January 19, 2026

Sports: The Hidden Leadership Pipeline

By Lylah Ruparel

When people talk about leadership, they talk about confidence workshops, debate teams, student government, internships. All important. But one of the most powerful training grounds is also the gym, the field, and the court.

Quietly, and consistently, sports have been doing something those spaces often don’t: teaching girls how to lead before they’re given permission to. Research shows that girls who play sports are significantly more likely to hold leadership roles later in life. Former female athletes are overrepresented among executives, physicians, nonprofit founders, and senior managers. They report higher confidence in decision-making, greater comfort with risk, and stronger communication skills than women who did not play sports (Ernst & Young, 2015; Women’s Sports Foundation, 2020).

This isn’t a coincidence. It’s a pipeline.

Leadership is learned through repetition, not instruction

Leadership in sports isn’t abstract. It’s practiced daily, publicly, and often imperfectly. Athletes learn to make decisions under pressure, communicate clearly, take responsibility for mistakes, and recover in front of others. They learn how to speak up when something doesn’t feel right and how to stay engaged even when things don’t go their way.

Psychological research supports this. Girls who participate in sports show higher levels of self-efficacy, assertiveness, and leadership aspiration, especially when they remain involved through adolescence (Eccles & Barber, 1999; Miller et al., 2005).

In sports, leadership isn’t reserved for the loudest or most confident. It rotates. It’s situational. One day you’re leading warmups. Another day you’re supporting a teammate. Another day you’re taking accountability after a mistake. That flexibility matters because real leadership rarely looks like standing at the front of the room all the time.

The Body Learns Leadership First

One reason sports are such an effective leadership incubator is that the learning happens through the body. Athletes learn how it feels to take up space, physically and vocally, long before they’re expected to do so in classrooms or workplaces. They learn to act with incomplete information. They learn to trust their instincts. They learn that hesitation has consequences.

Orthopedic surgeon, Dr Fury, interviewed through HERcovery, noted that athletes often develop decision-making confidence earlier because they’re used to responding in real time: “You don’t get to pause and ask for permission mid-play. You act, adjust, and own the outcome.”

That embodied confidence doesn’t disappear when the season ends. It transfers.

Accountability without Perfection

Sports also teach a rare form of accountability, one that doesn’t require perfection to belong. Mistakes in sports are visible. You fall. You miss. You lose. And then you come back to practice the next day. Failure becomes information, not identity. This matters especially for girls, who are often socialized to avoid mistakes and self-edit. In sports, accountability is collective. Your effort affects others. Your recovery matters. Your presence counts.

Ms Scott, high school varsity girls soccer coach, shared during a HERcovery interview that the athletes who grew most into leaders weren’t always the most talented but they were the ones who stayed engaged, supported teammates, and showed up consistently. “Leadership wasn’t about who scored the most,” she said. “It was about who the team trusted.” That trust is built through reliability, not image.

Why this Pipeline Matters

By age 14, girls drop out of sports at nearly twice the rate of boys. The reasons are rarely about talent. They’re about pressure, burnout, body image, injury, and not feeling like they belong. When girls leave sports, they don’t just lose an activity. They lose one of the few environments where leadership is practiced early, often, and without apology.

They lose a place where their voices are used, their bodies are trusted, and their presence matters.

What HERcovery is Paying Attention To

HERcovery exists because leadership doesn’t begin in boardrooms. It begins on teams. By supporting girls through injury, recovery, education, and connection, HERcovery aims to protect not just athletic careers but developmental ones. The goal isn’t to turn every girl into a professional athlete. It’s to make sure sports remain a place where girls can build the skills that follow them everywhere else.

Sports don’t just prepare girls for competition. They prepare them to lead.

Sources & Further Reading

• Eccles, J. S., & Barber, B. L. (1999). Student council, volunteering, basketball, or marching band: What kind of extracurricular involvement matters? Journal of Adolescent Research.

• Miller, K. E., et al. (2005). Sports participation and adolescent psychosocial development. Journal of Adolescent Health.

• Women’s Sports Foundation. (2020). The Leadership Gap: Why Women Athletes Make Great Leaders.

• Ernst & Young. (2015). Women Athletes: The Untapped Leadership Pipeline.

• Podlog, L., & Eklund, R. C. (2007). Professional coaches’ perspectives on the return to sport following serious injury. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology.

• HERcovery Project — In Converstation... Series (2026)