As I read yet an­oth­er me­dia sto­ry in re­cent days about calls for fi­nan­cial trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty with­in a promi­nent Trinidad and To­ba­go sports’ na­tion­al gov­ern­ing body, I couldn’t help but ask my­self if ad­vo­cat­ing for good gov­er­nance in sport makes any sense.

There is a great deal of lip ser­vice about the de­sire and search for good gov­er­nance. One can’t help but feel a sense of fu­til­i­ty. The con­stant one step for­ward and six steps back­ward. It’s not even two steps back­ward - any­more - it’s six.

In putting pen to pa­per or key­board to lap­top to put to­geth­er to­day’s Things That Mat­ter. I found my­self in a strug­gle, not for the first time, I ad­mit in re­cent weeks to find the sil­ver lin­ing. I found my­self me­an­der­ing to find the light. To cre­ate a pos­i­tive up­lift­ing col­umn, giv­en that it’s the start of a brand new month and then came the ques­tions: Where is sport head­ing? Is it that there are more in­stances of fi­nan­cial im­pro­pri­ety, or is it that there is more me­dia scruti­ny and more in­di­vid­u­als brave enough to whistle­blow? What’s truth? What’s fic­tion?

Is the goal of good gov­er­nance, stew­ard­ship and lead­er­ship that is ac­count­able and leads with in­tegri­ty a worth­while goal? If it is, why are so many sport lead­ers los­ing their way or not find­ing their way? Where are we go­ing wrong or do­ing wrong? What aren’t we do­ing?

Prop­er­ly han­dled, goals can lead to a lot of learn­ing and be cat­a­lysts to pos­i­tive break­throughs.

Win­ning, los­ing, dis­ci­pline, goals, char­ac­ter, strat­e­gy, fo­cus, dis­ap­point­ment, set­backs, vic­to­ries, team­work, in­juries, re­source al­lo­ca­tion, time-man­age­ment —they’re all a part of lead­ing an or­gan­i­sa­tion. So then, what do lead­er­ship and sports have in com­mon?

For as long as I can re­mem­ber, I’ve been in­spired by sports. I have found that my ex­pe­ri­ence play­ing sports in­forms my lead­er­ship. Win­ning, los­ing, dis­ci­pline, goals, char­ac­ter, strat­e­gy, fo­cus, dis­ap­point­ment, set­backs, vic­to­ries, team­work, in­juries, re­source al­lo­ca­tion, time-man­age­ment—they’re all a part of lead­ing.

Sports teach you how to set goals, win and how to lose.

You have to learn from your mis­takes and move on to the next event with a pos­i­tive out­look and con­fi­dence that you’ll do your best. There is no time for feel­ing sor­ry for your­self!

Lead­er­ship is very sim­i­lar. You may have a loss one day, but you need to bounce back quick­ly. On the oth­er hand, you al­so can’t cel­e­brate a vic­to­ry too long, or you risk los­ing fo­cus. You have to de­vel­op an un­der­stand­ing when you go through the highs and lows, and re­mem­ber that you are not as good as your vic­to­ries in­di­cate nor as bad as your loss­es re­flect, ei­ther.

An­oth­er les­son has been, learn­ing how to com­pete when you are tired or when cir­cum­stances are not ide­al. You are ex­haust­ed phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly but de­spite that, you still have to per­form.

In the same way, lead­er­ship de­mands and chal­lenges don’t al­ways come your way when you want them to or when you are pre­pared for them. You have to learn how to per­form when you face dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances.

Goals are pow­er­ful. You cer­tain­ly need them to be suc­cess­ful. Goals are pow­er­ful be­cause they can give you di­rec­tion for what you’re try­ing to achieve.

How­ev­er, goals can pro­duce fear. And fear can paral­yse an or­gan­i­sa­tion or an in­di­vid­ual. We shouldn’t live in fear. It’s okay to have goals but you must use them not in a way that pro­duces fear.

What’s the point? There is no giv­ing up. The quest for good gov­er­nance is a con­stant. Let’s press for­ward.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.