Winning Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley shares his story of leadership & strategy

Описание: In our world, we are privileged to encounter extraordinary people at the top of their game, whether on the sports field or in the world of finance and business. recently had the unique opportunity of sharing a day with Ryder Cup captain, Paul McGinley, who led his European team to victory in 2014.

In this video Paul shares with us his personal view on strategy and leadership. Embracing pressure and communicating, he says, are key to ensuring team buy-in and clarity. Paul explains how his role as captain involved filtering big amounts of data and working that into a cohesive plan.

“Intuition isn’t enough,” he says, “a structured plan that allows for flexibility is paramount to enabling a leader to react appropriately.”

Paul also says that there’s no right way to captain. He learnt a lot from the great captains of the past, including those that he’s played under like Jose Maria Olazabal. “You do what you believe is right for your personality and how you see things. You’ve been put into a position to lead, now lead,” Jose told Paul in the lead up the 2014 Ryder Cup.

With Europe having won seven of the nine Ryder Cup tournaments prior to Paul’s captaincy, he mentions that it’s important to take a winning template and to evolve it. “Like life and business, there needs to be evolution in what you do. If you stand still, you’re going backwards”. He talks about the challenges of expectation, being favourites and playing at home for the first time. “When people expect you to do something, you’ve got nowhere to go. A lot of the passion that’s driven us to win Ryder Cups has come from lots of space to move into,” he says.

Paul talks about how positioning in the media was critical to setting expectation, not only in the minds of the public, but in the minds of the players themselves. “It’s always easier being the hunter than the hunted,” he explains. “Like a boxer I wanted us to be on the front foot, be a little gung-ho”.

“Emotion and passion are essential in anything you do in life. If you don’t have passion it makes it hard to be successful because you don’t go the extra mile”. He believes passion is the underlying fundamental behind people’s success and happiness.