About the episode

At the start of the 2017 AFL season, the Swans were in serious trouble. After reaching the Grand Final the year before, expectations were sky‑high. Then came six straight losses. Confidence fell, pressure mounted, and nothing seemed to work.

So, where do you begin as a leader when everything is going wrong?

Former Sydney Swans head coach John Longmire says a series of critical decisions helped turn the season around. He shares the non‑negotiables he relies on to motivate teams, rebuild belief, and create cultures that perform under pressure.

Now working with the Sydney Swans Institute, John partners with leaders across sport and business to lift performance and sustain it.

If you’re leading a team through uncertainty or looking to raise your own performance, this episode offers a practical and proven leadership playbook.

John Longmire is facilitating a special short course on leadership with AGSM at UNSW Business School on 12 May 2026 – register here.

Interested in the business of sport? Listen to our episode with Drew Arthurson, Chief Operating Officer at Sydney Swans.

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Transcript

John Longmire: I guess at that particular point in time, I felt like I was in the fog. I think, I think our team felt like we're in the fog. You know, you're just walking through a forest, and you just can't see anything. It's just you, just didn't know where to turn.

Dr Juliet Bourke: It's the start of the 2017 AFL season, and Sydney Swans coach John Longmire is at a crossroads. On paper, the team's in a strong position. Just months earlier, they'd made it to the grand final, but now things are beginning to slip. The losses are stacking up. Confidence is wavering, and inside the club, the pressure is mounting. John Longmire is facing a question many leaders grapple with when the results aren't coming. Where do you even begin?

Dr Juliet Bourke: This is The Business Of, a podcast from the UNSW Business School. I'm Dr Juliet Bourke, an Adjunct Professor in the School of Management and Governance. So John, let's go back to that moment. What was the mindset inside the club?

John Longmire: Well, back then, it was 2016, and we actually got to the grand final. We only got beaten by 20 points. And so when you think about the next year, so 2017, you go in with great hope, because you've been just about at the top of the mountain, and so we started off, we lost the first game, lost the second game and lost the third game. And things were sort of looking pretty grim. And there was so much going wrong. I was focusing all the mechanics of our game. So all the offence wasn't going very good, our defence wasn't going very good, our stoppages, everything wasn't going well. And it almost got to a crisis point, which was the 0-6 moment, when I had to put all that aside and all the mechanics of the game and just get back to focusing on the dynamics. And really just clarified the messaging to the playing group, and once I did that, it just made it so much easier for the players to know what they had to do. I think I was probably unwittingly just confusing them a little bit with trying to fix things all the time, rather than just helping clarify the situation, which unfortunately took me a bit longer than I'd hoped, but I eventually got there, and we had a great response to it.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Well, how did you work that out? Just you as a person? 

John Longmire: I think there's a lot of theory about leadership, but there's not a lot of when you're living the moment, it's every situation is a little bit different, and in that particular situation, I just couldn't pick up a handbook and say, what do you do after coming off a grand final when we're 0-4 0-5 what do you do? It's just at the moment I was trying to fix things, and the harder I tried to fix things, the worse things got. And I just need to clarify things. And once I realised that, and that was what happens through discussions with players, with CEO mentors, you sort of work your way through that, and we concentrated on doing one thing really well. So, from a technical point of view, it was to get the ball back from the opposition kick-ins, and then, from an emotional point of view, it was to just pick your team off the ground. And we concentrated on doing those two things to reconnect our team. And my job then was to make sure we reinforced that. And those particular things were really easily achievable, and so our players knew that they could succeed in doing that.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Yeah, I really get that, that the emotion, in some ways, is first, right, the culture first, and then the strategy second.

John Longmire: That's right. I think we, when I was coaching, and certainly leaders in business, you can tend to sometimes fall for the trap of the mechanical part of the business and making sure you just need to hit the number or hit this or hit that. And I've always on the reflection of that particular point in time. I've looked back on that and thought, well, that connection amongst each other and how to help each other do your job is really important, and the better you feel about helping someone else do their job, the more that that spreads amongst each other, and then you get a really good performance aspect out of that.

Dr Juliet Bourke: What do you actually say to that team of guys, pre the game, after the game? What are the words that come out of your mouth?

John Longmire: Well, it varied during that period, and I think that was part of the problem. I was probably changing it a little bit and just looking at the the the technical parts of our game, but when it became really obvious that we weren't caring for each other as much as what we should have, and weren't looking out for each other as much as what we should have, weren't really connected like we should be, and that became really obvious, in some ways, the solution to that was was pretty easy. Was just connecting and just have a physical way of getting back into being able to trust each other and helping each other again, and we're able to do that pretty quickly. To the players' great credit. I didn't come to that conclusion myself. It was in conjunction with the playing group and the coaches, and you talk to different people, and then you've got to be really clear about how we keep each other accountable to that.

Dr Juliet Bourke: And did you need to manage any communications up, you know, to the CEO, to the board, you know, this is now the North Star. This is what we need to do to connect emotionally.

John Longmire: Absolutely, it's critical during that period of time you're really drawing upon the relationships that have been built previously when you haven't got that level of stress on you. And that's why it's really important to manage up to your CEO, to your board, and spend a lot of time developing and strengthening those relationships when times are going well, because you never know when you have to make a withdrawal on that and when you have to lean on those relationship strengths.

Dr Juliet Bourke: There's a lot of noise, isn't there, that gets in the way of a player being focused. You know, there's a lot of attention, a lot of public opinion media, you know, feedback from fans. How do you keep the team focused? I'm talking very practically here. How do you keep them on that North Star?

John Longmire: Was very visual, and when I was coaching, I used to draw pictures a lot, but you imagine a target, a picture of a target on the inner circle, controllables, on the next circle, out influences, and then on the outer circle, uncontrollables. And so, in a real sense, talking to the players, or even myself, writing down what mattered. What could I control in the inner circle? Actually writing it down, I can control how I turned up, how I coached, and my relationship with the players. I could control that. The next layer out, what could I influence? Well, I could influence our supporters by just being how I handled the media press conferences, for instance. So I could influence our board just by how honest I was about how things are going. And then you've got the outer ring, which is the uncontrollable. So I couldn't really control the media chatter or anything else that was going on. It was similar for a player, particularly in the era of social media, that's the uncontrollable loop, and really, internally, we're just about what we can control. And once we sort of wrote those down and actually helped clarify what we could control and what we couldn't control, it made it a bit easier. It didn't go perfectly to plan all the time, and we had to be deliberate about that. So after a game, I felt the best times we had after a game where when we put our phones away and we just sat in the moment and enjoyed each other's company for maybe half an hour after a game, and just relaxed, and we were really in tune with each other's feelings, but you had to be deliberate about that as well. You couldn't just let that roll. Because I think, you know, if you sort of let it roll, then things can get out of hand.

Dr Juliet Bourke: You've described a very deliberate reset when you got to this 0-6 very high-pressure moment, I imagine. So, you know, if we could go a little bit further into sort of the leadership principles that underpin that trust and camaraderie, that's obviously one of them. How do you build that, apart from just picking people up and communicating? What does that look like on a day-to-day basis?

John Longmire: I saw my role as a leader was to highlight all the little things that people did that helped someone else do their job, and I spent most of my time coaching, looking for those little bits of gold that would reinforce how important it is to help someone else do their job or help someone else look good. So the ball that the players played with every week, we'd get that after the game, and then on a Monday, our club captains would award that ball to the best team player of the week. Now that wasn't the best player of the week. It was the best player who best exemplified our team's trademark behaviours, and it was really valued inside the four walls. And so, you know, I think one of the really important things to do on a regular basis is have rituals to reward people for doing really good things, and that quite often didn't get seen in the media. So there wasn't that outside recognition. So it was our job from inside the football club to recognise it and blow it up in lights, so it was constantly reinforced what they were doing in a trademark sense.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Okay, I'm going to pivot now, so in an elite sport, constantly doing performance reviews, and as I understand it, you know that happens weekly, pre-game, immediately after the game, and then you move on again, and you're next game, next week. You know, how do you make those performance reviews constructive and actionable? And a bonus question, is there something we can learn in business from that cycle?

John Longmire: First of all, we're really fortunate in professional sports to be forced into that because you've got a game coming up every week, so you've got to get into the rhythm of regular feedback and regular feedback loops is such a gift in professional sport, you can take it for granted sometimes, because there's always a preparation, as you say, there's a preview into a game, there's a there's the game, and then there's the review, and then there's the learning aspect. So it's sort of four-phased, and you go into that cycle in the season, and it's really beneficial when you get into that rhythm. In our particular case, we used to have player development plans, so a player would be really clear at the start of the year on what's required of them. And then as the season started, they just kept on looking back at that and how's that player tracking, according to their player development plan, but also being really clear with each player's role. So the role clarity was really important. What are they in the team to do, and if they knew what their role was for that particular game, and they were able to hit those markers or not hit those markers, it came as a pretty clear and easy feedback part of the equation. And really understanding that, I think that a lot of people in business seem to do the preview. They tend to do the game as in whatever it is, whether it's selling or whatever, I'm not sure, but then afterwards, do they spend as much time in the review? And in particular, do they dissect it at the right time? Do they dissect it with enough clarity, and then are they really sitting in the learning period before the next period starts to be able to get better and better? You never nail it. But I just think the learning loop of preview, game, review, learn and repeat is a really valuable loop to be able to get into the regular rhythm of.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Just thinking about business settings, though, is it harder to do it in a business setting? You know, we seem to have these annual cycles, or we have, you know, good luck to you might get six monthly, but how we would do that on a weekly basis, or on a deliverable basis? I mean, how would that translate?

John Longmire: I think there's, depending on the business. There's always a cycle of something happening all the time, and there's always a rhythm to your job that you need to be able to do. And I think too often, we miss those opportunities as we go to provide feedback, we just either say, well, that's your job, that's what you should do, or we look at what the person did well, or we look at what they could have done a bit better, and we just let it go. And that's the moment. In those particular moments, if you're able to provide that feedback in the moment, it doesn't become such a big deal. And if you get into the regular rhythm of that, doing it regularly, the person really appreciates it. The people hear that on a regular basis. They're not waiting for that 12-month review and making it such a big deal and such a stressful event because you're doing it on a regular rhythm. 

Dr Juliet Bourke: You mentioned development plans, and I had heard, please correct me if I'm wrong, that those development plans were known to the other team members, and so team members reflected on it, and did they vote on whether someone was going to be in a leadership position? So the development plans were not just between you and the player. They had a wider sort of publication.

John Longmire: Well, the two things are the individual player and development plans, which were about that particular person's development, which wasn't a secret. If you take a step back and look at the wider view of how we wanted to play, how we wanted to carry ourselves. Our trademark behaviours that used to come up every year with a playing group, our players used to set that or review that every year, are our trademark behaviours still relevant for the next year? Every year, there was a subtle change. The generational change was significant. I think that what was done 20 years ago, clearly, in trademark behaviours is different to what happens now. What motivates young people now is different from what it was 20 years ago. The regular review of that was really important. And then when the players set that every year, the playing group would vote upon those trademark behaviours, and that would be their leadership group, not the best players, but the best players who gave the best example of living the trademark behaviours that the players themselves wanted to be judged by. And it's a very open process, voted for by the players; the coaches wouldn't have anything to do with it. And out of that, we then decide who the leadership group is.

Dr Juliet Bourke: You mentioned that there are these different stages, ages, and things change over time. But you know, you've got a group of people, some are fresh, the 18-year-olds, and then you've got players who've been around for a while. How do you shape your approach to the development of those two groups? Is there something in that?

John Longmire:  Always, as a leader, as a coach, I thought the players taught me more than what I taught them, and I mean by that, how the players reacted to how I was leading. You could feel it. You could just feel it, you know, and you just, you're connecting with you, with your playing group, in a coaching sense. I could feel that I was either disconnected from them, and I wasn't leading as efficiently as I should have, or I was really leading. Well, I could, I could, you could feel that and when I wasn't leading as well, just making slight changes, and that was, you know, as the generations were changing, to be able to keep your foundation as a leader and your beliefs is really important, but also to be able to have enough emotional intelligence to be able to shift yourself when, when required.

Dr Juliet Bourke: I'm really curious about how you just framed that. You framed it in terms of thinking, which is obviously cognition, you know, the stuff that's going through your mind, and you also framed it in terms of feelings, which is very empathic. And I'm curious, is that a strength of all great coaches, that they're very empathic, not just thinkers?

John Longmire: Yes, I think, I think so. I think that, you know, when I was at my best. I was really in tune with what was happening, and I was very present too often. I think an organisation sets a culture. We've done a Culture Day, and they walk off and put a sign on the wall, and that's it. And first of all, you've got to keep reinforcing it. You've got to, and you've got to keep tending to it. You know, I talk about that, similar to an ecosystem in a weather sense, that things change every day. The culture of an organisation can change every day, and you've got to be aware of it. What needs fertilising, what needs burning off, what needs watering. You need to be in tune with that. And because it moves all the time, the culture of an organisation, the leadership styles, the people in the organisation, have different stages to what they're going through. You need to move with it, and you need to be in tune with that and make adjustments as you go.

Dr Juliet Bourke: You've got 40-plus individuals on the field and off the field, and they're motivated by different things. So how do you get a read on that person as an individual, and then play to that motivation?

John Longmire: You have to know that person really well. You have to know what motivates them, what influences them, and who influences them. And what I mean by that is sometimes it might be a parent, it might be their partner, it might be another teammate, it might be another coach. It's not always the senior coach or the leader who influences someone. It might be someone else in the organisation, so that person might be really good to lean on to help in those situations as well, not necessarily yourself. So getting to know the person really well is important. But whether you're a star player, and we've had some of the best in the game, like Adam Goodes or Lance Franklin, or some of the real superstars, or you're just really just starting out on your journey, most people like to be recognised for helping someone else out. And we used to just recognise that constantly. And I had an old coach who said to me one stage, that everyone has a sign around their neck, which makes me feel important. When I coached at my best, I thought I was really good at that. When I didn't coach at my best, I thought I wasn't so good at that. And I think in a reflective sense, to better look back now I've stopped coaching. Was when we did that really well. We're in our real sweet spot and really hard to beat.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Have you got any tips for people in business as to how they would do that? Because pretty much you don't know someone's wife, child, mother, you know, other coach, other mentor. 

John Longmire: Depends on the size of the business. Clearly, I mean, we're a very personal business. We're very front-facing with our people. And in business, we can sort of look at that and just almost not ignore it, but it's almost too hard. Whereas I'd say that there needs to be a bit of a refocus of that. It's not a waste of time getting to know someone, getting to know their background, understanding where they're from, understanding what's going on in their lives. The more you invest in that, the better you'll do with getting a return on high performance. If you build your relationship up with that particular person, you can then push for a bit more high performance when required. It's very hard to push for high performance in your organisation without that strength of relationship, and that varies, and according to how many people you have in your organisation, I understand that. But if you can spend some time and invest some time knowing your people, you can generally get more out of them when you need to. And it's like anything, isn't it? I mean, the more that people trust you or understand you or know you, the more willing you are to help them out. And very basic core philosophy, but it seems to stand up okay under pressure.

Dr Juliet Bourke: You know, you get to know people as individuals, and obviously that means sometimes you give a little more to this person and maybe a little less to the other person. Does that create an imbalance in the team? How do you deal with that sort of need for fairness, with the need for differentiation?

John Longmire: Yes, and I think it was Paul Roos that I first heard say to the playing group when he first took over as coach, when I was assistant coach under him, was I'm not going to treat you all the same. Now I nearly fell off my chair because, well, I'd heard all my junior career was to treat everyone the same. He said, I'm not going to treat you all the same. I'm going to treat you all fairly; you're all individuals. And I think that just stands the test of time. Every person's a little bit different, and understanding that, that's the way that you want to get the best out of people by treating them a little bit differently. And that's certainly something I learned from Paul Roos.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Did you get any pushback from players sometimes that you got the balance wrong? Actually, that was unfair. How did you handle that?

John Longmire: Yeah, probably, yeah, I didn't get everything right. I've got plenty of things I would have I'd look back on now, and I also, I wish would have done a bit differently, but that's part of the learning journey of like a player does, it's the same as a coach. You don't get everything right, you don't nail everything right. I think you've got to catch yourself a bit of slack sometimes, because there are so many expectations on leaders to get everything right. When we're just like everyone else, we make our fair share of mistakes as well.

Dr Juliet Bourke: There's something in that that isn't there about being vulnerable, you know, even with yourself and your self-image and to other people, and that creates an even greater trust, a level of trust in you, that authenticity, that vulnerability.

John Longmire: I think in previous generations, it was always about the leader having the answers all the time, or knowing most things and providing a level of strength. But the longer I coached, the more I realised, the more storytelling you had, the more times you shared some of the experiences, both good and bad, the success and setbacks you had as a person, the more connected the people were to you, and therefore the more success you had in pushing for high performance, and it took me a while to realise that, but towards the end of my coaching, I was much better at sharing those vulnerabilities I had as a coach and sharing the stories with the players. And therefore I thought we were better because of it.

Dr Juliet Bourke: I'm just thinking more about how to take some of these wonderful lessons from sport into business, and you've touched upon a few of those. But I wonder, are there some core non-negotiables for you in building and sustaining a high-performing team?

John Longmire: You've got to know your people, and you've got to understand what really motivates them and who motivates them. That's really important. Some of the big businesses won't know all your people in your organisation clearly, but you need to know your key people and have an enormous amount of trust in them. You need to have trust across the organisation, not only with your team, but also with the people who are at the same level as you and the people above you. You've got to have a high trust level. And to get a high trust, you need to be honest and upfront with everyone in the organisation. You need to be able to do that; the team is really important. And the last part would be to have the environment where your team can have a say in what they want to do, what they want to look like, and how they want to be measured.

Dr Juliet Bourke: I know that since stepping away from coaching, you've been doing some work with the Sydney Swans Institute, and I think you've been running some workshops for different organisations. And I'm just wondering, has there been a moment that stuck in your mind? It was something really small, but it had a magnified impact.

John Longmire: There's been plenty of moments we run programs with the University of New South Wales talking about leader as coach, and how coaching principles are really important. And there was one particular person at one stage, who got up in a forum of a classroom-type situation, and just really dug deep into what they were and who they were about, and gave me a really good insight into their background. And then watching that sort of then transpire into a really open conversation amongst a whole group of 30 people, was really inspiring to see, and was probably one of the best moments that I can recall, and that's as a player, or my current role, doing some facilitating, was this person got up and was really brave, and then opened up, and that opened up a magnificent discussion that was really organic.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Any final words for us, and thinking about the next generation of leaders? Is there something we need to be doing, a habit we need to be taking on to get it right?

John Longmire: There are probably two. One is to keep being inquisitive. I think that's a really strong prerequisite for any leader, being inquisitive and learning from whoever and wherever you can get a learning from, and I think the other part too is evolving. I felt that when I was at my best, I was evolving at the rate that I needed to, and when I wasn't at my best, I wasn't probably evolving at the rate that I needed to. And I think that's if I sort of break it all down, being inquisitive and having the mindset to keep evolving to the probably best skills you can have as a leader.

Dr Juliet Bourke: Thanks to John Longmire for joining us on this episode. If you enjoyed our conversation, we'd love it if you left us a review. If you're interested in hearing more about high performance in sport and business, listen to our conversation with Sydney Swan COO Drew Arthurson,

Drew Arthurson: One of the things that I think is absolutely applicable and that folks in all walks of life can act on is something we focus on internally, called incremental improvement, the compounding benefits of small gains each and every day. So how do I, Drew as COO, get a little bit better each day?

Dr Juliet Bourke: You'll find a link in the episode description. The Business Of is brought to you by the University of New South Wales Business School, produced with Deadset Studios.

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