I have spent a meaningful part of my career operating at the intersection of two worlds that people still treat as separate: business and elite sports.

One is assumed to be rational and analytical. The other emotional and instinctive. The truth is that the best organizations in both worlds are built the same way — through systems of leadership, belief, and accountability that hold up under pressure.

As we’ve built ZRG’s sports business alongside our broader talent advisory work, that connection has become impossible to ignore. What we are learning from elite programs is not a niche lesson for athletics. It is a blueprint for where leadership in business is going.

And it starts with understanding leadership as a system…and loyalty as a real, measurable KPI.

Leadership is a system, not a résumé

Elite sports organizations never confuse individual brilliance with leadership effectiveness. Talent gets you in the door. Systems win championships.

A powerful example of this is Curt Cignetti and the transformation at the University of Indiana. This was never about hiring a “hot name” or chasing a single-season outcome. Indiana viewed leadership systemically — culture, standards, staff alignment, recruiting philosophy, and day-to-day accountability all reinforcing one another.

We were fortunate to work with Indiana as a client through that process, and they deserve enormous credit for seeing leadership the right way. They didn’t just hire a coach. They committed to a system.

Curt brought a clear, disciplined operating model: how players are developed, how expectations are set, how belief is built early and reinforced constantly. The university aligned behind it fully. And when leadership, institution, and system lock together like that, the results can be extraordinary.

The outcome speaks for itself: a national championship.

That kind of success rarely happens when leadership is treated as an individual hero story. It happens when leadership is understood as an ecosystem.

Loyalty is the KPI no one tracks, but everyone feels

In executive hiring, we measure almost everything except the thing that matters most when pressure hits: loyalty.

Time to fill.  Compensation benchmarks. Assessment scores. All useful. None, however, are decisive on their own.

In sports, loyalty is visible and immediate. Players either fight for the coach or they don’t. Teams either pull together late in the season or fracture.

In business, loyalty shows up more quietly but just as clearly:

• Who follows the leader into difficult moments?
• Who stays when incentives alone are no longer enough?
• Who attracts great people again and again, across different roles and organizations?

In my book 7 Pillars of Inspired Leadership, I wrote something that I genuinely believe:

“Loyalty isn’t about tenure or comfort. It’s the willingness of capable people to attach their reputation and energy to your leadership when they don’t have to.”

Over decades of executive search and advisory work, that pattern has been remarkably consistent. Leaders who inspire real loyalty outperform their résumés.  Leaders who don’t eventually get exposed, regardless of how impressive their credentials look on paper.

What sports gets right that business still underestimates

Sports organizations understand three things business still too often dismisses as “soft.”

First, leadership is earned continuously.
Steve Sarkisian at Texas is a great example. Steve, another ZRG placement, does not rely on past success or reputation. He earns leadership every day…in how he prepares, how he communicates, and how he holds standards.  Practices are intentional. Expectations are explicit. Nothing is left to drift.

Second, culture is reinforced daily, not announced annually.
At Texas, culture shows up in details: how meetings are run, how accountability is handled, how players are developed, and how effort is recognized. That repetition builds trust. Trust builds belief and belief shows up on Saturdays.

Third, belief compounds faster than strategy alone.
When players believe in the leader, execution accelerates. When belief erodes, even the best game plan stalls. Sports understand this because the feedback loop is immediate. Business often learns it too late.

Why this matters now

The modern business environment looks far more like a competitive season than a linear plan. Volatility is constant. Talent is mobile. Trust is fragile.

Leadership failures today are rarely about intelligence or experience. They are about connection, alignment, and the inability to sustain belief when things get hard.

That is why private equity firms, boards, and founders are increasingly evaluating leaders the way elite sports organizations always have — not just for what they’ve done, but for how they build loyalty under pressure.

Where this could take the business world

I believe we are moving toward a more demanding and more honest definition of leadership.

One that asks better questions:

• Who would follow this leader into a turnaround?
• Who stays when conditions deteriorate?
• Who builds organizations that endure beyond their own tenure?

Sports have been answering these questions for decades because the consequences are immediate and unforgiving. There is winning and there is losing, in real time. Business is now operating under similar conditions, whether it acknowledges it or not.

The organizations that win will be the ones that stop treating loyalty as a byproduct and start recognizing it as a leading indicator.

Because in the end, leadership is not proven by titles, trophies, or résumés.

It is proven by who shows up with you when it matters most.

‍