BREAKING BOUNDARIES

Taking the Lead

The Solheim Cup Captaincy made me reexamine my definition of leadership

By Annika Sorenstam Article | June 2017

In golf, you usually play only for yourself and your family. The chance to compete for your country and your continent is rare, and the chance to lead in that situation even more so. After eight prior appearances asa player and three as a vice-captain, I will have the honor of captaining TeamEurope in the biennial Solheim Cup, which is easily the biggest international event in women’s golf. The demands of the position required me to consider my approach to leadership.

In the 18 months between my appointment and the event itself,I thought a lot about all the captains I had played under and worked for. One of my goals was to try to pull together all their best practices. This is much the same way I approached my own golf game during my playing career, watching and learning from others who were standouts in a certain area. The road to success has a lot of intersections—but there are no shortcuts!

To lead successfully, you also need to be yourself. By nature, I am focused and organized. I believe in data and statistics, which I used to finalize the team and create our pairings for partner matches. I felt comfortable that my approach gave our team the best chance for success, which in turn, I hope, made the players feel the same way.

To lead successfully, you also need to be yourself.

—Annika Sorenstam

Actions may speak louder than words, but as a leader your words are obviously important, too. I knew from my Solheim Cup experience that good captain-player communication is a cornerstone of success. Every leader wants to strike the right note to inspire her team to perform its best. For me, that boiled down to letting the players know that I wanted them to have fun, stay positive and, above all, maintain focus amid the week’s many potential distractions.

Captaining Team Europe in the Solheim Cup is in some way the culmination of a personal journey, too, and a victory of its own. Anyone who knew me as a child or saw me early in my career knows how shy I was by nature. I didn’t seek out the spotlight, or leadership roles—just the opposite.

Thankfully, my desire to win was stronger than my shyness. I learned to face my fear and work through it. When I speak to women at corporate events, I always tell them that they will face challenges and crossroads in their lives, and that to break glass ceilings and grow as a person, you need to step out of your comfort zone and take chances. That’s what I did when I played against the men in a PGA TOUR event in 2003. Even though I missed the cut, I performed well under the most intense spotlight of my career and realized how good I could be. The next three years were the best golf I ever played.

After retiring from pro golf in 2008, I started the ANNIKA Foundation, which runs five junior tournaments worldwide and a college event, too. At each, in addition to the competition we also teach the players life skills. The clinics I give, which cover both golf and personal/career lessons, are always a proud moment for me, and if the players are half as inspired as I am I’ve succeeded.

Whether or not these young women go on to play professional golf, they are tomorrow’s leaders, with many in the next wave of C-suite executives. In fact, 93 percent of all female executives played sports growing up. Amazing events like the KPMG Women’s Leadership Summit at the KPMG Women’sPGA Championship, which brings together hundreds of female executives around the game of golf, are providing wonderful networking and educational opportunities. Both myself and my foundation have benefitted greatly from theseSummits, as countless others have and will in the years ahead. These types of gatherings are so important to cultivating leadership—whether captaining a Solheim Cup team or any other chances that life has to offer.

Challenging the status quo with grace, grit and composure

Win or lose this weekend, I am so honored and humbled to have the opportunity to lead Team Europe. The players will not just be representing their country or their continent, but also all of those who came before them and made the Solheim Cup what it is today. They’ve already made their current Captain very proud.