Following the news that Loughborough University London and the Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH) have collaborated to launch a new Leadership in Sport MA, we caught up with Kay Cossington, one of the course’s many high-profile graduates, to explore how the course has helped her become a better leader in a elite sporting environment.
I’m Women’s Technical Director at The FA. I’ve been at The FA for 18 years now. I was a player at West Ham, then a Coach at West Ham and a Technical Director, and I then moved across the water and went to Millwall. Then I started at The FA leading talent systems and being a Head Coach of national teams.
How did you come about studying with ISH on the Leadership in Sport MA?
When I had my twins, in 2015, I made a tough decision to move off the pitch because I didn’t want to be travelling as much as I was as a national team Head Coach. The FA gave me an opportunity to move into a leadership role across all our women’s national development teams, and as part of that, one of the things I wanted to learn about was the leadership of people, programmes and structures.
And then Baroness Sue Campbell told me there was an opportunity to study the Leadership in Sport Master’s, and would I fancy it? I’ll be honest with you. Academia doesn’t float my boat. Collecting certificates doesn’t get me up in the morning. But when I saw the course information, I was excited about how the course connected to my work.
My job is really demanding, and I couldn’t afford to have lots of time away studying and doing something that was not relevant to my job. So, I went back and said yes, which was quite scary, because I was so busy at the time and you often put your own self-development last. But as soon as I said I’ll do it, I was really intrigued about what I was going to learn.
How was your experience on the MA Leadership in Sport?
It was excellent. Due to the pandemic, suddenly I had an extremely demanding time at work. I was home-schooling two five-year-old twins and also doing a Master’s. When I look back on it, I know I only got through that because of the flexibility and the adaptability of everyone helping me on the course. I felt that everybody at ISH was really flexible.
I learnt that I’m obsessed with leadership. Normally, I don’t have the time or capacity to sit and read. However, if you see my bookcase next to me now, it’s full of leadership books.
I managed to apply the course to my role. I studied the history of football and I’ve now taken that even further and I got a historian to come and work with us and we basically unpicked the history of the women’s game specifically. As a result, you can now see women’s football identity anchors all around St George’s Park. Before the course I thought I knew how football began, but I was very wrong.
I could talk all day about things I learned on the course.
What are some of your highlights from the course and how have you integrated learnings into your job?
Our visit to the British Army at Sandhurst. It was just phenomenal. Watching these cadets, walking up and down all gangly, like Bambi on ice. It was like watching our young players that you’re trying to identify talent from. They’re all over the place physically as they go through maturation!
Learning the processes and structures The Army go through and the whole experience was quite surreal. It’s taught me a lot about finding my own identity as a leader and connecting that higher purpose to leadership. It was a really powerful trip.
I’m now supporting future female leaders in football, which was the focus of my dissertation and I refer back to it a lot. My dissertation looked at the challenges that women have been through past, present, and probably future, so that’s definitely shaped who I am and how I’m trying to be a role model, but also to open up about the challenges that I’ve felt, and many others have felt on that journey. I try to use these experiences as a positive for the women that come after me.
What would be your advice to anyone thinking about applying?
I have had conversations with a few people about this course when they have told me they are moving into a leadership role. I asked them, have you considered doing the Leadership in Sport Masters. Because I’ve lived it.
I’m able to demonstrate how the course can align specifically to your job and it’s related to the work that you do. If you want to be a really good leader and you want to take a big step into exploring leadership but also exploring yourself as a leader, then this is a really excellent way of doing that.
And because there were other people from the sports industry on the course, we could support and learn from each other, as well as from the tutors.
What does leadership mean to you?
Something that’s massively underestimated in leadership is our responsibility in driving culture. And that was something that I’ve taken away from the Leadership in Sport Masters.
I try to implement this in everything that I do. You know that old phrase, ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’…. You can have the best plan in the world, but if the culture is toxic and you’re not empowering people to be the very best they can be, then they won’t deliver. They’re probably not excited and curious about what the ambition is. In this case strategy doesn’t matter. It sits there as a document that gathers dust. So, leadership in sport, at every level is critical. I do think there should be much more of a focus on leadership in all areas.
A few years after I came into a leadership role, I was given lots of people. I was given lots of money, but we lacked the leadership to maximise this growth in investment and people. So, it was like a box of fireworks, and someone had lit it and everything was shooting off in different directions – it felt like standing in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. My job was to try and bring that together, create an ambitious vision, connect everybody to the vision, create a culture where people could thrive and be themselves and want to be the very best and take us on an exciting journey to deliver it. Last summer we achieved that [with the Euros triumph] in a short space of time.
Is there a different feeling about the upcoming Women’s World Cup in camp, with the group being current European Champions?
Of course, we now have a target on our backs, but we will be as prepared as possible to be at our very best come the 22nd of July. We are very fortunate to have the amazing facility at St George’s Park to give to the team. It wasn’t long ago that players were standing in black bins with a hose and ice in it as ice baths, now we have different kinda of plunge pools, recovery pools, pools with moving floors, amongst many other things. That tells you something about the growth of the game.
I think the growth that we’ve seen is a product of many years of work by many people. We have to thank many people that were committed to growing the game before it was of interest to many, and it’s only going to get even bigger, I’m sure.
QUICK FIRE QUESTIONS
Who is the (current or former) leader in sport you admire most? Sarina Wiegman
Who is the (current or former) leader outside of sport you admire most? The Queen
Who was your sporting idol growing up? I wanted to be like Paul Gascoigne!
Best leadership book? Who is in Your Personal Boardroom. By Zella King and Amanda Scott. It basically helps you construct your Boardroom, so to speak, and your leadership team around you…
Applications are currently open for the new intake starting in October 2023
