Training in the World’s Toughest Sports Made Me a Better Leader
I train at a gritty, old-school boxing gym that has produced some of Texas’s greatest champions. Although I haven’t competed, the sport is teaching me what I’m made of, and what I’m not made of. To become a better boxer, I’ve had to overcome psychological obstacles and become more disciplined mentally and physically. Because the tests I’ve gone through to improve as an athlete have many parallels to the tests I face as a leader in an enterprise software company, I’ve been able to apply what I learned in the gym to become a better leader at the office.
Stepping over self-doubt into courage
When I was promoted to manager for the first time, there were moments that I cried in my office because I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t think my team would respect me as their new leader. I didn’t think I could have the tough conversations with struggling employees. I was half certain everyone would talk behind my back and refuse to take direction from me and ask to report to their previous manager, who was clearly a better leader than I’d ever be.
Recently, when I assumed a role with greater responsibility, I noticed familiar thoughts. They picked the wrong person for the job. They must have assumed I’m smarter than I am. I’m not cut out for public speaking. My new team is excited, so they must be overestimating my abilities. They don’t know my weaknesses yet. I don’t have enough knowledge and I can’t handle the stress.
I recognized these as the same type of thoughts I have when I’m stepping into the boxing ring. My sparring partner is more athletic than me. I’m too slow. I’m older than they are. My cardio isn’t where it needs to be. I have no defense. I haven’t practiced my footwork enough. I’m going to get injured.
While I’ve been unable to make my self-doubt disappear, boxing has helped me realize it for what it is: fear, and it’s there to protect me from doing something stupid. Nothing is stupider than stepping into a ring with the full understanding that I’m going to get punched in the head. If I only listened to those thoughts, I would never box again. So I have to hear the warnings in my mind and make a conscious choice to do what I want to do anyway. That’s all courage is.
It’s well-known that imposter syndrome affects women disproportionately, and it sounds a lot like the doubtful thoughts I just described. While this article offers tips for overcoming imposter syndrome, in my experience, the best way to get past it is to move through it. You can’t always make it go away, but you can tell it “Thanks for the heads up” and move forward in spite of the mental monsters trying to tear you down. Once you learn to ignore these doubts, you become capable of doing more than you’d ever dreamed. You become courageous.
Since I’ve practiced ignoring my self-doubt, I’ve stepped into the ring probably fifty times to spar mostly men. I got stronger and faster at age 35 than I’ve ever been in my life. At work, I designed a product that generates over $4M a year and won an industry award. I presented to packed houses at client conferences, despite my disdain for public speaking. My team shipped dozens of new features across seven enterprise software products, all with significantly higher usability scores than those of our legacy products and features. We delivered a product to market in record time for my company. My team doubled in size. I was voted Manager of the Year. All this in spite of me supposedly not having enough knowledge or courage to do the job.
It’s amazing what you become capable of once you realize your worst enemy is your own mind, and you plug the overflowing dam of self-doubt. Courage is not a gift that some have and others don’t. It’s simply the habit of ignoring your fear. Here are some questions to ask yourself to assess whether self-doubt is getting in your way of becoming a better leader:
Do you take action even when you’re not certain you will receive positive results? Or do ambiguous situations paralyze you into inaction? No one ever achieved greatness while sitting on their couch worrying about what might go wrong, and I’ve seen far more people fail at the office because they didn’t try than because they chose the wrong course of action. Risks are inherent in both sports and in leadership, which means that great athletes and great leaders must take calculated risks all the time. Doing something, in spite of your self-doubt, is almost always better than doing nothing.
Do you speak up? Or do you constantly defer to others? If you’re suffering from imposter syndrome, you might tell yourself that others know better and your place in a group setting is to act as the observer. But great leaders believe in something, share their beliefs with the world, and garner momentum and support behind their vision.
Overcoming pride
I was raised by a proud single mom who never asked for help from anyone, and instilled in me the value of self-reliance. Her father, the most influential male figure in my life, was also a proud man. Growing up, I associated pride with strength, independence, and honor, and until my late twenties, it never occurred to me that pride could be anything other than a virtue.
In boxing, I noticed a limiting aspect of my pride: I didn’t like being incompetent. This was problematic, since I was learning a new sport and no one is immediately good at something they’ve never done before. I didn’t like shadow boxing because I might look awkward in front of other people. I didn’t want to spar anyone taller than me because I hadn’t figured out my defense. I didn’t like jumping rope because I sometimes tripped over the rope. But I needed to shadow box, spar and jump rope in order to become better, so my options were to give up or look foolish until I’d mastered these new skills.
The same was true for me in the realm of leadership. I didn’t like presenting because I got nervous and my voice faltered. I didn’t like admitting that I didn’t understand certain aspects of development because I thought I would be viewed as nontechnical. I was afraid to openly disagree with senior leaders because they might resent being challenged and respond in a humiliating way. But if I didn’t move past my pride, I wouldn’t learn some of the key functions of my job or take necessary risks for the sake of my team’s success.
I’ve learned to swallow my pride at the boxing gym and put up with my trainer barking at me when I’m doing something wrong. Rather frequently, I get an earful when I’m too slow, or not practicing enough, or too far from my ideal weight. It’s all part of the sport and I don’t want to waste my time sulking over a bruised ego.
At work, I’ve also practiced swallowing my pride, which is refreshing for me and probably also for my coworkers. Now, if I don’t know what a term means or how a process works, I just ask, because the only benefit to pretending I know is the protection of my ego. I present because, even if I’m not the best presenter, I have valuable information that my customers and team members will benefit from understanding. When I disagree with a senior leader, I usually find a way to say so, and if they immediately shut me down, I consider their inability to listen a problem of theirs and not mine. At the end of the day, it’s my job as a leader to advocate for what I believe is right for my team, my organization, and our customers.
Boxing helped me practice swallowing my pride, and I’ve learned how to apply that in my leadership. Here are some questions you might ask yourself to assess whether you’ve been managing your own pride or letting it get in the way of your development as a leader:
Do you try new things? Or do you avoid looking stupid? It goes without saying that you’ll stagnate in any field if you only do what you know how to do and never venture outside your comfort zone. MOST people stay in their comfort zone MOST of the time. Do you want to be an average employee? Or do you want to be a great leader in your industry? If the latter, you’re going to need to risk temporarily looking foolish as you try your hand at new skills that foster your development as a leader.
Do you ask for feedback on your approach? Or do you avoid criticism? You can’t become a great athlete or leader unless you’re willing to hear what you’re doing wrong. A fragile ego can lead you to develop serious blind spots, and at some point your coworkers will stop offering feedback if they think you can’t handle it. In these cases, the feedback typically just continues behind your back instead of to your face.
Do you alter your approach based on feedback? Or do you refuse to change? Athletes replay videos of themselves and their teams to understand what went right or wrong, so they can repeat their success and adjust techniques that don’t work to their advantage. Imagine how unsuccessful they’d be if they never bothered to change their habits. In any field, your success will be limited if you’re too stubborn to fix your mistakes. If you’re going to ask someone to take the time to give you feedback (which you should), have the decency to at least consider their feedback and apply what works.
Getting out what you put in: the importance of practice
If you’ve ever read the book Outliers, you’re familiar with Malcolm Gladwell’s theory that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a world-class expert in any field. Nowhere is the importance of practice more evident than in a boxing gym, where some of the best boxers have been raised in the boxing community and competed since they were ten years old, accumulating tens of thousands of practice hours over the course of decades.
One Sunday morning, on our drive to the football stadium where we sprint up and down the parking ramps, I asked the owner of the gym what qualities shaped the best boxers he’s trained. He started competing in grade school and fought nearly 170 times during his career. At age 65, having dedicated his life to the sport, he’s the most qualified boxing expert I know. “The best boxers are part of whatever wave of immigration we’re seeing at a given time,” he said. “Where they’ve come from—Italy, Mexico—has changed over the decades and doesn’t matter.”
I hoped he’d respond with qualities I could work on in myself, like determination, speed, or power. Instead, his response suggested that it would be difficult for me, given the privileges I have, to be hungry enough to successfully compete against someone fighting for more than just a win.
Given his six decades in the sport, I can assume he knows what he’s talking about. But I can’t change the fact that my family has been rooted here for generations, and I’m not going to give up my established career to live at the gym. There’s only one thing I can do with his response if I aspire to become great: practice. I suspect the great boxers he’s reflecting on channeled their hopes and dreams into a habit of consistent practice, and that’s something anyone can do, regardless of their background. It’s a matter of how many hours you’re willing and able to give to the gym and how eager you are to learn and improve.
In my past few years of training, it became clear that I was getting out of it what I was putting in. The times that I go to the gym for 1-3 hours 5x per week, working on technique in addition to strength and conditioning, I am faster and more aggressive in the ring. I’m leaner but stronger. I can go more rounds without getting winded. I land more punches, with more power. I get hit less. I look like I know what I’m doing. When I’m unfocused, only putting in 4 hours at the gym per week and strictly doing bag work, the results are that I’m weaker, I gas out faster and I get hit more.
Leadership skills also develop with practice. No one is really a “born leader.” Great leaders have tens of thousands of hours of practice in their field and in navigating human relationships, and they typically have a reflective nature that helps them learn and improve. Here are some questions you might ask yourself to determine whether you’re getting enough “practice” in order to become a better leader:
Do you take time outside of work hours to educate yourself on your area of expertise in the form of classes, books, workshops, etc.? Or are you spending most of your free time watching Netflix? Just as great athletes are willing to go the extra mile to gain a competitive advantage in their sport, great leaders dedicate extra time to the field they’re passionate about.
Do you take steps to deepen your understanding of human psychology and relationships? Or are you strictly focused on your own motivations and needs? Leading isn’t about you, it’s about encouraging others to drive results. Since you’ll need to rely on others to achieve outcomes and not everyone is motivated in the same way you are, it’s worthwhile to learn what makes people tick so you can understand how to effectively lead them. Frameworks like the Enneagram and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator can help you understand and therefore leverage the motivations and strengths of other people. Of course, this knowledge isn’t worth anything unless you’re doing the work to build genuine connections with your coworkers.
Have you sought a mentor or coach who can help you grow? Or do you assume you already know enough? Great athletes learn new techniques from their coaches. Leaders, no matter how far they’ve come in their career, can always learn from those with more expertise.
Are you putting your training into action? Or do you assume that knowledge alone will make you great? A boxer can spend 10,000 hours on the heavy bag, but if she never steps into the ring for a sparring match, she’ll be decimated in a fight. At some point, you’ll have to step into the ring of leadership and give direction, drive for results, accept accountability, have tough conversations, and make scary decisions, otherwise your “practice” is all for naught. The world is full of many people that think they can do a better job than their leaders, but few people with the courage to take the reins.