4 practical lessons in leadership and growth we learned from Morocco’s journey making History at the World Cup 2022
This is for the soccer fans and the seasonal enthusiasts, the professionals, the amateurs, the leaders, the inspiration junkies, the identified dreamers and rising ones.
@walid.regragui
The 2022 World Cup got us all in states of emotions that even the “non-soccer” fans became part of all conversations and predictions for the games, all glued to our screens waiting. It unfolded dimensions of unity, excitement and hope from different angles. Many assumptions were dropped at various levels of the competition as the days went by, teaching us lots of meaningful insights. To list couple of them:
Outstanding and emotional performances of outliers, witnessing tears of joy and hope from Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Japan.
Morocco, the first African and Arab country to reach the last four.
All continents were represented in the last 16 for the first time ever.
This piece captures some of the inspiring aspects that you can take away as we introspect over the end of 2022, as we grow into extended versions of ourselves during 2023, moving from a place of inspiration to a place of execution and intentional growth.
Leadership starts from self-leadership!
How can we inspire others if it doesn’t start from within, in our own life, every day?
Real leadership comes from the extent to which we set ourselves up with a big vision, a great mission in our daily aspirations, to then deliver it to a team in an effective way. You are able to incorporate the vision and practices in a coaching method to your team/teammates from a much more rooted place. And that is applied to any context where you’ve defined a metric of “success”: a competition, a business, a project...
Think Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights movements. He believed in the vision, gave his life for what he was fighting for, took responsibility for his actions.
Think Nelson Mandela for peace and ending apartheid. He sacrificed his own life in service to his mission and freedom for all.
Think Walid Regragui, coach of the Moroccan selection at the World Cup 2022, for the strong believe in the wildest dream of a whole nation. He believed so deep in his vision and ability to make it happen, recognizing the talent and grit his team is equipped with. The coach mentioned the importance of incorporating that belief in himself to be able to transmit the confidence to his team. He went as far as redefining the culture of support from the fans to a bigger scale, rooted in the cultural values of the community, inside and outside the stadiums. Walid sure led Morocco to living a dream bigger than anyone expected, to a historic Semi-Final.
Think any inventor, creator, visionary, leader you have encountered in your life, who talked so passionately about their ideas, the embodiment of a belief that kept them up at night, the level of execution and focus their actions displayed. How did that energy come across to you?
Representation matters!
The underdog doesn’t usually make it to the headlines and the prediction models - obviously, given they are outliers to what is considered the range of “normality” in a dataset - . However, when an underdog makes it beyond expectations, they go viral. One fact gets turned into a fairytale story, reaches homes and humans who never saw themselves in other possibilities beyond the expectations set by their environment. We are only conditioned to believe what we have been exposed to at a given time.
Now, think how the effect of that one fact rolls into a team, a community, a nation, a continent.
Think about the support that can empower each individual who hasn’t seen themselves in places and are trying hard to “make it”.
Think how that can impact generations to come when representation is present at the atomic level of a team.
The Moroccan national team represented every societal upbringing in the country, no matter the birth location, no matter the circumstances of immigration. It is hard for me to think who, in the overall community, was not inspired from wherever they stand. And so it makes the case for every underrepresented community in the world. No wonder the whole African continent and Arab world was roaring behind the scenes. We felt seen. We felt like we belong.
Here is my first challenge for you:
What is one area you’ve been secretly dreaming of trying, where the only obstacle is rooted in the fact that nobody in your surrounding made it possible? An obstacle that made the realization of that dream feel so far away, almost impossible?
Now, how can you make one small step towards invigorating your mind with a strong vision and building a plan to make it happen? Think about how impactful can that be not only on your life, but on so many people who would look up to you, for the courage of believing and executing.
This is what trailblazing is about. This is how change happened for decades.
Let’s push it up a notch. Here is an extra challenge if you happen to have a position of influence in a particular area:
What is one area you can support more representation in? As a leader, a decision maker, a change maker, so that you can contribute to extend impact to underrepresented communities?
Capitalize on your strengths, truly! Especially on time crunches.
When deadlines are upcoming, focus on using your strengths as part of the process, find ways around your weaknesses leveraging collaboration and delegation, to become far more productive around the targeted outcomes, in a timely manner.
The trending belief, the “most logical” growth advice we have been given (since forever?) is to keep focusing on closing the gaps called “weaknesses”. That is not entirely controversial, for obvious reasons of self-improvement, growth in personal and professional contexts. However, there is a subtle wisdom in leveraging strengths more often than we are taught to. Developing areas of improvement is a marathon. On the flip side, intentionally paying attention and collecting data around skills you are most comfortable with and the teams’ capabilities over time will often come handy in sprints.
This was demonstrated consistently during the tournament through the Moroccan national team journey getting the farthest they’ve ever got in a World Cup. Walid Regragui managed each step of the way focusing on the strengths of each player, worked around the strengths of each opponent team and incorporated timely strategies to get Morocco thus far. He was well-aware of the risks and managed expectations without going against the universally known qualities of the great teams they played against, such as Spain for their leading possession of the ball or Portugal for their offensive powerhouse.
He trusted every player with their unique talents and they trusted him back with his strategy showing up, at each stage, at the best of their capabilities.
Ready for one more challenge?
As we are overlooking the start of a new year and a trend of setting intentions for growth, make a list of your talents (the ones you know of and the ones people give you feedback about). Keep that list frequently accessible to you. Take a glance at it once in a while, or as often as you need, for a boost of confidence, and most importantly for recognizing where, when and how you can leverage them to your best advantage. They happen to lead you towards your most desired destinations in life. Sometimes, they wink at you and give you just the pinch of inspiration and boost you need to push through in tough times ;)
Support, positive energy, unity are game changers, across the board!
I don’t think there is a need to draw a new picture for this one. We’ve contemplated plenty of photos and videos shared in family and friends groups. Millions of supporters, inside and outside the stadiums, most of them flew from across the globe. Many made last minute plans for that one unexpected game moving to the next stage of the tournament, some ended up extending their stays at short notice. The dynamic of “the present moment” value vs its cost was instinctually redefined and embraced by the collective .
Energy is contagious, no matter where and how you lived the moment. When the players put their families on a pedestal, when they unapologetically stayed true to their values, under the whole world watch. It is inspiring. From the support of the family, to the fans, the nations and the continents. A unifying moment beyond time and space. A History moment where the common denominator is the human experience. These principles, if applied in different areas of life, with different settings of people, make a difference, at an individual and collective scale.
Positive energy inspires a positive attitude.
Positive attitude inspires a positive mindset.
Positive mindset inspires creating a safe space.
Safe space inspires support.
Support inspires unity.
Final words
This World Cup was a special testament to believing that History can rewrite itself, in different shapes and forms. The impossible remains “impossible” when it hasn’t been envisioned in the mind as a possibility, yet, whether it is because of a belief system, an upbringing, a lack of representation, confidence, empowerment or support.
Each of us can take this wildly public reconstruction of hope and deconstruction of assumptions to give just a little push, a breather into redefining one or two dreams, we once thought were unattainable. Reconsider.
Last but not least, you can take this practical demonstration of leadership, pride with values, fine execution, support and positive energy to put one word on the wall in front of you, right now. On a new note on your phone, the front page of a new journal, a new post-it, what is one word that does it for you when you remember the inspiration you’ve witnessed for a split second during this month? Write it down and show up for it.
Stay curious, Stay unique & talk soon!
Oumaima Talouka