Leadership lessons from VESTA Masters Head of the River 2025

Shakespeare’s Sisters are back

Stratford Upon Avon Womens Masters rowing on the Thames Tideway in a yellow Eight (rowing boat) Photo Credit: AllMarkOne 2025

We went, we rowed, we conquered!

On Sunday 23rd March, over 280 rowing crews made up of Eights (eight rowers and a cox) or Fours (4 rowers with or without a cox) all over the age of 27, which officially makes you a Master, launched their boats onto the Thames Tideway to compete in the Masters Head race. It is a basically a time trial, where crews are pitted against similarly experienced and aged crews, to row the 6.8km from Chiswick Bridge to Putney, the stretch of the Thames famous for the Oxford- Cambridge Boat race (13th April this year).

Stratford Upon Avon Boat Club Masters Women had 2 crews entered in different categories and as always competing gives leadership lessons.

Our boat, Erin, named after the Olympian Erin Kennedy won the Novice 8 category and Pennant for the fastest boat in our Category.

Teams come together for a purpose

It was the only 2nd time we had all been together as a crew, and the first time we had rowed with our cox, who we met on the morning of the race.

Ideally, we would have been training together all winter, understanding others’ strengths in the boat and working to mitigate and minimise any differences, so we were as cohesive as possible. Due to late injury and coxes being like gold dust – we did not have this option. We had to ask our local clubs if they had anyone who would like to row with us, otherwise we would have been 7 – not great in a boat. Fortunately, for us, a rower from Worcester Rowing Club had this race on her Bucket list. We love it when necessity and ambition collide!

Teams come together for a purpose and pull together to make it happen

Focus

Rowing like any sport requires practice. It requires extreme concentration, every stroke, every time. We all move together, tap down at the end of a stroke, rock over from the finish, move together up the slide, raise our hands for the catch, let the blade drop into  the water at the same time, spring off the toes and push on the legs together – every stroke. We do this stroke after stroke after stroke.

In this race, for us just under 23.59 minutes, we were rating 30 stroke/minutes, that was over 720 times we maintained extreme focus.  If you let your mind wander, even for a nano-second, it can affect your stroke, which affects the balance of the boat. It requires all 8 rowers and the cox, whose job is to steer to keep focus.

It is exhilarating to row past the famous river landmarks of the Boat Race, under Chiswick and Hammersmith Bridges, Harrods Repository, Barn Elms  - but we only saw these in our peripheral vision, as the way markers we had visualised and rehearsed.

In a boat, the cox has 3 jobs in a race 1) to keep the boat and rowers safe 2) to steer the best course, finding and holding the fastest stream to let the river help the boat move and 3) to motivate the crew with clear instructions ‘calls’.

In the staggered start of a head race, faster boats will overtake slower boats ahead of them. In our race we overtook 3 boats. The first was a local club – where there is a healthy competitive rivalry. Our cox, was very experienced in Tideway Racing and was holding the line for the fastest stream. This meant we came close enough to the boat we were overtaking to clash blades for a few strokes. When this happens, focus is essential. The physicality of clashes can literally put the handle of the blade out of your hands. Focus means head and work is in your boat, despite human curiosity of what is going on around you. After a few - maybe 10 blade clashes, we were clear and rowed through and ahead. A call for a ‘Reset’ mentally and physically calmed and settled the crew, and we all re-focused.

Leadership also requires focus, focus on the task in hand as well as the goal or objective. There will be distractions, opportunities, challenges - but the practice of focus remains vital to leading.

Commitment

Despite only meeting as a full crew with cox on the morning of the race, we were all committed. Yes, the alarm had a 4 in the time as we set out on our tideway adventure. We were putting to the test months of water training, early morning erg sessions, weight training, thinking about the best crew line up.

We were committed to each other, and to having the best row of our lives. But it wasn’t just 9 athletes who got into the boat and made it happen. It was our coach, Sam who braved all weather conditions to help us ‘move as one’ and work towards ‘smooth flowing rowing’ , it was Amanda our Masters Vice Captain, who helped organise the hire of  boats from Thames Rowing Club for both crews, and negotiating our training time, within a busy club training calendar, it was Suzie  - queen of the ergs who motivated the ‘early morning nutters’  on the indoor rowing machines, it was Dan who helped us in our weights sessions, it was Dawson, our Club President who helped tow our boats to other training sessions, so we could experience distance and stamina, it was all the people who had steeped in a subbed for a seat, so the boat could go out and train. It was all our families who have missed us at breakfasts and other weekend activities.

Commitment means working for something in the future and sticking to your goal. The parallels in leadership are clear. Performance is not just the people on the stage, or in our case in the boat. We could not have performed without the commitment infrastructure behind us.  

Highlight the Positives, Attend to Negatives

I have rowed in many boats, with many coxes and I find personally that I respond and perform best when I am working towards amplifying and repeating positive behaviour. A positive call, inspires and actually hits the brain quicker than a negative instruction – which provokes and initial defensive response, and then requires decoding, to work out what the desired action is.

As a coach, I always try to provide positive incentives.

The negative or disruptive activity still needs attention and correction. Our cox, Alastair was great at the positive command and yes! we did believe him as he kept saying ‘this is brilliant’ and we rowed together, as one, with purpose. Confidence soared, we were able to relax and enjoy, supporting our performance.

As leaders, despite the circumstances we need to give hope, be positive and highlight good and desired and correct anything that is not acceptable. The most effective way is to incentivise desired behaviours, shine a light. Positive and affirmative language makes all the difference.

Consistency

We had a race plan, we mostly stuck to it. The plan was to go off fast, keep rowing, have some pushes at strategic points, whilst maintaining the same rate (Fast) and keep rowing until the finish. End of plan.

We had not expected to overtake other crews. But as we did, we did it with consistency and the same rate rhythm set by our amazing Stoke, Ellie.

Our practice sessions had provided the muscle memory for consistent stroke style and rate. Basically, as Michael Caine says in the Italian Job “You have one job to do” and we just kept doing it.

Leadership requires being consistent, doing what you say, and keep on doing it. Knowing what is expected is key, being equipped and skilled reduces anxiety and enables people to perform. Consistency, like the tortoise in Aesops Fable, is more effective and often more productive and faster, than the hare.

Gratitude

As it is a timed trial, we didn’t realise we had won until the results were published. There was a delay, as there was a serious incident in another crew in which a crew member had a medical emergency and sadly died. Results were delayed as was prize giving out of respect to the rower and their crew.

In that moment, we all expressed our gratitude for the experience, the cohesion of our crew and creating joy together, whilst also recognising that life is so precious.

Gratitude opens up possibility and positivity. It allows us to be kinder and compassionate with ourselves and others. Being grateful allows perspective and brings out the best in people. It creates a better environment for honest connection with what matters to people.

Cake !

I am not sure what the leadership connection is, but knowing there was delicious Cake at the end of the race was incentive enough for me. Knowing what motivates enables us to engage, commit and enjoy!