Failure As True Growth: Abby Wambach On What Makes A Good Leader
Rebecca Jarvis (L) interviews Abby Wambach in Las Vegas recently at the Customer Contact Week Conference.
“Failures are things I feel most proud of. Stop calling it failure, it’s true growth,” says Abby Wambach, former two-time U.S. Women’s National Team Olympic gold medalist, World Cup Soccer winner and author.
““Failures are things I feel most proud of. Stop calling it failure, it’s true growth,” says @AbbyWambach, former two-time @USWNT gold medalist, @FIFAWWC winner and author. #lifeadvice”
At the recent Customer Contact Week Conference in Las Vegas, Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News chief business economics correspondent describes Wambach as someone who “turns failure into fuel.” Jarvis adds that Wambach is also “the highest international goal scorer of all time” as well as an “advocate for pay equity and LGBTQ rights.”
Her lessons from sports on the field and on the bench apply to leadership lessons in every field and in every life.
A five-time winner of U.S. Soccer’s Female Athlete of the Year, and 2012 Women’s Player of the Year by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), Wambach says what she learned as an athlete is universally applicable across all industries.
“The world gets it wrong; we don’t utilize our weaknesses as well as amplify our strengths,” says Wambach, author of Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game, the memoir, Forward, and a book for young readers.
“Talk about what you’re good and bad at and fill in the gaps. Who is good at what? How do you get people in those positions?” Wambach says.
This approach to leadership aligns with the 9 Leadership Intentioning Tools created by Gloria Feldt, co-founder and president of Take The Lead and author of Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone's) Good.
““The world gets it wrong; we don’t utilize our weaknesses as well as amplify our strengths,” says @AbbyWambach, author of “Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game,” the memoir, “Forward,” and a book for young readers. #leadership”
Feldt writes that the first tool is “Uncover yourself. Because what sets you apart is what gets you ahead, and the keys to your best future are already in your hands.”
Wambach knows this lesson well. In 2016, Wambach says receiving the ESPY Icon award, along with sports legends Kobe Bryant and Peyton Manning was a pivotal, life-changing moment.
“Three of us got the same award and three of us were going into very different retirements,” she says, adding that she “was trying to figure out how to find a job to pay my mortgage,” as her co-winners were assured of very lucrative futures.
“Why would I dare compare myself to Kobe and Peyton?” Wambach says, adding that she was often filled with imposter syndrome.
Read more in Take The Lead on Title IX
“Until then I was only comparing myself to other women athletes. That night I promised I was never going to let that happen again.” Wambach says she decided to consider herself an athlete, without the gender descriptive.
Changing that mindset was critical, as was changing the approach to failure. “As an athlete, the whole time I was confronted with failure over and over again. My job was to score goals one to two times a game.”
And if she did not do that, she failed. “Failure is a mindset. You have a decision to obsess about the past or utilize it and move forward.”
Jarvis adds, ”There can be no success without a willingness to fail.” Jarvis says she often asks herself, “Am I Little Red Riding Hood or the wolf?”
Wambach began her career in soccer with Mia Hamm, and together in 2003 they scored 66 points over the year to win the WUSA title. Wambach started nine times for the U.S. Women’s National Team that year, including all five U.S. matches in the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
What she has learned as a member of the team is not only how to be a player but how to be a leader.
“We don’t talk enough about how to stand in our weaknesses just as strongly as we stand in our strengths in order to build a team that is unbreakable,” Wambach says. “We all want to be the goal scorers. We cannot all be, we have to take turns.”
““We don’t talk enough about how to stand in our weaknesses just as strongly as we stand in our strengths in order to build a team that is unbreakable,” @AbbyWambach says. “We all want to be the goal scorers. We cannot all be, we have to take turns.” #mindset”
Read more in take The Lead on equal pay in women’s soccer
Traveling together, eating meals together, practicing together, all encouraged community and unity, she says. “It does not mean I like every one of my teammates, but I respected the words that came out of their mouths. It’s because we sit and we listen and show up with curiosity,” Wambach says.
“As a leader, I would ask a leading question. In the end it’s about getting to know people and what their fears are; that drives true unity.” And that is what leaders in every business, organization and management team can do.
“Teams should have people from lots of backgrounds, but have a north star to collect around,” Jarvis says.
“What a lot of businesses get wrong is they don’t have a buy in,” says Wambach. “Winning was not our true north, it was the relentless pursuit of excellence. For that you need accountability coaches. The collective has to agree on why are we all here?” Wambach says.
““Winning was not our true north, it was the relentless pursuit of excellence. For that you need accountability coaches. The collective has to agree on why are we all here?” — @AbbyWambach, two-time @USWNT gold medalist. #leadership ”
There are two key concepts that Wambach says she learned as a soccer player that can be applied to leadership in any industry.
First is “the concept of demand the ball. I learned it at 18 years old.” Playing with Michelle Aikers, who was in the 1991 and 1999 World Cup competitions, Wambach says she mastered that idea.
Before that, “I never understood what demand the ball meant. What people are scared of is the accountability that comes after demanding the ball in business and life,” she says. “I don’t want to be on my deathbed and I say I never put myself up against accountability.”
The second crucial life and leadership concept Wambach says the sport taught her is leading from the bench.
“At the last World Cup in 2015, the coach sat me down and informed me my role going forward was game changer.” What that means is Wambach would spend most of the time on the bench, and brought into the game only when absolutely necessary.
“I was devastated, heartbroken, embarrassed. I had two choices: be a good teammate or be a bad teammate. If I sat on the bench and pouted, my teammates would feel that; they would know it was about my ego.”
Read more in Take The Lead on lessons from failure
Wambach says, “I decided I have to be a good teammate. I decided I was going to be the best bench player ever. I didn’t know it at the time but everything I had to learn about leadership was sitting there on that bench. Leadership is how to figure out how to push those younger people ahead of you.”
“@AbbyWambach says, “I decided I have to be a good teammate. I decided I was going to be the best bench player ever. I didn’t know it at the time but everything I had to learn about #leadership was sitting there on that bench. Leadership is how to figure out how to push those younger people ahead of you.””
The reaction to her bench leadership was critical to her success after retirement.
“I was called Captain America, leader of leaders. The irony of me accepting that role was it offered me an opportunity to create a career post-career. I have been able to make 10 times more money as a speaker in retirement than in 20 years as a soccer player,” Wambach says.
“Modern day leadership is more about interaction between managers, bosses, peers and colleagues. How you deliver news is almost more urgent than the news.”
““Modern day #leadership is more about interaction between managers, bosses, peers and colleagues. How you deliver news is almost more urgent than the news.” —@AbbyWambach. #womenleaders #leadershipadvice”
Jarvis adds, “Leadership is about building true relationships. It’s recognition of skills and appreciating that without those pieces you do not have a win.”
At this year’s Take The Lead’s Power Up Conference & Concert on Women’s Equality Day August 26, 2023 with the theme, Lead Your Intention, there is a day of panels, keynotes and breakout sessions with the goals of connection, skill-building and enhancing leadership outcomes.
The in-person conference in Los Angeles is also available remotely and focuses on networking, building community relationships and energizing participants with information, inspiration and goal-setting.
The mission of Take The Lead since its founding has been leadership parity—including pay equity—across all boundaries, industries and businesses by 2025.
As an advocate for pay equity, Wambach was key in the victory of securing equal pay for women’s soccer players.
In 2022, the U.S. Soccer Federation agreed to pay $22 million in back pay to members of the women’s soccer team because of the pay gap.
“As an advocate for pay equity, @AbbyWambach was key in the victory of securing #equalpay for women’s soccer players. In 2022, @ussoccer agreed to pay $22 million in back pay to members of the women’s soccer team because of the #paygap. ”
“It was a moment when it made me understand it was never just about soccer,” Wambach says.
She is optimistic about the fight for gender equity across all roles and industries.
“Broaden your vision. No matter who you are or in what job, city, state or country, equality is coming.”
Take The Lead Leadership Takeaway:
“Broaden your vision. No matter who you are or in what job, city, state or country, equality is coming.”
—Abby Wambach, ESPY Icon, Olympic Gold medalist, World Cup winner, author, advocate for equal pay
