EKAITZ SAIES

Sport, perhaps more than any other arena, strips leadership of its comforting myths. Talent does not guarantee victory. Preparation does not insure against bad refereeing, injury or a ball deflecting the wrong way in the final minute. In sport, control is always partial, and the margin between success and failure is often cruelly thin.

That is precisely why the ancient Stoics have something useful to say about leadership on the pitch, in the dressing room and from the sidelines.

Stoicism emerged from a world as unpredictable as elite sport: wars, political upheaval, sudden reversals of fortune. Its central concern was not how to win at all costs, but how to remain steady, effective and ethical when circumstances refuse to cooperate. For coaches, captains and managers, that concern feels immediately familiar.

The first Stoic lesson for sporting leadership is disarmingly simple: you cannot control everything that happens in competition, but you can always control your response.

Referees make mistakes. Weather intervenes. Opponents outperform expectations. Injuries arrive without warning. The Stoic leader does not waste emotional energy on these external forces. Instead, they focus on what remains within reach: decision-making, communication, discipline and effort.

In practical terms, this means modelling composure. An enraged coach berating officials from the technical area rarely inspires clarity in players. A captain who panics under pressure transmits that anxiety instantly. By contrast, emotional self-command becomes a form of leadership currency. Calm is not indifference; it is functional strength.

The second Stoic principle challenges the results-obsessed culture that dominates modern sport: focus on the process, not the outcome.

Winning matters, of course. Sport without competition loses its meaning. But Stoicism reminds leaders that outcomes are shaped by countless variables, many beyond human control. What can be controlled is preparation, adherence to game plans, mutual accountability and the daily habits that underpin performance.

The best sporting leaders understand this instinctively. They praise execution rather than luck, effort rather than scorelines. They build environments where athletes are judged by how well they commit to the process, not just by the final result on the scoreboard. Over time, this approach not only improves performance but also protects teams from the psychological whiplash of inevitable defeats.

It also encourages learning. When the focus is purely on winning, failure becomes something to hide or explain away. When the focus is on process, failure becomes information.

Which leads to the third Stoic lesson: adversity is not an interruption to development, but part of it.

Injury, relegation, loss of form, public criticism – these are not anomalies in sport but constants. Stoicism does not suggest pretending these experiences are pleasant. It suggests using them. Difficulty, the Stoics argued, is where character is trained.

For sporting leaders, this means resisting the urge to scapegoat or overreact when things go wrong. A season-ending defeat can become a moment of collective growth rather than fragmentation. A young athlete’s loss of confidence can be treated as a developmental phase rather than a flaw. Resilience, in this sense, is not motivational rhetoric but a learned practice.

Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and lifelong Stoic, captured the essence of this approach when he wrote in Meditations that the art of life is “more like the wrestler’s art than the dancer’s.” The wrestler does not expect a perfect surface or predictable movements. He trains to stay upright when pushed, to recover balance, to respond to sudden force.

Sporting leadership is much the same. It is less about elegance in victory than stability in chaos. Less about controlling the contest than about preparing for its volatility.

In an era of instant judgement, social media outrage and relentless performance metrics, Stoicism offers sporting leaders an unfashionable but vital framework. Control what you can. Commit to the process. Treat adversity as training.

Not every race or match will be won. Not every decision will be vindicated. But leaders who embody these principles give their teams something more durable than tactics or talent: the ability to stand firm when the unexpected inevitably arrives.