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“Women in Leadership:  Overcoming Challenges, Finding Success” is the title of the next written assignment for my students in Management 3300:  “A Management Approach to Organizational Behavior.”  Since I had been an editor and contributing writer for two magazines focusing on breaking the glass ceilings, I directed my students to the section on my website where I posted PDFs of interviews I had conducted with top women in global business and newsletters on trends in the workplace.

Below is an edited version of a newsletter on, “Global Celebration of US Title IX.”  On June 23, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon signed into law Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, known as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act in honor of its principal author, Representative Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii). Title IX states that, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program of activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

The impact of Title IX on the availability of sports programs for females in the US was dramatic. According to research by the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, in 1971 young women accounted for 7% of all high school athletes. In 2001, young women made up 42% of high school athletes. As time passed, this American law created global waves of awareness leading to US college campuses becoming magnets for top female athletes wanting to go on to amateur and professional careers.

How does this relate to the workplace?

In Prof. Michael Messner’s book, Taking the Field: Women, Men and Sports, the University of Southern California professor of sociology states that laws like Title IX are still essential and that equality helps girls and boys. “Boys are growing up in a world where they will have women co-workers and bosses,” he says. “They need, as boys, to experience girls and women as physically capable, strong and assertive. When they see women play sports, and especially when they play alongside girls on their athletic teams, boys experience girls in a way that will foster a wider and deeper respect for women.”

Based on informal interviews and formal research, there is a strong connection between playing sports–especially team sports–as a girl and young woman and later business success.  In 2002, OppenheimerFunds, a leading mutual fund company and its parent, the MassMutual Financial Group, a global, diversified commercial services organization, commissioned a report entitled, “From the Locker Room to the Boardroom: A Survey on Sports in the Lives of Women Business Executives.” The findings on females in the US were clear: four out of five executive businesswomen played sports growing up–and the vast majority say lessons learned on the playing field contributed to their success in business.

Specifics of the survey include that of the 401 women surveyed, 327–or 82%–reported playing organized sports after grammar school, including school teams, intramurals or recreational leagues. Basketball was the most popular sport, cited by 23% of the women who played sports. It was followed by volleyball (22%), softball (17%), tennis (15%), track and field (10%) and soccer (10%).

Of women who played organized sports after grade school, 86% responded that sports helped them to be more disciplined, 81% said sports helped them to function better as part of a team, 69% replied sports helped them to develop leadership skills that contributed to their professional success, 68% stated sports helped them deal with failure, and 59% indicated that sports gave them a competitive edge over others.

To take a pulse on the role of sports in women’s lives around the world, I asked women executives to describe how playing sports is a positive influence on a business career.  The thoughts below of women from Nepal, Singapore, and Australia are part of a global chorus encouraging girls and young women to engage in athletics for future success.

Ambica Shrestra, BPWI Dinner, NYC

Ambica Shrestha shared her thoughts on Kathmandu, Nepal, a landlocked country located off the usual travel paths in the Himalayas in South Asia that is bordered by Tibet and China in the north and India in the south. Shrestha is a government and business leader whose volunteer activities include serving as the Regional Coordinator Asia-Pacific for the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPWI).

“Sports gives you discipline and a goal. These two things are the main issues which make you successful in your career and work,” states the active leader. “To run your business or institute, you need to have discipline. Disciplined time management, work management and approach to setting an example for your staff. Thus you need sports to succeed. The other issue is one of setting a goal. If you do not set your focus on what you wish to achieve, you will drift.  You play a game with the aim of winning.”

Shrestha, who travels the world for her job, shares that, “I found that sports will give you that basic training of perseverance, fellowship/sportsmanship, and goal setting. I feel that every youth in schools and colleges should be made to be involved in some sports.”

Nepal, she makes clear, is a male dominated society and that it is only during the past decade that women athletes and sports have developed noticeably. “Girls until quite late were not allowed schooling and any other activities. Now the girls are coming up in various sports such as martial arts, Taekwondo, table tennis, marathons, etc. The girls are now very good in martial arts and have been winning medals in international games.”

According to Ann Phua, President/Founder of Hemispheres Foundation and an Outdoor Consultant in Singapore, “Sports has been an important curriculum in our school system and all students are encouraged to participate unless there is a health or religious reason.” She participated in inter-school competition and played net ball (volleyball) and ran short running relays.

Phua, who also holds the position of Chair-United Nations Status of Women for BPWI, notes that women have an equal opportunity to play sports. “We have a Women Sports Division within our National Sports Council to encourage women to participate in sporting activities as a form of exercise for healthy living and not necessarily as a competitive sport.”

When asked, “Has playing sports contributed to your success in business?” Phua answered: “Sporting activities take many forms–competitive, extreme, and recreation sports. As a result of my participation in extreme and recreation sports it has helped in my outdoor adventure business, to be able to provide these sporting activities to children and young adults.”

Barbara Warren is passionate about what she calls “a really interesting and important topic–good for you for giving it exposure”. A swimmer, surfer, and marathon runner, she is also Head of Corporate Performance at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Australia’s national training center for theater, film, and television.

In response to one question, “How has playing sports contributed to your success in business,” her thoughts filled a four-page document. She starts off, “Much has been written about sport and business and its analogous relationship but most of the writing has been from a male perspective. Everything I have read usually recounts the ‘team’ metaphor in aggressive or exclusive terms. ‘Mateship’ is historically explored as a masculine concept. Often the writing hypes up the ‘Rah, Rah’ factor rather than investigating the positive and authentic influence sport can have on building genuine relationships, engendering pride in being part of something or extolling the virtues of analysis and reflection.”

Further along in her document, Warren states that there is another component of how playing sports can motivate an individual. She declares, “If you have tasted success and you know how fabulous that feels, then you are definitely going to go back for more. Conversely you also see that losing isn’t much fun so you tend to avoid that at all costs! So has sport contributed to my business success? Absolutely!”

P.S.  The beautiful jacket from Thailand I’m wearing in the picture with Shrestha was the prize in a raffle that I won during the BPWI dinner!

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When a Colts fan was on her way out of the restaurant where I was watching Super Bowl XLIV, this woman made it a point to stop next to me, touch my shoulder and say with a big smile on her face and a smirk in her voice, “The Colts really are the best team.  The Saints don’t have a chance in hell to beat the Colts.”  Obviously, she hadn’t read the e-mail I had received from a friend in NOLA.

“It is hard to express the wonderful effect the Saints have had on our community – it has brought us all together in the glow of their achievement, and we are awash in black and gold and ‘Who Dat’.  I am sure the intense and widespread emotional involvement is directly related to the depth of commitment we have made to the recovery and improvement of NOLA. So many things are coming back but not there yet, but here is one area where success is palpable and was a long time coming (43 years!).  And it’s wonderful Lagniappe that Drew Brees is such a fine  human being – not just a great quarterback.”  Suzy Mague, a woman I met when volunteering in NOLA after Hurricane Katrina, pinpointed what was going to help the Saints win the Super Bowl:  the collective belief in success by those in the Gulf Coast region.

Lagniappe is a term used in Louisiana which  means “”something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure.”  What the Saints gave the city of New Orleans were gifts of hope, commitment to a goal, and success against great odds to even reach the Super Bowl.  What the city of New Orleans gave back was their enthusiastic support and hope that the area’s recovery would be as successful as that of their Saints.

 The consensus was that the Colts were the better team, Peyton Manning the best quarterback ever, the defense so strong that Manning had only been sacked 10 times all season, and on and on.  My clapping and cheering for the Saints when they were behind 10-0 in the first quarter did give me pause.  Yet, as is the nature of a 60-minute game, there was still a chance.  In football, you have to play the game to the very last second even if your team is losing 54-0.  The Saints went the distance in great form.

To lead off the second half of the game, Saints’ Coach Sean Payton used a tactic that brought his team success:  a practiced  surprise.  For the first time in Super Bowl history, a team started the third quarter with an onside kick.  The Saints punter made a short kick (more than 10 yards) to the Colts, a Colts player touched then lost the ball, a Saints player recovered the ball, and the Saints earned very good field position.  The Saints had practiced this surprise over and over again during the week leading up to the big game.  The timing made history, shifted the momentum to the Saints, and helped them come away with a 31-17 victory.

Today I wish that I could call the Colts fan who told me to give up on the Saints because they didn’t have a chance.  There is always a chance, always an opportunity to succeed whether on the football field, a baseball diamond, or the workplace playing field.  Give yourself a chance by practicing a surprise that can get you noticed,  realize the potential you have as a leader and become an outstanding team player for your followers while working to be a leader.

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On Sunday, November 1, over 42,000 registered runners in the New York City Marathon sped, ran, walked, or limped through the streets of the five boroughs. As the premium runners raced their way through Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan, the majority of runners ran at a slower pace.

Runners nearing the finish line

As in years past, I like to watch the runners as they near the finish line, specifically those who take four or more hours to finish the 26.2 mile course—a course the leaders had run in just over two hours.

This year, I found a place behind a barricade just past the 26 mile sign in Central Park.  That vantage point gave me the opportunity to slap hands with runners zooming with enthusiasm that they were close to reaching  their goal or dragging with focused determination that they would reach the finish line even if they had to crawl.

Many of those going past had their names on their t-shirts, a way to tell the total crowd of over a million cheerleaders along the route that they wanted a shout out of, “Hi, Amy (or Frances or Tim or…). Keep going. You’re doing great.”

One man was more direct with not just his want for a shout out but a need to be encouraged. On this man’s shirt was a directive, “Yell, Hi, Art!”

Of course, I, as did others around me, did yell, “Hi, Art!”

My working to be a leader lesson from Art:  identify what you need from others then make it clear how they can fill that need for you.

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In August 2008, I wrote a couple of posts here that included the name Rusty Kanokogi, a member of the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame of the Women’s Sports Foundation. 

The year before that, I had interviewed Rusty for an article I wrote to mark the 35th anniversary of Title IX mandating equality in educational activities and opening the door for girls and young women to receive equal funding for sports activities.

Rusty is a coach who demonstrates how sports can transform a life and the power of commitment to equality on the playing field—er judo mat.

“Fighter for her Sport Has Own Battle,” read the headline in the Sports section of The New York Times on Tuesday, February 17, 2009.  Rusty, Joshua Robinson reported, has kidney failure and multiple myeloma, a rare cancer of the blood.

“I’ll always fight for what I think is fair,” Rusty is quoted by Robinson.

The article takes an in-depth look at Rusty’s life fighting for fairness in judo.  It’s a good story.  One I hope has a happy ending for Rusty.  She deserves it.  She’s a great leader and role model.

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The Pilates Method of physical exercise agrees with me.

I started attending Pilates classes in 2003 and have continued to take two or three or more classes a week because I’ve experienced better posture, fewer knee problems, and stronger abdominals.

The key in Pilates is moving from your core – that group of abdominal muscles that hold you up and help everything else work efficiency. I’ve enjoyed moving from my core so much that last year I decided that teaching Pilates was a good occupation for when I retire (which is still a long way away!) and I started taking one-on-one classes that would lead to certification in the future.

Funny, how in a New York minute things change.

In a heartbeat I moved from student to leader of a Pilates class at the Jewish Community Center (JCC) near where I live.

How I got to be a leader – now co-leader since Wendy Schwartz is in front of the class with me – is a lesson for those seeking ways to step into a leadership position outside or inside of the workplace.

In essence, I thought creatively, came up with a plan, and executed that with the help of others.

Our long-time Pilates instructor on Tuesday morning at 7:00 a.m. left in the winter and by late June there was still no permanent replacement for her. The fitness director found someone to fill the slot but that instructor wouldn’t be able to begin until September. The director was considering cancelling the class for the summer.

An idea came into my head – based on a previous experience. A couple of weeks earlier, a Sunday morning Pilates instructor didn’t show up on time for her 9:00 a.m. class. Wendy and I co-led the class until the instructor arrived. Wendy and I got good feedback from our peers – and encouragement that we should teach sometime.

A short while later when the director suggested she might “cancel” the Tuesday morning class, I went into action. I wrote a note to the director and asked her if she would consider a Peer Pilates class for the 7:00 slot. The director of course had to consider the implications and ran the idea by her colleagues at the gym.

They all liked that I thought outside the box and that we could truly put ‘community’ in the JCC fitness schedule.

I led the class for the first session on July 3 when lots of our Pilates Pals showed up to demonstrate their support for the idea. Wendy and I have been co-leading since then – and now have a slot on Thursday mornings that could become a regular time for us in the fall.

The lesson from all this: if you love something and want to see it remain, put some energy into making that happen.