Darren Peters has had an amazing career in sports leadership, business coaching and university lecturer. He has held some prestigious roles in sports CEO Australia Paralympic Committee, chef de mission of Athens Games , CEO Rowing Australia, GM at Surf Life saving. He know lectures on what it takes to in sports management at Torrens University.
He is also a high performance athlete beach sprinter and understands what it takes to make an elite sportman.
Darren’s insight into what is leadership?
Leadership is a evolution theory. Tribes of people getting somthing done. Aspiration to some and a burden to others. Group of behaviours. Social label in a role. Socially tantalising, it can be lonely places. Its a lot of things. Primarily you have to encourage people to get things done.
Listen to this episode to find out more about what Darren thinks about leadership.
Have you ever wondered what is the meaning of leadership? You don’t have to look it up in a
dictionary. The meaning is in the word itself. If we look closely leadership consist of three words.
Leader, lead, ship. A leader is a person who leads a ship. A ship can be a certain company, a house,
or a country. People argue that some people are born leaders, but it has been proven many times
that leadership is not a trait that we inherit, it is a skill that can be learned.
A handyman has tools to help him do his work, a doctor has medical instruments to help him
perform surgery. So, does a leader have certain tools or skills that can help him do a better job?
You will love the following analogy if you are a marvel fan. Every superhero in avengers has some
sort of tool to help him do their task. Thor has a hammer; Cap has a shield and hulk gets angry
(we all have this ability). So, you and I are not less than any superhero. The difference is that they
fight aliens trying to invade earth, we try to fight the daily challenges that life throws at us. So, in
order to fight these challenges, we need to have some sort of tools that can help us.
These skills or tools are listening, empathy, emotional intelligence, creativity, and service
mindedness. Now if you are in a leadership position you must have these skills or as it is called
soft skills. People generally overlook these things and don’t learn them because they think they
don’t matter. But let me tell you these are equally as important as creating those balance sheets
and marketing campaigns.
The smartest leaders are the ones that go around and ask for everyone’s advice; they don’t
underestimate anyone. This points towards the first soft skill listening. Yes, you are right, listening
is the first skill that you need to master if you desire to lead. All of us have the ability to solve our
problems if anyone just listens to us. Listening can help you get what you want, without you even
asking for it. Even if you don’t want to become a leader, having a habit of listening will take you
a long way.
Another soft skill that a leader needs to have in his arsenal is empathy. Empathy means being
able to understand the needs of others. It means you’re aware of their feelings and their thinking.
A leader cannot build a team without empathy. So, a leader needs to see things from another
person’s perspective. This will help a leader make the right decisions.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in
positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome
challenges, and defuse conflict. Emotional intelligence can help a leader in dealing with difficult
people and situations. If a leader gets discouraged or tensed in a difficult situation then his team
will also lose hope. So, a leader has to have control over his emotions in order to lead.
How Can I Help You Win?
Now we come to the last soft skill that a leader needs to possess it is called service
mindedness. The job of the leader is not to be in charge of the people, the real job of a leader is
to take care of those in their charge. The leader should not say to his team how can you help me
win, but instead the leader should say “How can I help you win?”
So, if this inspired you, the next time you are in a position to lead. Do it with full courage and confidence in yourself. Leadership is rewarding but it is twice as challenging as it looks. People
will not have faith in you unless you first have faith in yourself. Instead of telling your team how
it’s done, show them how it’s done.
In just one session developing the confidence to lead…
I was lucky enough to catch up with a group of leaders who did my “emotional intelligence workshop” with horses and asked for feedback. Their reflections where more powerful than I could have imagined. Most importantly they reflecting on developing their confidence to lead effectively. These are their own personal insights and what they learnt.
These were their reflections more than a month after they did just one session.
I realised that I am always jumping in and being first. This didn’t allow me any additional time to observation to learn. In trying to understand how to get it right and be the best at it that I didn’t try and be as present. My focus was on getting it right. I have been practising patience and not rushing everything.
It was understanding the vulnerability of a close connection and being present with myself. I learnt how to be more self-aware of being present in the room.
left feeling focused and happy, with purpose and lowered the anxiety and the feeling has lasted
This made me think about how to influence the other decision makers so they get what’s going on.
Thoroughly enjoyed the session. I had so much energy for days after the session it was so inspiring.
Powerful and relatable, giving you the know how to deal with other people and your team
My confidence improved as a leader, I have done lots of thinking about the session afterwards and still got more days later because it influences how you lead.
Love it so much there were practical tips on what to do. I could use straight away. Being present and how you are feeling in the moment. Made me understand how to relate your behaviours to moods.
Highly recommend it. It gave me confidence – about being present and shifting my emotions. I was able to apply the experience immediately and improved confidence
It’s a bio-feedback mechanism with a horse about your self-efficacy. My learning from the session was I understood how to be up with intensity but with clear direction and focus.
I started with a fear of failure and feeling competitive. My ego meant I didn’t want to be the person who couldn’t do it. It was a new and different experience, I don’t have anything to do with horses so was intimidated and scared. I felt vulnerable and way outside my comfort zone. The connection I got was sorefreshing and a great way to build a shared experience. It was a completely new context to make the unconscious thoughts into a competence.
It was feeling like a pressurised situation where you go to a feeling of threat and try to make it about me. But then learning how to make it not about me and about being in control. The experience connected a lot of dots and good personal values. Its things we should be working on every day and when you have mastered it in one situation doesn’t mean you have it secure.
It is an effective coaching and leadership tool. It improved my relationship with my daughter. I become more self-aware of my behaviour towards her. I have been making a conscious effect and our relationship has changed.
Insights and Changes in Emotional Intelligence
My insights where that everyone got something different out of the session and it all related back to improving their emotional intelligence. The really interesting part was they could translate and put into action immediately. It was about understanding that everyone has something different that they see and feel. But it all relates back to the 5 key elements; Self-awareness, Self-regulation, Motivation, Empathy, and Social skills.
