Leadership Lessons from Behind the Whistle
After a 20 year hiatus, I’ve recently returned to refereeing rugby and wanted to share some reflections related to leadership and how my initial foray into refereeing rugby was formational for me as a leader.
I was initially directed towards refereeing by the head coach at UW as a way to become a better player. More importantly than making you a better player, I think it also makes you a better human. As a dad watching my kids play sport the prior experience refereeing made me far more grateful for the human beings that take up the act of service of refereeing.
I’ll enumerate the universals first and then to some rugby specific refereeing aspects:
1. Prioritization
The first priority of a referee is player safety. The second priority is fairness of competition. The rules of the game are there to provide an overall structure to the competition and to ensure safety and fairness.
2. Decisions under pressure and developing a thick skin
As a referee there is constantly time pressure to make rapid decisions, sometimes these decisions can really matter in a close game and the pressure is real. Will a referee be 100% right? Nope. You will get sometimes vocal criticism, and you WILL make mistakes. Mistakes you will need to live with, process, learn from and improve.
3. Get comfortable being uncomfortable
This was one of the best pieces of advice I got along the way about leadership in business and refereeing was one of the first places I had routinely been uncomfortable, and gotten comfortable with it.
4. Building professional relationships
As a referee you need to have a good relationship with players, and especially captains and coaches. You might even be friends with some of them off the field. On the field the friendship is set aside and you step into your role as referee. This kind of compartmentalization is another useful skill, along with setting boundaries for how much “feedback” you get from players and coaches and what tone you will permit. Finding the right level of permissiveness is another good skill, and it will be different on filed vs off the field after the game. Off the filed, post game, it can be a discussion. On the field in that exigent setting a call may be explained, but it can not be allowed to turn into a debate. This requires the development of presence and establishment of healthy boundaries.
5. Resisting manipulation
As a referee there will be efforts to manipulate you by coaches, players and captains, and you need to be able to resist this manipulation maintaining your impartiality, and sound judgement.
6. Compartmentalizing and multi threading
A unique aspect of refereeing rugby is how advantage is played, similar to soccer, but for a longer duration and potentially sequential advantages resulting in optional choices of restart for the offensive team. Building skills to have this high level of situational awareness, and tracking multiple events simultaneously is another useful skill.
7. Conflict Management
In a game of rugby there are a lot of potential flash points due to the already violent nature of the game. Being aware of what is happening and keeping your own emotions under control in the face of heated exchanges between players, and de-escalating are all transferrable skills.
My return to refereeing is for love of the game. My initial entry into refereeing was to become a better player and it made me love and appreciate the game more deeply. One really neat thing about being a referee is that you watch the game differently: there is another game happening where you actually watch the referee and can appreciate excellent officiating.
If you have young people in your life, and they have the opportunity to take up refereeing, please encourage them to do so. If you have the opportunity to get into refereeing; do it!
There is almost always a shortage, and it is a great experience!
If you have some tales about refereeing I would love to hear about them.
With gratitude for your readership and thoughts,
Nik