The four most populated countries in the world are the United States, China, India and Indonesia. Collectively, they make up 44% of the global population. However, with all the wealth of resources and number of people, none of these four countries made the final 32 of the World Cup tournament. However, countries like Belgium, Iceland and Panama did.
The reasons why are interesting. In fact, Martin Rogers wrote an interesting article on the topic in yesterday’s USA Today which you can read here.
As I read Rogers’ thoughts, I gleaned the following 3 Reasons Even The Greatest Leaders Fail. Whether you lead a business, church, non-profit, athletic, or educational organization, these reasons have implications for you.
- Leaders Fail To Prioritize What Is Important – The world’s four largest countries have never really made soccer a priority. Stefan Szymanski, co-author of the book Soccernomics, said, “Not that soccer’s not played (in the U.S.), but it’s not an important activity. It hasn’t been. The potential is there because it has a wealthy economy, but schools, colleges, people…have mainly been interested in other big sports rather than soccer. That may change in the future, but that’s been the way it has been.”
- No Stability And Consistent Leadership – Constant turnover in leadership harms an organization. Stable leadership allows for cohesion and trust to be built. Icelandic soccer agent Magnus Magnusson said, “Our team are like brothers. One of the disadvantages of being so small is obvious – you have less players. But the big advantage is these guys have played together since they were young.” On the contrary, Indonesia has geographical challenges. The country is spread out over several islands. This makes it difficult build national teams for various age groups.
- No Sense Of Urgency – A lack of options often creates a sense of desperation. Croatia goalkeeper Danijel Subasic said, “We have big hearts and we fight for our people back home.” It appears in larger countries there is just a lot more going on. People just have more options. The more options you have the less urgency there is.
If you are failing as a leader, it may be because there is a lack of priorities, consistency, or urgency.
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