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Breakthrough Feedback

Lessons from sport

Breakthrough Feedback

Lessons from sport

Athletes and teams: a journey

It’s summer right now, and major sporting tournaments seem to be concluding or kicking off weekly. People can get so passionate about their chosen sport, or sports in general, and I am no exception. It’s exciting to watch athletes at their peak, pushing past what other people (and perhaps they themselves) think is their limit. We can also get inspired by the sportsmanship on display among teammates and competitors. As a former athlete myself, I also enjoy learning more about elite athletes’ training and their journey from beginner to world-leading.

Developing into an elite athlete requires a tremendous amount of hard work. No one reaches the pinnacle of their sport on talent alone and athletes’ paths are often complicated by setbacks and adversity. And it is not just the athletes that must work hard and overcome. Most elite athletes are surrounded by a team that enables their success. It can start simply enough in childhood with a parent or guardian encouraging a child to try out a sport in their backyard or local park. It can quickly grow to include coaches, teammates, local and national sports organizations, physical health professionals (e.g., masseuses, nutritionists, medical doctors, and the like), and mental health professionals (such as sports and performance psychologists).

Observation & Input

In addition to enabling an athlete with their general expertise, this team’s regular observations of the athlete on and off the sporting field allow them to notice patterns and provide crucial feedback.
A coach may notice minuscule technical inefficiencies.
A parent or partner may notice changes in sleeping patterns or eating habits.
A physiotherapist may detect early signs of an issue that, left unaddressed, could develop into an injury.
A national sporting organization may offer strategic guidance about upcoming competitions.

Athletes, often together with their coach, will use all of this input to better understand where they are now, where they need to be, and how to get there.
Athletes, often together with their coach, will use all of this input to better understand where they are now, where they need to be, and how to get there.

Interactions to better understand ourselves

It is the same for the rest of us, including leaders.

Every day we interact with people who can notice the things about us that we may not notice ourselves. And they can help us better understand where we are now and thereby act more effectively to get where we want to be. At atrain, we enable leaders to achieve “breakthrough leadership,” where they are not just surviving the challenges of the day, but thriving, exceeding the limits they thought they had, reaching their full potential, and helping their organization and its people to succeed in the future.

Understanding oneself and the reality one is working in is the first step towards breakthrough leadership.

atrain’s multi-source feedback and development tool, the Breakthrough Leadership App, is specifically designed to help leaders better understand themselves and their reality. Using the tool, leaders self-reflect on how well key behaviors represent them and then invite a variety of their colleagues and stakeholders to share their own perceptions in regard to these same behaviors.

At its most basic, the Breakthrough Leadership App can help you see your reality. To paraphrase a highly decorated, world-champion athlete, feedback from others helps us accept and live in reality instead of living in a fantasy¹. Moreover, in both process and content, the Breakthrough Leadership App has several unique features that set it apart from traditional multi-source feedback tools.

First, it captures aspects of impactful leadership which both research and applied expertise know to be critical, but relatively rare².

For example, most leaders naturally prefer to act with integrity at work and will do so when it is “easy”. But when situations are difficult a leader needs the much rarer, Courageous skill to hold oneself accountable, hold others accountable, and engage in constructive conflict to maintain integrity.

By targeting broader behavioural patterns that sit at the intersection of personal management, interpersonal interaction, and grounded positivity, the Breakthrough Leadership App goes beyond traditional competency models and supports a deeper, more holistic development³.

Just as elite athletes need to focus on all-around development and find those small margins where most of their competitors are lacking, leaders need to develop self-awareness beyond the minimum skill requirements.

Second, the Breakthrough Leadership App builds on this necessity for rare skills in difficult situations by asking users to consider a leader’s behaviour on both “good days” and “bad days.” This framing helps leaders better understand that on a good day, when a situation is not ambiguous, when the issue at hand is familiar and a leader is confident in their experience, acting most effectively is straightforward.

But what about on a “bad day”? On days when the situation is unclear, when the issue is less familiar and the leader is doubting themselves?
Those are the days that the leader needs to examine to develop their self-awareness and understand their doubts and how to address them.

Just like athletes need to assess not just their best performances, but their underwhelming performances and the anxieties they may feel to reach the next level, leaders need to examine the good, the bad and the feelings at play to see their full reality and start putting in the work to thrive in that reality.

Third, the Breakthrough Leadership App’s goals of helping leaders see reality clearly and spurring holistic development are designed in line with atrain’s Leadership Development Journey offerings.

These journeys start with building self-awareness, including deep-diving into the patterns that can trap leaders on their “bad days,” and focusing on understanding and developing the same broader behavioural patterns targeted by the Breakthrough Leadership App.

Leaders build on these personal breakthroughs of self-awareness to start leading others and their organizations more effectively. It is an integral tool in a long-term development process, just as elite athlete’s journeys spanning months, years, and even decades* need different tools along the way.

Decades

Dara Torres had the longest successful career of any Olympic swimmer…
Read More

Decades

Dara Torres had the longest successful career of any Olympic swimmer…
Read More

Time matters

Finally, as a Leadership Development Journey unfolds, the Breakthrough Leadership App enables leaders to request and receive feedback immediately following events or actions related to their development goals. This real-time feedback feature allows the people giving and receiving feedback to address behaviour and possible changes while it is still relevant.

This reminds me of a famous (but likely apocryphal) exchange between German athlete Luz Long and American athlete Jesse Owens. Competing against each other in the long jump, Owens was struggling despite being the world record holder in the event. Owens later credited a piece of selfless, constructive feedback from Long that enabled Owens to win (and meant Long finished second).

The Breakthrough Leadership App makes it just that little bit easier to reach out to colleagues (and friendly challengers) and get that extra piece of feedback that will make all the difference.

Once summer turns to autumn and new sporting seasons begin, I’ll personally be looking to participate in a local 10 kilometer race. This is one of the ways I stay connected to my sport and keep my own journey going.

My “team” has grown and shrunk and changed over the years, but with their help and the right tools, I continue to learn more about myself and find ways to keep moving forward.


Once summer turns to autumn and new sporting seasons begin, I’ll personally be looking to participate in a local 10-kilometer race. This is one of the ways I stay connected to my sport and keep my own journey going.

My “team” has grown and shrunk and changed over the years, but with their help and the right tools, I continue to learn more about myself and find ways to keep moving forward.

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¹ Chavez, C. (Host). (13 October 2022).
Jenny Simpson Shifts Her Focus To The Roads As A New Chapter of Her Career Begins, Signs With PUMA [Audio podcast episode].
In The CITIUS MAG Podcast with Chris Chavez. CITIUS MAG.


² The areas targeted are broadly categorized into Collaborative, Courageous, Curious, Empowering, Visionary,
supplemented by Balanced and Self-aware.


³ Lombardo, M. M. & Eichinger, R. W. (2017). The leadership machine: Architecture to develop leaders for any future (2017 Anniversary Edition). Los Angeles, CA: Korn Ferry.
Ulrich, D., Smallwood, N., Sweetman, K. (2008). The [new] leadership code: Five rules to lead by. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Moldoveanu, M., & Narayandas, D. (2019). The future of leadership development. Harvard Business Review, 97(2), 40-48.
About the author
CARRIE describes her role at atrain as a “psychometric windbag,” although it is more officially described as a senior consultant in questionnaires and analyses. Her daily work tools are an Excel spreadsheet and a critically formulaic mindset. Her day often begins with a run and finishes by co-reading fiction with her children.
About the author

CARRIE describes her role at atrain as a “psychometric windbag,” although it is more officially described as a senior consultant in questionnaires and analyses. Her daily work tools are an Excel spreadsheet and a critically formulaic mindset. Her day often begins with a run and finishes by co-reading fiction with her children.

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