What Soccer Teaches About Leadership
Joan Peterson is passionate about three things: the work she does, her family, and soccer. How do those three things interconnect? Peterson explains it all when I sat down to talk with her about her passions and how they inform her approach to leadership development.
Joan Peterson is the Vice President, Master Facilitator and Leadership Coach for Bluepoint and a speaker at the HCI SPARK HR Conference April 30–May 2. She has been a skilled facilitator and coach for 30 years and has worked with leaders at all levels. She’s also a thought leader and respected authority, and she really digs soccer. She told me that sports has been a passion her “whole life,” and she played competitive soccer growing up. Now her daughter plays college soccer.
Read on to understand Peterson’s perspective of how her passions, including soccer, play into leadership development and coaching.
Q: What are you passionate about? And how does that inform your approach to leadership and employee experience?
Joan Peterson: I’m passionate, really passionate about three things: the work I do, my family—I have two daughters—and I’m passionate about sports and youth sports and, specifically soccer, and what we can do to help the youth around us through sports. I think [all three passions are] interconnected.
I show up as a leader, not just at work, I show up as a leader with my family, with my community. And so the three things I’m passionate about [informs leadership development this way]: the work we do helps build humans inside organizations who then bring that humanity to their families and they bring that humanity to their communities, whether it’s through sporting events or coaching. Those are the three things that light me up every day.
I have spent my career in the leadership development field. And I get to work with leaders who make a difference, who every day get up and say, ‘I’m gonna make this workplace a better experience for the people who come every day and spend most of their living and breathing hours inside this organization.’
Q: What sparked those passions?
Peterson: So, sports has been a passion of mine my whole life. I grew up playing competitive soccer. And I always loved children. I always loved kids even as a child. The leadership piece I fell into. I have a master’s degree in organizational psychology. The more I dug [into org psych], the more I liked it because I thought it was interesting. And I’ve stayed in the field for three decades because I’ve seen it make a difference. I’ve seen it make a difference inside organizations, inside teams, [and] I’ve seen it make a difference outside of work. A lot of what [I] hear [from] clients later is, ‘What we talked about today is something that can help improve the communication I have on my team, [and] can help improve the communication I have with family members or engaging in difficult conversations.’
Q: What can people learn from your passions ? How can they relate?
Peterson: There’s nothing’s perfect, right? There’s beauty in the mess of life. My experience is that we’re constantly learning and growing, and we never quite get there. We always say leadership is a journey. Every day you wake up and some days we choose to be the best leader, and we choose the behaviors associated with great leadership. Sometimes we choose what we say to our families and sometimes we choose well and sometimes we don’t. The great thing about leadership is I get to get up and try again tomorrow. My hope is that when we all look at ourselves, we have compassion for our own growth and development, that we’re open-minded, that we have a growth mindset.
Q: The important thing is to keep growing and challenging ourselves. So, Joan, at the Spark conference this spring, give us a preview of what you’ll present.
Peterson: I think, big picture, it’s how can we have conversations that matter? How can we as leaders, as HR professionals, not only engage in these conversations that matter to ourselves, but how can we help those around us engage in difficult conversations, engage in performance conversations, engage in coaching conversations? How can we raise the level of the conversations we’re engaging in, and how can we help those around us have better conversations?
One of the questions I oftentimes ask a group is, if someone inside the organization had information about something you were doing that was getting in the way of your success, how many of you would want to know about it? And everyone raises their hand.
Yet we sometimes withhold having difficult conversations, giving performance feedback when it’s negative, when it’s constructive, because we don’t want to hurt feelings, but we’re doing them a disservice.
When we have these performance-changing conversations, we need to put ourselves in their shoes. I’m doing this to be of service to them and taking myself out of the equation. How can I present it in a way that engages them in the conversation? How can I present it in a way that they can hear? How can I present it in a way that’s meaningful for them? Even before the conversation, how have I built trust that I’ve earned the right to engage in a conversation that may not be easy for either of us?
If this Q&A with Joan Peterson got you thinking, just wait until SPARK HR 2025 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, April 30-May 2. We’ll be diving even deeper into engagement leadership and workplace culture with speakers from LinkedIn, NASCAR, Chobani, Microsoft, and more. It’s not just another conference. It’s going to be hands-on, interactive, and a chance to connect with people who really get it. Plus, we’re adding some Disney magic, so you’re going to have a great experience. See you there!
This article is presented in partnership with HR Daily Advisor. HR Query is a Q&A series by HR Daily Advisor that focuses on HR professionals' insights on current HR trends and dives into their personal stories, helping HR peers connect with challenges and opportunities.
