Following a series of unwelcomed events in our Namibian sports fraternity such as expulsions and termination of sponsorship contracts. Today’s weekly take away concentrates on effective leadership in sports. 

On the other hand, I must emphasise that these events are an essential learning curve for all stakeholders in Namibian sports and serves as a wake up alarming call to many organisations. Firstly, effective leadership does not only require passion and being visionary, but it needs leaders who have adequate leadership skills and a strong ability to work under pressure. 

Effective leaders must ensure understanding a sport organization’s internal systems and also the external environment. Leaders are constantly exposed to new and challenging situations that demands a high grade of flexibility and knowledge in running affairs effectively. 

The complexity of sport organisations and the challenge of organisational change, require professional training to ensure effective leadership. Furthermore, in order to move an organisation forward, today’s leaders need to apply transformational leadership. Transformational leadership underscores the importance of vision, intellectual stimulation, and individualised consideration in leadership. 

In addition, an increasing number of organizations have recognized this need to support leaders and established leadership development programs. Our sport organisations should follow suit and cultivate initiatives of leadership development program for our sports organisations. 

In conclusion, we need to move away from casual leadership to an effective leadership to run organisations successfully. This will help us to avoid similar events from reoccurring and putting athletes in unexpected vulnerable situations like what happened in the Namibian football fraternity. 

*Stefan Ngolo is a sports enthusiast and sports education scholar. He can be reached at ngoloset@gmail.com.