The Hidden Lessons: She Has Fire

There’s a direct link between playing sports and assuming leadership positions. In fact, 95% of women in C-suite roles played sports when they were young. However, 450 million girls around the world are excluded from playing sports and the critical life lessons that come with it.

To make this unseen fact relevant and urgent during the Women’s World Cup event, and specifically among global policy makers and lobby groups, a small NGO from the Netherlands sought to make participation in sports a human right for girls.

180 Amsterdam developed “The Hidden Lessons,” a campaign and leadership program for girls featuring a unique football kit with 10 leadership lessons woven into its pattern. These lessons were derived from interviews with CEOs, managers, politicians, and entrepreneurs who credited their success in leadership to playing sports.

They identified the 10 most relevant lessons and collaborated with professional athletes to refine each one. These lessons became an integral part of the Hidden Lessons kit and program, presented in a book that aimed to educate both excluded girls and the world about the importance of including sports in girls’ curricula. The campaign sought to leverage public, player, and societal support to bring the issue of girls’ participation to the attention of policy makers and organizations like UNESCO.