Integrity is speed: Leadership lessons from a Sawe's marathon victory

On April 26, 2023, Sabastian Sawe completed the London Marathon in 1:59:30, and was, therefore, finally the first human to officially break the two-hour marathon boundary.

However, far more important than the time, is that he willingly subjected himself to 25+ out-of-competition doping tests in the 12 months leading to the race. This is the most tests for any athlete in history, and therefore Sawe was not simply a new record breaker, but he removed any questions about the legitimacy of his victory.

This is the example of effective leadership. Often, we celebrate the accomplishments of others while we do not hold them accountable for the means in which they accomplished those feats. We reward results, yet turn a blind eye to how they were achieved.

Sawe is an example of a different type of model, the new model, whose core principles are based on integrity. During an era in which there has been a tremendous amount of intensity surrounding the scrutiny of doping in Kenyan athletics, Sawe chose to invite testing authorities, rather than wait for them to come to him.

He invited them and provided $50,000 from his sponsors to cater for his doping tests. He has become the most scrutinized athlete in the world.

Why would anyone do this? Because he comprehended something that many leaders miss — scepticism is dead weight. When someone has doubts about your methodology, you’ll carry the doubts with you every time you perform. They’ll hold you back. They’ll cause hesitance. They diminish the value of everything that you accomplish.

By eliminating any doubts before he started, Sawe gave himself the latitude to concentrate on nothing else but performance. His integrity gives him a competitive advantage over his competition. “Doping has become a cancer,” he said. “I want to show the world how we can perform at a high level without the use of performance-enhancing drugs.” This is brilliant on a strategic level.

The old mindset treats integrity as something to be held onto as a convenience, and when results call for sacrificing your integrity for the sake of results, you do so. Supporters of this tradition haven’t recognised that in today’s world, if you are using methods that are questionable, you will ultimately destroy everything that you’ve built.

Negative split

Sawe was able to show that the opposite holds true. Here is a detail that many didn’t see when it came to Sawe and his record: he ran the first half in 60:29 and second half in 59:01. He ran faster as he progressed through the race. This is known as a negative split, and this is something that is typically very uncommon in marathons. Most marathoners come out fast, then fizzle out. They tire themselves out and are then left to fight to hold their pace.

Sawe proceeded in the opposite direction, having the discipline to restrain his urge to surge. He saved energy rather than yield to the crowds’ demand for speed. Ultimately, at the point in time that it was most essential, he accelerated towards the completion of 2.195km at a pace of 2 minutes, 40 seconds per km, which was quicker than his overall average for the entire race.

Transformational leadership is no different. It is not a matter of explosive starts that cannot be maintained. It is not a matter of early victories that drain your reserves for future challenges. Rather, it is a strategic use of discipline to achieve greater results at completion than at the beginning.

I have seen many leaders start quickly and make bold promises, or initiate innovative projects, and then fail cataclysmically when their commitment requires sustained effort. They confuse intensity with endurance and activity with actual accomplishments.

Kipchoge’s groundwork

Sawe’s negative split serves as a reminder to that ineffective approach, by illustrating that great leadership starts with your capacity for remaining in reserve when everyone is running on fumes and ends with the acceleration of your efforts at the conclusion of your journey.

Eliud Kipchoge created the groundwork for Sawe’s accomplishments in running with his 2019 sub-two-hour marathon on 29 September 2019 in Vienna. Although it was not an official record-setting accomplishment, Kipchoge made it clear the barrier to breaking two hours is mental and gave the whole world hope that it was an achievable goal. Kipchoge was the ultimate psychological barrier-breaker; he was a philosopher-king, who declared “No Human is Limited” and proved it with his own accomplishments.

Sawe exhibits the process of evolution; he is the second stage of the revolution Kipchoge initiated with his ability to harness mental capacity through philosophy and mental strength. Sawe improves upon Kipchoge’s inspirational approach with secondarily proving his capabilities through data-driven engineering.

The principles demonstrated by Sawe and Kipchoge transcend athletics to provide a blueprint for what effective leaders will and should do to develop themselves and those with whom they work - they study and embrace the successes of their predecessors, identify the missing elements they can use to create their own success, and build new and better offerings upon the foundation of others without being constrained by its limitations.

Kenyan leadership must not lose sight of what Sawe’s victory represents. It is not sufficient to break records and accomplish significant milestones; how one breaks a record matters almost as much as the record itself.

A historic event can lose most of its legitimacy if the process by which it was accomplished is questioned. Integrity is the foundation that makes sustainable performance possible.

Sawe proved it. Now the rest of us need to follow.