Watching the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup soccer tournament reminds me how sports—and, in particular, soccer—can help develop leadership skills that are readily transferable to business.

Looking back, Nelson Mandela was a great leader who believed in (and leveraged) the power of sport “to change the world, to inspire, and to unite people.” More recently, I’ve heard Mark Parker, Nike’s president & CEO, talk about “leveraging the power of sport to change lives…that it can be a game-changer.”

In a January 2015 TD article, “C-Suite Athletes,” author Stephanie Castellano shared the results from a survey of 400 women executives conducted by EY Women Athletes Business Network and espnW. According to the survey, 94 percent of women executives have participated in sports, and just over half (52 percent) played sports at the university level. Furthermore, the survey found that, “few women executives have not played sports—just 3 percent of women in the C-Suite and 9 percent of women at other management levels.” The study goes on to “validate long-held theories that women who are athletes are well-suited for the business world and have tangible advantages,” says Laura Gentile, vice president of espnW.

The beauty of recognizing the sport of soccer, for example, as a platform for developing women leaders lies in an athlete’s opportunity to learn the interdependent nature of teamwork, described as “genuine collaborative teamwork,” by Danah Zohar in An Alternative Sports Metaphor for Understanding Teamwork as Complex: Soccer.

This learning opportunity syncs up well with the global business model, described as an interdependent network in my book, The Collaborator: Discover Soccer as a Metaphor for Global Business Leadership! Here, “new or different skills and values are needed to effectively perform in a knowledge-intensive, decentralized and time-challenged global business environment.”

There are no prerequisites for playing soccer—unlike many other sports. What’s more, all players are viewed as leaders on the field who must manage constant change. This sort of scenario is aligned with the argument made by management guru Gary Hamel in a 2013 interview with McKinsey & Company, in which he explains the “need to syndicate the work of leadership across organizations…calling for a new platform for managing change…with traditional structures demanding too much from too few.”

Indeed, soccer represents the best example of a self-directed team charged with performing the work under changing conditions. This sport recognizes the mutual dependency between players on the field enabling genuine collaborative teamwork. Because all players on the field are described as skillful, adaptable, and not position-driven (except for the goalkeeper), the game demands flexibility to change quickly, assimilate new information on the run, and apply multiple skills.

As you watch the women’s World Cup Final on Sunday, I challenge you to look at the game from a leadership perspective. Ask yourself if these leadership skills are transferable to the global business field?

Enjoy the World Cup! 

Editor's Note: This article is reposted from the Collaborative Leadership Blog.