Bri­an Lewis

Sport is mo­ti­va­tion­al, in­spi­ra­tional, as­pi­ra­tional and a pos­i­tive cat­a­lyst for healthy lifestyles and at­ti­tudes.

It fa­cil­i­tates so­cial co­he­sion, eq­ui­ty, so­cial jus­tice and fair play.

Many have the na�ve im­pres­sion that all sport lead­ers un­der­stand and live the pos­i­tive ideals and pur­pose of sport.

Many be­lieve, some­what naive­ly, that all sport lead­ers put the best in­ter­est of sport ahead of their self-in­ter­est.

Many be­lieve that all sport lead­ers ex­ceed and de­liv­er on the promis­es made.

Sport is om­nipres­ence.

Suc­cess­ful lead­ers love change, where­as the un­suc­cess­ful do every­thing they can to keep things from chang­ing.

Suc­cess­ful lead­ers look at how the world around them is chang­ing and fo­cus and em­brace ways to im­prove what they are do­ing. Change is not some­thing to re­sist.

The will­ing­ness to ac­cept change is a great qual­i­ty of suc­cess­ful lead­ers.

The most suc­cess­ful go be­yond mere change and chal­lenge tra­di­tion­al think­ing. They chal­lenge tra­di­tion­al think­ing and tra­di­tions and cre­ate new ways of do­ing things. They dis­rupt that which is al­ready work­ing in or­der to get to a bet­ter place. In­deed they don't al­low tra­di­tion­al think­ing to hold them back.

Grant Car­done put it best when he said suc­cess­ful lead­ers were called thought lead­ers who de­sign the fu­ture with for­ward think­ing.

It's not change for change sake but it's the will­ing­ness to chal­lenge tra­di­tion and find new and bet­ter ways to ac­com­plish goals and ob­jec­tives.

If sport is to reach goals pre­vi­ous­ly thought im­pos­si­ble and cor­rect­ly set goals and guar­an­tee their achieve­ment and cre­ate un­prece­dent­ed lev­els of suc­cess, the lead­er­ship deficit must be ad­dressed. Suc­cess is over­com­ing a chal­lenge. Sport, like life, can be quite bru­tal.

Great lead­ers an­tic­i­pate and solve prob­lems, they make sit­u­a­tions bet­ter not worse.

Why is there a lead­er­ship deficit? The rea­sons are many and in­clude; liv­ing in the past and do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to keep things from chang­ing.

Sport lead­ers need to ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the prob­lems, mis­takes and mis­steps and take im­me­di­ate ac­tions to ad­dress the lead­er­ship deficit.

Stop be­ing ap­a­thet­ic. The bar­rage of con­tro­ver­sies and bac­cha­nal will con­tin­ue once sport lead­ers keep mak­ing ex­cus­es for their short­com­ings and mis­takes and refuse to ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for what hap­pens on their watch.

In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) pres­i­dent Thomas Bach said the re­spect of part­ners was in­dis­pens­able for the au­ton­o­my of sport.

"We earn this re­spect through re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and re­li­a­bil­i­ty, by us­ing our au­ton­o­my re­spon­si­bly and act­ing re­li­ably.

"Sport is com­plete­ly de­pen­dent on its cred­i­bil­i­ty, ie on the cred­i­bil­i­ty of sports com­pe­ti­tions and on the cred­i­bil­i­ty and rep­u­ta­tion of sports or­gan­i­sa­tions."

In a nut­shell good gov­er­nance and in­tegri­ty mat­ters. Sport stake hold­ers and part­ners should de­mand noth­ing less. Sport lead­ers who don't mea­sure up and are cre­at­ing more prob­lems than they solve should be held ac­count­able for their de­ci­sions and mis­takes and ac­tions.

In­com­pe­tence, fraud, mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion, cor­rup­tion, abuse and mis­use of of­fice must not be swept un­der the car­pet.

Ig­nor­ing the prob­lems and hid­ing the truth will not make the prob­lems go away. They will on­ly get worse.

Most times, any­way, lead­ers who are ben­e­fi­cia­ries of a slap on the wrist be­come se­r­i­al of­fend­ers, hubris­tic and a law on to their own selves.

When they even­tu­al­ly leave of­fice they leave deep al­most in­tractable prob­lems known and un­known that have to be solved. The chal­lenge then be­comes solv­ing those prob­lems while at the same time pro­tect­ing the good name, rep­u­ta­tion and im­age of sport.

Tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty changes every­thing'. You have to step up. Ask your­self what part am I play­ing and what is the one thing I can do?

How do sport or­gan­i­sa­tions, sport stake­hold­ers re­spond to this cri­sis in lead­er­ship?

In times of crises, you must have the courage to stand up and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, any­thing else will be use­less.

Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee.