The Five Steps to a Winning Mindset: What Sport Can Teach Us About Great Leadership

by Damian Hughes

Drawing on his lifetime experience and academic background within sports, organization, and change psychology, Damien Hughes reveals here the the best ways to create a winning mindset in both personal and professional life. Hughes has worked with some of the top teams in the UK, and watched some of the best coaches in the country at work. He distills the five keys principles that separate the best coaches and teams from the rest: Simplicity; Tripwires; Emotions; Practical; Stories: STEPS. The role of a sports-team leader is fascinating, complex, and tough. Fantasy football leagues may convince us that success is all about buying players and selecting a team. In reality, it is about creating winning environments—recruiting, developing, and nurturing talent, effectively communicating a shared vision with a diverse collection of individuals, delivering on enormous expectations from a range of stakeholders, overcoming significant challenges, handling pressure, and staying focused throughout: a set of challenges familiar to leaders in all sectors.

Genres: Nonfiction, Leadership, Psychology

224 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2017

About the author

Professor Damian Hughes combines his practical and academic background within sport, organization and change psychology to work as a trusted adviser to business, education and sporting elite, specializing in the creation of high-performance cultures.

Reviews

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really wasn’t sure about this before I started it. I’m working on Growth Mindset at the moment and need to sell ideas to wide and varied audiences, looking at debunking genetics as a mindset.

Only took a few moments to get into it however, with a flowing easy-on-the-ears style and great use made of storytelling and real-world examples, it soon draws you in. There are some links to memory and brain functioning, and maybe could have made some additional journeys in this direction. That’s just nit-picking though.

So good I bought the paperback so I could scribble notes all over it!

[Piotr Karaś · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's really a very good book. It's full of interesting stories and studies that exemplify the author's findings. One of the key take-aways is that if you want to lead other people to success, you should present your ideas in a simple, practical way, supported by real-life examples or vivid stories that make things easy to understand. I also loved the examples that stressed the importance of focusing on the task at hand, getting the job done, "WIN = What's Important Now?", "What's your clear intention?", turning the focus back to the process and the best routine, etc.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

4*

Nice easy read without any psychobabble or trying to talk over your head. Very relatable for the most part with the experiences with professional athletes. It is a UK book so the sports focus mostly on boxing, cycling, soccer, rugby and cricket but for me that didn't take anything away from it.

The 5 S.T.E.P.S are: Simplicity, Thinking, Emotion, Practical, Stories and the Emotion chapter was probably the most memorable for me. The image of the man riding an elephant is my lasting impression from this book. There is something in each chapter that we can apply to our lives, not only professional lives but personal lives.

Would recommend this book and it was good enough for me to pick up another offering from Damian Hughes, "The Barcelona Way" to tackle later this summer.

[Alla · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a solid book by the author who knows what he is talking about. Anyone (most of us) who works with people will benefit. I did enjoy numerous stories drawn from the examples of sports world Guardiola, Mourinho, British cycling. Surprisingly, I found that the chapter about Storytelling step was somewhat weaker than the other steps the book advocates. There is lengthy section telling the readers the basics of a story composition but for some strange reason the author links it to Pixar movies. So the book lost me there. Other than that, there is a lot to take in.

[Miikka Häyrinen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hughes stays faitfull to the title of the book in and out. This book was Simply written, well Thought out, Emotionally engaging, grounded in Practice and told enjoyable Stories.

[Jan Doležálek · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is maybe good for sport enthusiasts that need some kind of motivation and advice on leadership but its definitely not a good book to look for if you want to have a better mindset overall. Its just authors stories, weak analogies and stuff thats common sense to me.
I read a lot and only rarely I dont finish a book so yeah, I dont recommend.

[Mark Andrew Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stories

Enjoyed stories giving some background as to what goes on at training camps/grounds for elite performers to give them the best grounding to perform at their best, and suggestions as to how they can be made relevant for work/personal life too

[Ian John Greenhalgh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn’t put it down

Really well written and packed with real examples I’ll be coming back to this again in future that’s for sure

[Dc96 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read that follows it's own credo of Simplicity, Thinking, Emotions, Practical and Stories.

Damian draws on an extensive background in performance coaching from both the sporting and corporate worlds and draws neat parallels between them.

Lots of easy takeaways to apply in everyday life.