The Leadership Lockdown Challenge

During this lockdown period, we understand that some leaders may be feeling immense pressure to try and continue as usual, which may lead them to feel lost and overwhelmed.

As the Activation Project, we want to help support them with some encouragement and inspiration.

Plenty of leaders are taking lockdown as an opportunity to target new and existing audiences. We want to help by highlighting some of their stories and ideas which we hope will inspire others to take advantage of the current situation and use it to create active communities and long-lasting exercise habits.

There's a new group of people in town. 

Sport England has provided research on how people are thinking and feeling during this lockdown. The figures show 63% of adults in England say it's more important to be active now, compared to before coronavirus. The majority of people (67%) also believe exercise is helping them with their mental health during the outbreak. In addition to this, 52% of adults have increased awareness and desire to do more physical activity.  People are concluding that they need and want to stay active during the lockdown period.

We believe frontline leaders could focus on those adults with a desire to be more physically active and instil long-lasting habits of activity. How we go about this is very important as when we are out of lockdown it will be all too easy to slip back into old practices. 

So are frontline leaders the answer?

We don't know if frontline leaders, coaches, teachers, instructors and managers are necessarily the only answer in this period. But from what we've seen, a lot of them are using this time to innovate their practices, sports, activities and team-working abilities. We've seen people like Joe Wicks leading the nation on their morning routines or Girls Golf Rocks setting homemade challenges for their players, but what else could we be doing?

The answer. We need to innovate and come together as organisations and leaders to create a movement with momentum. We need to share our inspirations and our ideas and create campaigns that generate unity through community. Some plans may fail, and some may take off and become a viral sensation. The name of the game is to get as many people involved as possible, of all ages and abilities. 

What have people been doing so far? 

Joe Wicks We're sure everyone is aware of Joe Wicks' workout sessions to lead the nation to better health. It seems that live streaming workouts are the way forward not just for Joe, but also for many PTs, Physios and fitness professionals around the country.  ​ https://www.youtube.com/user/thebodycoach1

Girls Golf Rocks You may not have heard of Girls Golf Rocks, but they are a prime example of how the use of social media can be used to interact and inspire their members to get out and practice. GGR has a steady stream of videos and photos from their members of clever ideas of how you could be practising even with the simplest of equipment. ​ https://twitter.com/GirlsGolfRocks1

Cosmic Kids Yoga If you're a parent with young children and you haven't heard of Cosmic Kids then you're in for a treat. Cosmic Kids is a combination of Yoga, mindfulness and relaxation, all told through interactive stories on Youtube.  ​ https://www.youtube.com/user/CosmicKidsYoga

Kenilworth Runners It seems clubs are coming up with new innovative ways to keep their members and the general public as active and engaged as possible. One of the more interesting approaches we've heard about is from Kenilworth Runners who are holding a club bingo challenge. Members each have a bingo card and have to complete certain challenges or find certain streets whilst photo-documenting themselves. 

From Sport England's research and what we can see happening across the physical activity sector, there is a need for innovation. We believe that with more people recognising the need to be active, there is an opportunity here to engage more people than pre-lockdown. Frontline leaders, whether they are paid or voluntary, are already innovating and finding ways around the problems at hand. As a sector, we need to learn from what's working and what's not and engage with the general public to come through this pandemic stronger and more active than ever.  ​

Sport England's research www.sportengland.org/know-your-audience/demographic-knowledge/coronavirus#research

Want to have your say?

Tweet us @TheActivationP #Leadershiplockdownchallenge