Ef­fec­tive trans­for­ma­tion­al and res­o­nant lead­er­ship is a vo­ca­tion of ser­vice and stew­ard­ship that re­quires lead­ers to reg­u­lar­ly take time to look at their or­gan­i­sa­tion and lead­er­ship style with a clean sheet of pa­per and to ask hard ques­tions of the per­son in the mir­ror. To take stock.

Last Thurs­day at the fourth edi­tion of Sport In­tegri­ty Week, a glob­al ini­tia­tive of Sport In­tegri­ty Glob­al Al­liance (SIGA), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC) and the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) host­ed a we­bi­nar en­ti­tled “Fi­nan­cial Trans­paren­cy and In­tegri­ty What is it? Why is it im­por­tant?” as part of their host­ing part­ner­ship com­mit­ment with SIGA.

The we­bi­nar was well re­ceived, there were 116 par­tic­i­pants. The in­for­ma­tion and we­bi­nar link was wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed. The one dis­ap­point­ment is that more sport lead­ers didn’t seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty to take stock.

One may ask why giv­en that every­one in­clud­ing the me­dia and di­verse stake­hold­ers in and out­side of sport over the years have made the is­sue of a per­ceived lack of in­tegri­ty, and poor gov­er­nance in sport lead­er­ship and ad­min­is­tra­tion, the head­line talk­ing point. I may be bold to say, not for the first time, that sport does not ex­ist in a vac­u­um from the rest of so­ci­ety. Sport re­flects so­ci­ety. It’s the same thing in all oth­er as­pects of na­tion­al life be it pol­i­tics, busi­ness or oth­er­wise. There is a gen­er­al re­luc­tance to ad­dress the facts and the truth and to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty for the so­lu­tions.

We en­joy the gos­sip, point­ing fin­gers and cast­ing blame but when it comes time to “Bell the Cat” it’s “a horse of a dif­fer­ent colour”.

Last Thurs­day, Nathaniel “Nat­ty” James got his first goal at se­nior lev­el for the na­tion­al side. James scored the win­ning goal against Cu­ra­cao in the open­ing match of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 2023/24 CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League A cam­paign at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain. As he cel­e­brat­ed his goal in the 87th minute, James, took off his shirt to re­veal this mes­sage “RIP Kay­lon Ja­cob...stop the vi­o­lence in La Hor­quet­ta”.

Af­ter the match, James ex­plained, “It was just a trib­ute to my friend who passed away due to gun vi­o­lence in La Hor­quet­ta. I just want­ed to ded­i­cate the goal to him. Ja­cob was from my com­mu­ni­ty. It was about me show­ing love. It was a big mo­ment for my com­mu­ni­ty be­cause there has been a lot of vi­o­lence in La Hor­quet­ta these days.

“It was just ba­si­cal­ly a mes­sage to every­one. We need to come to­geth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty and as a coun­try and just be one with each oth­er and live in har­mo­ny.”

The 19-year-old used his plat­form to show courage and lead­er­ship to send a sober­ing mes­sage about gun vi­o­lence. How many elect­ed and ap­point­ed sport lead­ers do the op­po­site and use their plat­form on­ly for self-in­ter­est and self-ag­gran­dis­e­ment, priv­i­lege and en­ti­tle­ment? The feel­ing of in­jus­tice is enor­mous with­in the so­ci­ety. Fear stalks the land. Peo­ple’s hearts are hurt­ing.

How­ev­er, let’s not for­get sport mir­rors life. Sport lead­ers re­flect lead­ers and lead­er­ship in all oth­er ar­eas of life. No mat­ter how tal­ent­ed and suc­cess­ful a leader you are, you will make mis­takes. You will de­vel­op bad habits. Tak­ing stock is im­por­tant and a key suc­cess fac­tor.

Gun vi­o­lence is a cri­sis. When there is a cri­sis, you have to show peo­ple you re­al­ly care and that you are tak­ing care of their con­cerns. As lead­ers do our words and ac­tions re­flect what peo­ple are feel­ing?