How Sports Build Leadership Skills in Girls—Before the Title
Long before a promotion or a seat at the table, sports help girls build leadership skills through responsibility, teamwork, and the courage to use their voices.
Written by Linda Herron
Women Sports USA®
Think about the girl who notices a new teammate standing alone and walks over to include her. The player who makes a mistake, takes responsibility, and gets ready for the next play. The athlete who asks a question because she knows other people are confused, too. None of these moments require a title. Each one gives her practice doing something a team needs.
We may describe that girl as helpful, dependable, or a good teammate. Those descriptions are accurate, but there is something else worth recognizing: she is learning to lead. She is paying attention to people around her, making decisions, and discovering that her actions affect more than her own performance.
We need to help more girls and women recognize those experiences for what they are: early practice in leadership. A woman may hesitate when someone asks about her leadership experience because she has never managed a department or served as president of an organization. Yet she may have spent years learning how to earn trust, respond to pressure, and help a group move forward. Before she dismisses herself, I want her to look again at what she has already done.
This article follows that development through five everyday lessons: taking responsibility, acting before confidence feels complete, responding well after mistakes, paying attention to different people, and learning to name the leadership that has already been taking shape through sport.
How Sports Build Leadership Skills in Girls Through Everyday Practice
Leadership can feel like a big, distant idea when you are young. Being responsible for your part of a team makes it tangible. You arrive prepared because practice depends on everyone participating. You learn an assignment because someone else is counting on you to be in position. You communicate because your teammate cannot always see what you see. In those ordinary expectations, leadership becomes less about a title and more about being dependable when the group needs you.
Consider a softball player learning to call for a fly ball. She has to assess the situation, make a decision, and speak clearly enough for another player to respond. Hesitation can create confusion. Calling for the ball also means accepting responsibility for the play. It is a small example, but it shows how communication and accountability can become part of the same action.
Research has examined the connection between these experiences and life beyond sports. The Women’s Sports Foundation’s report, Play to Lead: The Generational Impact of Sport on Women’s Leadership, explores how skills developed through sports relate to leadership in adulthood. Referencing that research broadens the conversation beyond athletic achievement and shows why the everyday lessons girls practice on teams can matter long after a season ends.
Playing sports does not automatically make someone a thoughtful leader. Athletes need opportunities to reflect, receive guidance, and practice treating people well. But a team creates repeated chances to learn. A girl can try speaking up, recognize what did and did not work, and return ready to communicate more effectively.
Learning to Trust Yourself While You Are Still Learning
Some women wait to feel completely confident before stepping forward. I understand the desire to be prepared. Preparation matters. But if we make certainty a requirement for leadership, we can spend a long time waiting.
Sports give us experience acting while the outcome is still uncertain. You can practice a shot hundreds of times and still feel nervous when the game is close. You can know your assignment and still face an opponent who forces you to adjust. Confidence develops as you discover that you can respond, including when your first attempt does not work.
Imagine a young basketball player who sees an opening but keeps passing because she is afraid to miss. A coach can help her understand why taking that shot is a sound decision, then give her room to practice it. Over time, she gains something more useful than reassurance: experience making a judgment and living through the result.
That lesson belongs in adult life, too. You can contribute an idea at a meeting while remaining open to questions. You can volunteer to guide a project and ask for help with an unfamiliar part. Athletic experiences can give women something to draw on when the next opportunity feels bigger than their confidence.
What You Do After a Mistake Matters to Everyone Around You
I am competitive. I care about doing things well, and I know how frustrating it feels when your performance falls short of what you expected. Sports also taught me that frustration cannot be the only thing you bring to the next play. There is still a game to participate in, and other people are depending on you.
During my finance career, I carried a sports expression with me: “Keep your head up and let’s catch the next ball.” That did not mean overlooking an error. It meant understanding what happened, correcting what we could, and keeping people engaged in the work ahead. You cannot fix a problem effectively if everyone is too busy protecting themselves to discuss it.
Picture a team member who discovers an error in a report before an important meeting. A useful response starts with clear questions: What is affected? What needs to be corrected? Who can help? Once the issue is addressed, the team can examine how to prevent it from happening again. Accountability becomes something people can act on, not something they hide from.
The same approach matters with young athletes. A player needs to know what to adjust after a missed assignment. She also needs to know that she still has a contribution to make. Leaders help people learn from a mistake without leaving them stuck inside it.
Leadership Requires Paying Attention to Different People
A team brings together people who do not all think, communicate, or respond in the same way. One athlete wants direct instruction. Another needs a moment to settle before she can take in feedback. Someone who speaks easily in a small group may struggle in front of the whole team. Learning to notice those differences takes patience, curiosity, and a willingness to look beyond your own preferences.
The encouragement that helps you may not help the person beside you. A leader has to be curious enough to find out what another person needs.
Imagine an experienced player working with a teammate who keeps missing a drill. Repeating the same instruction more loudly may accomplish very little. Asking which part is confusing, demonstrating the movement, or slowing the drill down gives them a better chance of making progress. The experienced player is learning to teach, and the newer player gets a chance to succeed.
Working with different personalities is part of leading a department, organizing volunteers, coaching children, or helping a community project move forward. The setting changes, but the need to understand people remains. That is why the connection between female athletes and leadership in everyday life deserves attention: sport gives girls repeated practice adapting to people, not just performing beside them.
Coaches Help Girls Recognize Their Own Influence
A team can give girls repeated chances to lead, but adults often determine whether those chances become lessons the girls can name. Coaches, in particular, help young athletes understand when their choices, questions, and care for teammates are already forms of influence.
My high school field hockey coach, Betty Marquis, set an example that I still cherish. When I first started playing field hockey, I used both sides of the stick, a habit from street hockey. The whistle blew, and Betty laughed at the situation. This taught me that it's alright to make mistakes and see the humor in them.
That experience matters to me because learning requires room to get something wrong. When you are responsible for others, your response can help them stay willing to learn. You can hold a standard and still remember that the person in front of you is developing.
Coaches can also make leadership visible by naming the behavior they see. Telling a player, “You helped your teammate understand that drill,” gives her a specific contribution to recognize. Asking different athletes to lead a warm-up or explain an exercise gives more girls a chance to practice responsibility. Afterward, a simple conversation about what went well and what felt difficult can help them understand what they learned.
As girls practice leadership through responsibility, mistakes, communication, and care for teammates, adults still shape whether those lessons become visible. That is why recognition has to lead somewhere: girls need meaningful chances to keep growing.
Girls Need Meaningful Chances to Keep Growing
Encouraging a girl to lead means giving her something meaningful to do. If adults make every decision, answer every question, and resolve every disagreement, young athletes have fewer chances to develop their own judgment.
A coach might invite players to suggest a team goal, help plan part of a practice, or discuss how they want to support one another during difficult games. The adult still provides guidance. The athletes get experience contributing to decisions that affect them.
We also need to examine whose potential gets noticed. A quiet athlete may have excellent judgment. A player developing her physical skills may already be good at bringing people together. Looking only at scoring, speed, or confidence in public can cause us to overlook other contributions.
Opportunity is also influenced by how organizations handle women who are prepared to take on leadership roles. The Women’s Sports Foundation’s Beyond X’s & O’s research highlighted gender bias in college coaches' workplace experiences. Such findings emphasize that skill development is just one aspect of the process. If organizations disregard women’s capabilities or restrict their access to significant positions, the leadership skills that girls develop through sports may go unnoticed as they prepare for greater responsibilities.
Learn to Describe the Leadership You Have Already Practiced
Once girls and women begin to see these experiences as leadership, the next challenge is learning how to describe them clearly. If you are returning to work, considering a new role, or trying to understand what you bring next, start with a specific experience. Think about a time when people depended on you. What was happening? What did you do? How did your contribution help?
Perhaps you helped younger players learn a system. That experience may show your ability to explain information and support someone’s development. Perhaps you helped teammates regroup after a difficult loss. Describe how you listened, addressed the problem, and helped the group prepare for what came next. Specific examples allow another person to understand your contribution.
You do not need to make the story bigger than it was. If you helped one teammate improve, say that. If you organized one event, explain your responsibility. An honest account of how you prepared, communicated, or solved a problem is more useful than a broad claim that you are a natural leader.
After you have named the experience, choose somewhere to keep practicing. Offer to guide a small project. Mentor a newer colleague. Take ownership of one part of a community event. Ask someone you trust for feedback. Leadership develops through use, and you are allowed to keep learning as you take on more responsibility.
Recognize Her Before the Title Arrives
The girl assisting a teammate might not yet view herself as a leader. Similarly, the woman managing a volunteer group or aiding colleagues through a challenging week may not see herself as one either. This is why recognition is important: people often need others to highlight the significance of their contributions.
We can do that with care and specificity. Tell her when her preparation helped the group. Acknowledge the question that brought clarity. Give her credit for an idea, and invite her into the next decision. Recognition means more when it leads to an opportunity to grow.
Through Women Sports USA®, I want us to keep telling these stories because they help girls and women see possibilities in their own lives. Championships deserve celebration. So does the everyday work of becoming someone others can trust, learn from, and count on. That everyday work is where many leaders first begin to recognize themselves.
Think back to your own playing days, or look closely at the girls on a team today. Where do you see someone accepting responsibility, finding her voice, or helping another person succeed? There may already be a leader there. She deserves the chance to recognize it, practice it, and discover what she can do next.
Help us make more of these stories visible. Join the Women Sports USA®community to celebrate athletes, coaches, and trailblazers whose influence reaches beyond the game. Together, we can help more girls see the leadership already taking shape in their own lives.
Women Sports USA®— Honoring the Past. Empowering the Future.
Linda Herron is the Founder of Women Sports USA®, a former Division I field hockey athlete, coach, author, and longtime advocate for preserving women’s sports history. Through storytelling, she celebrates the athletes, coaches, officials, and trailblazers who helped change the game.
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