Sydney Swans: Belief in Each Other
As a mother of a young Sydney Swans player, I have followed this season with more than passing interest. I was at the Sydney Cricket Ground for the Swans' qualifying final against the Brisbane Lions, and what I watched there has stayed with me.
The Swans went into that game without several key players. Then they lost their captain in the first quarter.
Across the ground were the Lions, the reigning premiers and the clear favourites, and the expectation was that the Swans would not even get close.
And they won. Not narrowly. They led all day and beat the reigning premiers by more than 50 points.
I've tried to find the right words since:
Relentless intensity.
Belief in each other.
They came together as one. The energy and atmosphere on that ground, more than 37,000 supporters, is something I can't put into words, even though words are most of what I do.
And the young players who stepped into the gaps played as if they had always been there. One of those young players was my son, and I have never been prouder to sit in a grandstand.
So how does this relate to leadership? Well, it begs the question, “What makes it possible for a team to keep performing when the circumstances around them are far from ideal?”
What Happens When the Plan Falls Apart?
In business, as in elite sport, things rarely unfold exactly as expected. Key people leave, unexpected challenges emerge, and circumstances change in ways that can leave a team questioning what is possible with the resources and people they have available. When this happens, it is easy to focus on what is missing and assume that performance must suffer as a result.
The Swans' season invites us to question that assumption. When a team loses key players, the natural expectation might be that its capacity to compete will diminish, yet disruption does not automatically determine the outcome.
What matters is how the people who remain respond, how they support one another, and whether they can continue to work towards something bigger than the challenges they face.
When someone goes missing from a team, the conversation is all about the hole. Hardly anyone asks who gets to step into that space. When a leader believes in the people still standing, those people tend to grow into the gap. The gap is the same either way. What changes is the belief.
The Work That Happens Behind the Scenes
We see the media coverage, the results, and the moments that play out on the field, but much of what enables a team to keep performing happens away from the public’s view. It is built through preparation, trust, shared expectations, and the everyday decisions people make about how they contribute to one another. When pressure intensifies, those foundations become even more important.
I can't tell you what was said in the rooms that day. I can tell you what it looked like. It looked like players who knew they were trusted.
The atmosphere was part of it too. The players fed the supporters, and the supporters fed the players. Atmosphere around a team isn't weather. A leader can create it on purpose, by what they say first, who they look at, and what they refuse to treat as lost.
The ceiling we assume is often sitting in the heads of the people watching. The outside world had a ceiling for that team. The players didn't seem to have one. That's the work I do. I spend my days helping people find the internal ceilings they didn't know they were carrying, and looking at the human being behind the leadership, the life and the results
What Leaders Can Do When a Gap Open
If you lead a team that has just lost someone, here's where I'd start.
Name who is still standing before you name who has gone. The room takes its cue from where you put your attention first. If the first thing people hear is who has left, they start counting the loss.
Give someone a real job, not a pep talk. Belief shows up as a clear role, a real responsibility, and saying out loud, "I trust you with this." Newer team members grow fastest when they are trusted early. Don't wait until they feel ready, because they rarely will.
Protect where the team puts its attention. When there is noise outside the team, help people focus on what is theirs to influence. The team's energy belongs on the work in front of them.
Leadership is not simply about having the right people in place when everything goes to plan. It is about creating the trust, adaptability, and collective commitment that allow people to find their way forward when it doesn't.
When were you written off, or when did you back someone who had been? What happened next?
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