From a summer of sport to a lesson in leadership

This summer a cohort of Laidlaw Scholars partnered with SOS Children's Village Cape Town, a residential community serving approximately seventy children. @Youness Robert-Tahiri returned to a site where he had previously implemented a psychosocial intervention and invited fellow scholars to design complementary initiatives. Within this collaborative framework, @Jayden Bafoa developed a girls' football programme that integrated athletic development with identity transformation. The most significant outcome transcended tactical skills or physical conditioning: participants experienced a fundamental shift in self-conception, beginning to embody the leadership qualities they witnessed in professional role models.

Janine van Wyk: "Be yourself, be a leader, be courageous and strong, take risks, and trust that you can achieve anything you want."

A trailblazer who institutionalises possibility

Janine van Wyk exemplifies transformational leadership through both individual excellence and structural change. Having captained South Africa's women's national team, she recognized that personal achievement without systemic transformation creates isolated success rather than sustainable progress. Through founding JVW Girls Football, van Wyk institutionalized pathways from grassroots participation to elite performance, ensuring that visibility translates into accessible opportunity for successive generations.

Leadership as embodied transformation

Van Wyk's call to "be yourself, be a leader, be courageous and strong, take risks, and trust that you can achieve anything you want" articulates a philosophy of leadership rooted in authentic self-expression and progressive risk-taking. Her vision recognizes that courage manifests not through dramatic gestures but through incremental steps that expand one's conception of possibility. Leadership, in her framework, emerges when individuals embrace their authentic selves while simultaneously pushing beyond perceived limitations. The trust she advocates develops through repeated experiences of competence building, where each small success creates foundation for greater ambition.

This philosophy found unexpected parallel in the SOS initiative, where girls challenged restrictive gender norms and gained access to professional role models they had never encountered before. The courage van Wyk champions materialized organically through incremental risk-taking: attending their first professional match, attempting advanced techniques during training, volunteering for leadership roles within the programme. Van Wyk's call to "trust that you can achieve anything" gained credibility through the structured experiences Jayden created, where competence building occurred through consistent practice rather than empty encouragement.The scholars' approach, though independently conceived, created precisely the conditions van Wyk advocates for authentic leadership development.

Values in action

This approach aligns with the Laidlaw values #Brave and #Fast. #Brave means creating real opportunities for girls to take meaningful risks and be seen. #Fast means turning insight into action with care, from arranging safe stadium access to providing kits and scoping a simple computer lab. It also reflects the Oxford Character Project virtues #Courage and #Love. #Courage is acting in line with what is right even when it is difficult, which the girls practised on the pitch and the scholars modelled in their enabling roles. #Love is a commitment to others’ good that builds trust and collaboration, evident in work that dignifies participation and invests in lasting capability.

A call to reflect

As we prepare for this year's Laidlaw Conference with the theme Brave, van Wyk's message offers a powerful lens for examining our own leadership journeys. Share an example from your own leadership where you helped someone transition from observer to participant, from participant to leader. Which barriers did you remove, and how did the transformation extend beyond individual benefit to community impact?