31 Jul Leadership, pressure and performance at the Football World Cup
What can leaders learn from one of the most demanding performance environments in the world?
In the first episode of The Performance Lens, Fieri’s Director of Leadership and Performance, Jason Lee OLY, sits down with Gregg Berhalter, former US Men’s National Team Head Coach, to explore what it takes to build teams that perform under pressure.
Drawing on his experience as a World Cup player, coach and parent of a player in the 2026 US squad, Gregg shares insights into sustaining performance over time, creating a culture of collective responsibility and leading through uncertainty.
The Performance Lens is Fieri’s conversation series exploring leadership, teams, transformation and human performance through the experiences of people who have led in demanding environments.
While the conversation is rooted in high-performance sport, the themes extend far beyond the football pitch. Whether you’re leading a team, navigating organisational change or developing leadership capability, the challenges are remarkably similar: sustaining performance under pressure, aligning people around a shared purpose and creating the conditions for long-term success.
Key takeaways
Across the conversation, five themes consistently emerged that are just as relevant for organisations as they are for high-performance sport:
- High performance is built through consistent habits and behaviours, not isolated moments of success.
- Shared purpose helps teams sustain effort and energy during periods of pressure.
- Setbacks are an essential part of growth and long-term performance.
- Competition and collaboration can coexist in high-performing teams.
- Great teams depend on collective contribution, not just individual stars.
What separates high performers from everyone else?
High performance is built long before the biggest moments arrive. It is the product of consistent behaviours, disciplined routines and a commitment to continuous improvement.
When organisations talk about performance, the conversation often centres on outcomes. Targets are achieved, projects are delivered and results are celebrated. Gregg’s perspective was that sustained high performance begins much earlier. It starts with having a process – a way of approaching each day that can be repeated, refined and improved over time.
In high-performance sport, the biggest performances are rarely the result of a single defining moment. They are built through hundreds of small decisions and behaviours that accumulate over months and years. The same principle applies in organisations. High-performing teams aren’t sustained by moments of inspiration alone; they’re built through consistency, discipline and the standards people choose to uphold every day.
As Gregg put it, success ultimately comes down to what people are willing to do each day.
For leaders, the challenge is to invest as much attention in the behaviours that create performance as the outcomes they hope to achieve. Sustainable success is rarely accidental; it is built through the habits and standards people practise every day.
How can leaders prevent burnout during periods of sustained pressure?
Pressure is inevitable. Sustaining performance depends on giving people a clear sense of purpose alongside the support they need to perform at their best.
Modern organisations operate in an environment of constant change. Ambitious targets, competing priorities and increasing complexity place significant demands on individuals and teams.
One of the strongest themes to emerge from the conversation was the role that shared purpose plays in sustaining performance. Gregg described how a compelling vision can provide the energy that helps people persevere through demanding periods.
Purpose doesn’t eliminate pressure, nor does it replace the need for recovery, healthy boundaries or support. What it does provide is context. When people understand why their work matters and how their contribution connects to something bigger than themselves, they’re often better able to sustain effort over time.
Shared purpose helps teams to:
- maintain motivation during demanding periods
- understand how individual contributions support wider goals
- stay aligned when priorities compete
- sustain energy without losing sight of what matters most.
For leaders, this reinforces the importance of creating clarity around purpose as well as objectives. When people understand both what they’re trying to achieve and why it matters, they’re better equipped to navigate pressure without losing direction.
What role do setbacks play in success?
Setbacks are not the opposite of high performance. They are often one of the conditions that make it possible.
One of the most powerful insights from the conversation was Gregg’s perspective on adversity. Rather than seeing setbacks as something to avoid, he described them as an essential part of development.
Failure, disappointment and challenge create opportunities to learn, adapt and improve. Yet in many organisations, pressure to succeed can discourage experimentation or create a fear of getting things wrong.
Leaders who create environments where people can reflect, learn and recover from setbacks are often better positioned to build resilience, adaptability and long-term performance.
The goal is not to eliminate mistakes altogether. It’s to respond to them in ways that strengthen future performance. Organisations that learn fastest are often those that perform best over time because they treat challenge as an opportunity to improve rather than something to avoid.
How do high-performing teams balance competition and collaboration?
The best teams understand that competition and collaboration are not opposing forces. When aligned around a shared purpose, each strengthens the other.
Many organisations wrestle with the tension between individual ambition and collective success. How do you encourage people to strive for excellence without creating unhealthy competition?
Gregg’s answer was that competition should always exist in service of the team rather than at its expense.
In high-performance sport, athletes compete for opportunities while remaining committed to a shared objective. The strongest cultures create an environment where people challenge one another to improve while continuing to support collective success.
The same principle applies in business. Healthy competition raises standards and encourages growth, while shared purpose ensures those efforts remain focused on the success of the whole team rather than the individual.
When leaders create an environment where ambition and collaboration reinforce one another, performance becomes something the whole team contributes to rather than something delivered by a few individuals.
Why do great teams need more than star performers?
Sustained performance depends on collective contribution. The people who quietly reinforce standards, support colleagues and strengthen culture are often the ones who make success possible.
One of the most compelling themes in the conversation centred on the importance of people whose contributions often go unnoticed.
Every successful team includes individuals who may never receive the headlines but play a critical role in building trust, reinforcing behaviours and creating the environment in which others can perform at their best.
In sport, they’re often described as the glue that holds the team together. Organisations need those people just as much.
Leaders who focus exclusively on their highest performers risk overlooking those who sustain culture, strengthen relationships and enable collective success. Great teams are rarely built around talent alone. They are built around people who consistently contribute to the success of those around them.
What can leaders learn from the Football World Cup?
The Football World Cup is one of the most demanding performance environments in the world, yet the leadership challenges are strikingly familiar.
Leaders everywhere are asking the same questions:
- How do we align people around a shared purpose?
- How do we sustain performance during periods of pressure and uncertainty?
- How do we balance individual ambition with collective success?
- How do we help people learn from setbacks?
- How do we build the habits and behaviours that enable long-term performance?
These aren’t sporting challenges; they’re leadership challenges. They’re also at the heart of effective leadership development, team development and organisational transformation.
Gregg Berhalter’s experience reinforces something we see consistently in our work with organisations. Sustainable performance is rarely created by extraordinary moments alone. It’s built through the everyday behaviours, relationships and leadership practices that enable people and teams to perform at their best, again and again.
Continue the conversation
If you’re interested in how organisations can build leaders and teams that sustain performance through pressure, uncertainty and change, explore our insights or register for future Performance Lens conversations, articles and events to be the first to hear about new episodes and resources.