I don't know about you, but I've been loving this year's Six Nations Rugby. Watching a game turn on its head from a single moment’s loss of concentration, and seeing seasoned players taught a thing or two by underdogs as they rise up and surprise everyone — probably themselves most of all, has helped swallow the bitter pill of watching our National team lose. I never used to think of sport as one of life’s best leadership classrooms, but as I get older — and as sports coaching becomes more thoughtful, more positive, and more attuned to equality and mental health — I can see there are countless lessons to be taken from team sports.
So it felt rather auspicious to bump into my youngest daughter’s old form tutor at the local rugby club and be reminded just how much a parent can learn from their children. This brave young woman had once spearheaded a school trip up Mount Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa’s Atlas Mountains — a truly gruelling, Bear Grylls-style expedition. “What goes up the mountain must come down the mountain,” became a favourite mantra from that time, and I still remember how bone-tired everyone looked when they slumped off the minibus on their return.
The following year my daughter was made Head Girl, and I credit much of that success to how she tackled that Toubkal trip — a trip the school still offers to this day.
It was around the same time that her all-girls state school merged classes with the boys’ school next door. The transition was met with consternation by some girls and their parents, and reluctant acceptance by others (why fix what isn't broken?), but it transformed conversations around our dinner table, where our daughter would often deliver a running commentary on sociology, anthropology… and hair.
“Mum, I sit behind this boy with amazing hair in Science and I just want to run my hands through it.”
Fair.
Quite quickly the schools fully merged, and the observations improved. Her masterpiece was a dramatic reenactment of boys leaving a classroom:
“Miss, miss! I got this.”
Misses light switch.
“It’s okay miss, I got this.”
Misses again.
“I GOT THIS.”
Hits switch. Lights off. Triumph.
“See miss!”
Accidentally turns them back on.
“I got this miss!”
Misses…
Meanwhile, four boys remain jammed in the doorway because they all tried to exit at once.
But one moment in particular has always stayed with me.
My daughter was explaining to a horrified friend — appalled at the idea of even sharing space with boys — why she didn’t mind sitting on a sofa between two boys at prefect meetings.
“If you actually watch them,” she said, “although they can be loud and physically dominant in a room, they also think deeply and are really good at relating and responding to each other, as if they’re learning and operating like a team — which is sweet.”
I, attempting to retain my position as wise and all-knowing, replied,
“So boys are basically just like girls but with different body parts.”
She looked at me with pity.
“No. Boys separate into two types, mum: twats and lovable twats. Not like girls at all.”
Honestly? I think she’s onto something.
There’s a leadership lesson in there somewhere about intent, teamwork, and judging people by character rather than noise level. Leadership, it turns out, looks a lot like rugby, mountains… and teenage boys — though I suspect she’d say I’m overthinking it.
She’s nearly through uni now. Her advice column launches soon. Naturally, I’ll be first in line to subscribe.