - sure they may have a higher athletic ability than you, and they may (rarely) naturally create a new technique that gives them the edge for a long time (the Vardon grip is one example that comes to mind). The best players deliberately work on their skills and their mindset - and they work on it day after day after day. Similarly, the best leaders in the world don’t claim to be ‘born leaders’ - yes, their particular circumstances, upbringing and personality might enable them to more easily achieve success as a leader than others, but like professional golfers, they work on it, learn from experience, reflect in action and change an approach when it is appropriate.

Take dead aim is perhaps the most frequently used phrases in golf - it means to focus your attention entirely on where you want the ball to go - rather than focusing on what you wish to avoid (Sanders, 2001). The issue with the latter, focusing on what you want to avoid will, inevitably, lead you to achieve just that - what you wanted to avoid! Psychologists refer to this as the power of intention - what we focus on is what we get. It’s no different in leadership. A leader who focuses everyone’s attention on not letting key accounts get poached by competitors or cutting costs because of economic decline will get what they seek - poached key accounts and economic decline (the accountants may be happy for a while because costs are cut and margins improved but an extra 10% of no revenue is not growth! A good leader knows this, and not only has clear targets; they will take dead aim on those targets and ensure that everything is brought to bear to bring them to fruition.

A good golfer is keenly aware of his or her attitude to the ball; the stance taken will influence the direction of the ball flight along with the grip and the swing (Locander and Luechauer, 2007). The loft and distance of flight is determined by the choice of club and the ground on which the ball lies. The decisions are made in moments after scanning the environment and choosing the precise target to place the ball ready for the next shot - or indeed, into the hole. Likewise, a good leader knows the best attitude to adopt that will influence stake-holders, ensuring that the right resources are available and handled with appropriate skill. Decisions may be caused through a change in circumstance or simply a need for direction, and considering the environmental variances, the good leader identifies the target, creating visceral images of what the leader and the team can expect to see when they achieve the target. Like good golf coaches, effective leaders use compelling images to engage people and provide feedback on achievement (Hurst, 2002).

Golfers know that the rub of the green can change a game in an instant. The most perfect drive can land in the middle of the fairway and take an unlucky bounce off into a hazard, and there’s the unintentional slice that hits a tree rebounding back onto the green and straight into the cup. Moments of despair and moments of pure joy. The exceptional golfer celebrates good fortune with humility and learns from misfortune, without rancour. At moments of intense pressure, exceptional golfers keep their head and focus entirely on the job in hand - taking dead aim with the best attitude and the right club.

Golf is a unique sport in that it is the golfer against the environment and is governed by self-enforcement of the rules. Whatever another player does or does not do - does not change the situation. It is just you and physics and a comprehensive set of rules that you, the player, are responsible for imposing… on yourself. The golfer must know, play by and enforce the rules of the game. As leaders, the actions of our competitors, our suppliers, government, customers and so on do cause a change for us - we need to be acutely aware of changes in the environment, make plans and react to changes led by our own rules. If you see someone using the ‘foot wedge’ on the golf course you can be pretty certain that you can’t trust them, let alone trust them in business. That, however, brings me to another topic “Golf doesn’t build character, it reveals it!” which I shall save until another time.

Golf can teach us many lessons about leadership and here we have dipped into a few:
•    Adjust your gentle grip to the circumstance
•    Build the fundamentals and continue to work on them
•    Take dead aim on your target and adjust yourself and resources according to the environment
•    Celebrate good fortune with humility and adversity with level-headedness
•    Know the rules and play by them

If you would like to know more about the GAINMORE Leadership Golf Challenge and how we can help you transform your leaders - whether your business issues are Strategy, Business Planning, Teamwork, Change, Marketing, Operations, Finance - we will work with you to design a solution that will address your ongoing needs. Call us on +44 (0)207 1935218 or visit the website at www.gainmoreleadership.co.uk

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

BRB/Mintel (2006) GB TGI, BMRB Quarter 4 2006/Mintel
David Hurst (2002). The Swing of Things: Keys to Learning Golf and Management , Leadership in Action, 22(3), 1.  
Ray Mahoney (2000). Leadership and learning organisations. The Learning Organization, 7(5), 241-243.  
William B Locander,  David L Luechauer. (2007). Leadership As Golf. Marketing Management, 16(3), 66-68.
Don Sanders (2001). Go for the green. InSync Press, Sanford, FL. 2001

Dr John Kenworthy

CCO GAINMORE™ Golf

GAINMORE™ Leadership

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