Leaders Performance Podcast

“In adversity, young people usually have the answers,” says Stuart Worden. “They’re amazing, they’re extraordinary - if the conditions for their creativity are there for them.” Worden is the Principal of the world-renowned BRIT School, a creative arts and technology school based in south London. Its alumni include artists Amy Winehouse, Adele and Hollywood actor Tom Holland. Unsurprisingly, the sc...

What can the NBA's No1 draft pick expect when they arrive at the Minnesota Timberwolves? "One of our goals and focuses in our organisation is not only making players the best they can be but the best people they can be," says President of Basketball Operations Gersson Rosas. "That involves things that are not only near and dear to their heart but getting to know who those individuals are, being pa...

"Since Rio I've been asking myself do the athletes coming into the squad have a different set of values and attitudes and do I have the skills to adjust to that?" Danny Kerry, who has served as the Head Coach of the Great Britain and England men's hockey teams since 2018, is pondering the ways that athletes have evolved and whether he, as a coach, has the skillset to work with a new cohort. He ask...

Gregor Townsend, the Head Coach of the Scotland men’s national rugby union team, is in reflective mood as he talks to At Home With Leaders. Direct from his home in the Scottish borders, Townsend explains how both he and his players came to terms with the sport’s shutdown in Scotland and the steps taken to ensure his players were ready to return to play at the end of August. In a remarkably candid...

"The decisions you're making now, in four, eight or 12 years' time people are going to be benefiting or suffering from - and it won't be you," says Conor O'Shea. "You have to make the right decisions for you now, for the future, rather than the right decisions for you now, selfishly." The Director of Performance Rugby at the Rugby Football Union [RFU] is talking about the organisation's efforts to...

Kevin Abrams says the New York Giants are even more agile and adaptable as an organisation than he realised. The Giants Assistant General Manager spoke to At Home With Leaders co-hosts Matthew Stone and Steve Gera of his pride in the staff during the pandemic. "We're very good at change and it's good to know that we can do it and it's good to remind everyone that we can do this on the regular." Al...

"I hear people bemoan the fact that we've all gone soft," says Mark Warburton, the Manager of Queens Park Rangers. "No we haven't." Warburton is tackling the pressing question of managing Generation Z athletes and quickly comes to their defence. "We've just adapted as a society and it's the dinosaurs who don't change who will be left behind." Gen Z was just one of the topics in a broad discussion...

"While I don't want to be a miser and not enjoy the success we've had, but success can also be a wolf in sheep's clothing," says John Thorrington. Los Angeles FC's Executive Vice President of Soccer Operations and General Manager is speaking to At Home With Leaders just days after his team's exit from the MLS is Back Tournament quarter-finals. The three-year-old franchise has made progress on Thor...

Ben Cherington, the GM of the Pittsburgh Pirates, is keen to stress the sense of urgency felt by all Major League Baseball teams ahead of the truncated 2020 season. The reasons are manifold: instead of 162 regular season games there will be just 60, which gives greater weight to every result; the trade deadline has been pushed back four weeks until August 31; and 16 teams will make the playoffs co...

Damien Comolli has just been appointed as President of French Ligue 2 side Toulouse. The Frenchman quickly acknowledged the challenges presented both by the pandemic and the club's recent relegation from Ligue 1, but his focus is more on the opportunities at hand as he leads the rebuilding project under Toulouse's new owners RedBird Capital Partners. Comolli's excitement is palpable throughout his...

“Winning is not a good thing to think of as a goal,” says former England cricket captain Sir Andrew Strauss. “Look,” he clarifies, “you have to win - in high performance sport you can’t go too long without winning and remain in position. Winning has to be a focus - but it’s got to be part of something bigger.” Strauss, who chairs the ECB cricket committee, is speaking of the moment that his Englan...

In September last year, Chris Powell joined Gareth Southgate's coaching staff at the England men's national football team. Powell's appointment was part of the Football Association's Elite Coach Placement Programme, which sought to place black, Asian and other minority ethnic coaches at various stages of the national player pathway. It is a position he discusses at length in this episode of At Hom...

“‘Right, here’s our opportunity: ten years’ innovation in ten weeks’.” That was the challenge Scott Lloyd, the Chief Executive of the Lawn Tennis Association [LTA], set to Simon Timson, the LTA’s Performance Director, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. “We’ve been looking more inwardly than outwardly,” Timson tells At Home With Leaders. “What are all the things we can do to give all our pla...

Rick Spielman recalls watching the television reports that followed the killing of George Floyd. "I remember sitting there with my wife watching the news as it happens and we both have tears coming down our eyes," says the Minnesota Vikings General Manager. "She looks over to me and she says, 'honey, that could have been one of our children.'" Spielman and his wife have adopted six African-America...

"I always felt in my own heart that I was going to be a big driver of women's football - I'd made that decision," says Chelsea Head Coach Emma Hayes. "When you're a driver of anything, I focus on what I can do, not what I can't do; I'll focus on what I have, not what I don't have, and I'll focus what I want not what I don't want." Today's episode is brought to you by our sponsors  Football Manager...

Dean Smith joined the At Home With Leaders Podcast during what was due to have been the final week of the English Premier League season. Instead, Smith and Aston Villa, where he serves as manager, have not played since 9 March amidst the ongoing spread of the coronavirus pandemic and, like the rest of us, he has been confined to home. There is still no return date set for the English top flight bu...

"Though I have been in this role for nearly two years," says Kyle Dubas, "I still think having this time in the last six weeks has allowed me to reflect on the fact that we have a long way to go to get where I think we can in terms of our environment each day and how that impacts on our performance and the mindset of our people." Dubas, the General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs since 2018, ma...

"We're all in this enforced plateau period but I think it can be a really good thing," says Stuart Lancaster. The Leinster Senior Coach is talking online amidst the "towels and rubbish" of his son's student house in Leeds - a move forced by the meagre WiFi available at the main Lancaster residence. Whether or not this parental jibe is justified, we're in no position to say, but if anyone was going...

Thomas Dimitroff readily admits that he found this year's NFL Draft to be a challenging experience. With remote working currently a necessity due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Atlanta Falcons' General Manager, found his focus being drawn elsewhere. "Normally, with a month and a half to go I am locked-in; I'm so focused on my evaluation of players - rarely am I reaching out to people within foot...

“Everyone is using biomechanics every day,” says Cat Shin, the Biomechanics Project Lead at the English Institute of Sport [EIS]. “If you’re looking at, say, technique or injury prevention, you’re looking at biomechanics, whether you call it that or not.” It is an essential field in this multidisciplinary era: “a biomechanist is part-physicist, part-data scientist, part-performance analyst, part-S...

Sir Dave Brailsford and Team INEOS may be handling sports coronavirus-enforced shutdown better than most sports organisations. "As a team, we don't have a facility base," the INEOS Team Principal begins in explanation. "We go to a race, we work together, and then we have to work very much geographically dispersed; a lot of the time it's conference calls, Zoom calls - the way that everyone is worki...

“All the people here, over the past four years, like me, have left a really good job,” says Sean Marks. “They had to sacrifice something to come here, whether it was the vision, the Nets, myself, ownership, whatever it is. [Those individuals] have ownership in everything they do. Our day to day activities do not revolve around one person. It’s a complete collaboration and I don’t have to remind th...

“You get on that hamster wheel and you never quite get off and look around,” says Sean Dyche of the typical lifestyle of a Premier League manager. These are, however, far from normal times in pandemic Britain and Dyche, the third-longest-serving manager in English football, took time from his schedule - a combination of club commitments and household chores - to speak to At Home With Leaders co-ho...

"It's hard for great leaders to get the credit they deserve because, by definition, if they do their job well then nothing happens." Journalist and author, Sam Walker, is musing on the notion of leadership at this time of global crisis. "There's a perception that leadership is what you do in a crisis; how you respond," he continues. "But we forget that leadership by its purest definition is what y...

Welcome to the latest episode in our occasional series of podcasts from the Leaders Performance Institute and our partners Keiser. In this latest episode, Leaders Performance Institute Editor John Portch caught up with Ryan Van Asten. Van Asten is the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach of the NHL's Calgary Flames. On his watch, the Flames have established the league's best third period record,...