The player who stuck a page 3 photograph on the whiteboard with my name on it during my first weeks at the club, the one who seemed to lead the scepticism about whether I belonged there, was the same player who, two years later, rang me on a Saturday morning before I rang him. When the tabloid journalist called about the drug allegations, he called me first. Not the CEO. Not his agent. Me.
That shift did not happen overnight and I did not engineer it. It happened because, in the intervening months, I had done what I said I would do, kept their confidence when they gave it to me, and shown up the same way every single time regardless of how I was treated.
Influence in elite sport is not positional. It does not come with a job title. It is earned, one consistent interaction at a time. Here is what that looks like in practice.
1. Do what you say you will do, every time
In professional sport, trust is built on predictability. The most influential people in any changing room, coaching staff or backroom team are the ones who are consistent. Not the loudest. Not the most impressive in a meeting. The most reliable. Reliability is underrated because it is unglamorous. It is also the single most effective trust-building behaviour there is.
Try this: This week, make only the commitments you are certain you can keep. Then keep all of them. Do this for a month and watch what happens to how people relate to you.
2. Protect what people give you in confidence
In elite sport, information is currency. The people who hold influence are almost always the ones who are trusted with the things that are not said in public. That trust is built by demonstrating, over time, that what is given to you in confidence stays with you. Once it doesn’t, it is almost impossible to recover.
Try this: Identify one area where you could demonstrate discretion more deliberately. This week, keep something to yourself that you might normally share. Notice what that builds.
3. Show up the same way regardless of the audience
The Head Coach who made my life difficult for years had enormous influence in public and very little real trust in private. The people in the building knew the difference between how he presented himself externally and how he operated internally. Real influence is built by people who are the same in the corridor as they are in the meeting room.
Try this: Think about a relationship where you behave differently in public than you do in private. Ask yourself honestly: is that gap building or eroding trust?
4. Be genuinely useful before you need anything
Influence is not a transaction, but it is reciprocal. The most influential people I observed in twenty years of professional sport were the ones who were consistently, quietly useful to others without keeping score. When they needed support, it was available, because they had built a reservoir of goodwill over time.
Try this: Identify one person in your professional life you want to build a stronger relationship with. Do something genuinely useful for them this week, with no expectation of anything in return.
5. Stay calm when others do not
In a crisis or under pressure, the person who remains composed becomes the person others orient around. This is true in a changing room at half-time and it is true in a Monday morning meeting that has gone sideways. Composure is not the absence of feeling. It is the decision to act rather than react.
Try this: In your next high-pressure situation, make one deliberate choice to slow down before you respond. Take a breath. Ask a question rather than making a statement. Watch how the room responds to you.
Influence is not something you claim. It is something that accumulates, quietly, in the space between how you said you would behave and how you actually did. Build that space carefully and people will come to you first, even when you are not the most senior person in the room.
Solid advice.