***Originally published in Interscholastic Athletic Administration

In my studies of various leadership styles, I continually return to the tenets of stoicism.  Granted, I'm better at some aspects than others, but I've found that several of the stoic teachers of the past provided useful lessons for anyone in a leadership role.  It's difficult to define stoicism quickly, but perhaps the best, brief description is that stoicism is based on the idea that we can only control ourselves.  All of the other central teachings of stoicism are related to that central point. 

As an administrator, many of the teachings have been useful to me, but I tend to fall back on three lessons more often than others.

1. Control Your Emotions.  I try to stay in control of how my emotions affect me.  While I’m rarely outwardly excited about things that I enjoy, I also rarely freak out about bad stuff.  It's not that I don't feel those emotions like everyone else, I just choose to experience them internally.  The central teaching of stoicism that you can only control your own thoughts and actions, not the things that cause you to feel emotion.  Because of that, it's important to not act with emotion but rather with logic and reason, and in order to not act in emotion, you cannot allow emotion to guide your actions.
   * As an athletic administrator, I routinely converse and interact with people who are operating in a high state of emotion.  While a parent, a coach, or an athlete can speak to me in a variety of emotions, I need to remain calm enough to assess the situation and respond accordingly.  As a human being, I wouldn't be able to do that if I was matching the emotional intensity of whomever I'm talking to.
   
   
2. Displeasure is self-inflicted.  Again, the only thing that you can control is yourself: your thoughts and your actions.  Therefore, according to the Stoics, when something bad happens - and bad stuff happens! - you can't control the bad thing that has happened, but you can control how you feel about it.  One of my favorite Stoic quotes comes from Marcus Aurelius:

"Choose not to be harmed, and you won't feel harmed.  Don't feel harmed, and you haven't been."

*As an athletic administrator, I try hard to not take things personally.  I believe that the decisions I make are based on some knowledge that I have, and I should be able to explain my decisions based on that knowledge.  I know fully well that not everybody will agree with me after making a decision, but I don't take others beliefs as a personal slight.  I'm actually typing this after coming out of a meeting with a group of parents who had some questions about our department philosophy.  I knew going into the meeting that our school district's mission and philosophy probably wasn't going to match what this group wanted from our programs, but I am comfortable with my knowledge of educational based athletics and how that knowledge affects the way I run the department.  When the meeting was done, much information had been shared in both directions, and I was able to walk away with another learning experience to strengthen my own philosophy.  It was the type of meeting that could have easily felt like a personal attack at some points, but I chose to not feel attacked.  The parents and I can agree on some points while disagreeing on others, but that disagreement wasn’t going to change my emotional state during the next interaction I had…which in this case was with my family at home.

1. No setback is permanent.  Again, from Marcus Aurelius,

"The impediment to action advances action.  What stands in the way becomes the way."

Those people who work the closest to me know that I really don't get stressed about much.  I don't get too worked up about late buses, missing officials, or any of the other million things that could go wrong with hosting games or running programs.  My response to many of these things is the same, "Kids are still going to play [insert sport here]."  Is it ideal to play a game with only one or two officials instead of two or three?  Of course not,  Is it ideal to arrive at a game venue with only a couple minutes before warm-ups?  Of course not.  But is that really the stuff we're going to get worked up about?  All of those obstacles are just opportunities to work with less, to perform under pressure, or to adapt and adjust...all of which are useful skills.

*As an athletic administrator - I don't remember where I first read this, but I've found a really effective question to ask myself before deciding if I'm going to be stressed about a situation or not: Could someone die as a result of this?
- Late bus?  No problem; we'll just show up later than planned.
- Missing official?  No problem; we'll either find one quickly or play with fewer officials than planned.
- Lost a game?  No problem; let's assess, adjust, and move on.
- Naughty students over the weekend?  No problem; administer the consequence as directed.
- Angry parents?  No problem; Listen, discuss, learn, adjust, move on.

However,

- Physical, mental, emotional mistreatment of athletes?
- Deciding whether or not to put a bus on the icy roads of a North Dakota winter?
That's where my stress comes from.  Since I've learned to not get too worked up about the little things, I've found that these bigger, much more important problems aren't as overwhelming to address.

There are so many more teachings that are beneficial to administrators (and to people, in general, really).  If you're interested, I encourage you to seek out additional resources on how stoicism can improve your efficiency as an athletic director.