FOUNDATION FOR LEADERSHIP THROUGH SPORT
FLS SUPPORTS THE IMPROVEMENT OF LEADERSHIP THROUGH SPORT
Leadership is a fundamental driver of performance for individuals, teams, coaches, administrators and whole organisations. We work with these groups to develop leadership qualities that will aid success whether within or outside the sporting environment.
Our aim is to encourage and facilitate athletes and sporting organisations to invest in leadership development. This includes National Governing Bodies of Sport, universities and clubs.
Directors and Associates have extensive top-level experience in leading and coaching within sport, business, public service and the military. The know-how and knowledge of world-class practices is drawn from all these sectors.
FLS seeks to assist in improving the effectiveness of sports organisations, enhancing sporting performance and enabling athletes to transfer their leadership skills to careers and fields beyond sport.
Sportsmanship and Fair Play
In the coming year, we in FLS will address some of the issues facing sport in today’s crazy world (as Kevin Roberts would call it). Concepts such as sportsmanship and fair play are challenged in virtually all sports. I think back to my younger days and can recall many instances that would be most unlikely to occur today. I will start with Arnold Palmer.
In 1981, I took the University of Bristol Rugby team on a tour of North Carolina. When in Charlotte, I saw that the ‘World Seniors Golf Invitational’ was taking place at the renowned Quail Hollow Country Club, which was the venue for this year’s US Open.
It was a free day on our itinerary, so nine of us went along, paid our $10 admission fee and headed for the course. What then happened would certainly not happen today. Arnold Palmer, one of the greatest players ever, was playing, and we headed over to follow him. We caught up with him as he was teeing off on the 3rd hole. He hit a fine drive, straight down the middle, whereupon we English fans gave him a big shout of approval. We followed down the side of the fairway, and watched as he had a comfortable par 4. At the next tee, we were there close by again, and once more we cheered a splendid drive.
At this point, Arnold came over to me and asked who we were. I told him it was a group of students from England on a rugby tour. Crowds and security were not what they are today, and he walked down the fairway on his side of the rope barrier separating the spectators from the players and fairway, all the while chatting to me, asking questions about rugby. He played his second shot and carried on the conversation.
This went on a for a couple of holes, at which point he said, ‘Look- I’d better concentrate on my golf. When I have signed my card at the end of the round, let me buy y’all a drink’.
So it was that after his round he met us and took us onto a terrace at the clubhouse and bought us all a beer. He chatted with us for about half an hour, insisted on buying a second round, and entertained us all with his stories, as we tried to explain rugby, about which he knew nothing.
Arnold Palmer with UBRFC tourists
The students who were treated by Palmer perhaps did not realise that they were in the company of one of the best and most charismatic people ever to have played sport.
After his death in 2016, a piece about him in ‘Golf Week’ magazine included- ‘As a measure of his popularity, Palmer, like Elvis Presley before him, was known simply as ‘the King’. But in a life bursting from the seams with success, Palmer never lost his common touch. He was a man of the people, willing to sign every autograph, shake every hand, and tried to look every person in the gallery in the eye’. A small group of Bristol students experienced this. We were close to ‘the King’.
Bob Reeves
David Johnson played rugby at Bristol University alongside the likes of Josh Lewsey and Alex King, who went on to play for England. ‘DJ’ had a career as an M & A lawyer at Allen and Overy in both London and New York, seconded to Goldman Sachs, and finished as a hedge fund manager at Old Lane LLP.
He was a lead adviser to Malcolm Glazer on the purchase of Manchester United FC in 2004, and has been involved in many large profile sports transactions since then.
New Bronze FLS Patron
WHO WE ARE
FLS is led by, and draws knowledge from, our Directors, each of whom is an established leader in sport, high-level business or both. Associates are experts in leadership within and through sport, who are actively engaged in promoting or delivering the mission of FLS, or or are engaged in related research.
Applications for membership of FLS is open to anyone who has a particular interest in leadership and sport.
WHAT WE DO
FLS delivers and supports courses and workshops, working with universities, sporting organisations and elite sportsmen and women. We advise on corporate leadership and leadership development, facilitating the improvement of performance of organisations, teams and individuals. We adopt an ‘action learning’ philosophy, seeking to encourage leadership capability in the workplace and the sporting environment.
NEWS & VIEWS
Articles - This part of the website FLS website provides articles about events and people who have been involved. We offer views and comment on different aspects of leadership and invite anyone to contribute, members or otherwise.
Videos - Many of our events are recorded. Highlights are shown here, with full recordings available only to members in the secure section of the site.
Galleries - Here can be found pictures of events going back to the early years of FLS.