U.S. Army CPT Sarah Beard: How My Experience in Athletics Trained Me to Become a Better Leader
An Interview With Vanessa Ogle
…A great leader finds the connection between their own goals and the team’s goals. In that way, the work becomes a two-way street: how does the leader help each teammate succeed, and how does the team help the leader succeed? Realizing and communicating the overlap between these two fuels everyone to work as hard as possible. For example, the WCAP wrestling program has its own dedicated coaches that train the team. Naturally, the goal of the coaches is to have a winning team. On the other side, each Soldier-athlete wants to earn a slot at the Olympics. When everyone realizes the common ground, it’s easier to work through any disagreements with the mission as the priority…
The world of sports is not just about physical prowess or competition; it’s an incubator for leadership qualities such as discipline, teamwork, strategic planning, and resilience. Athletes, from amateur levels to professional arenas, often encounter situations that test their limits and require them to step up in ways that mirror the challenges faced by leaders in various fields. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing U.S. Army CPT Sarah Beard.
Colorado native Sgt. Sarah Beard is on a meteoric rise in world-class shooting, following in her father’s footsteps while paving her own distinct path in service and sport. Her father competed in the 1984 Olympics with the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU), and when he took her to shoot at age 15, Beard immediately fell in love. Now with the World Class Athlete Program (WCAP), Beard loves the structured but open-ended support that allows her to pursue shooting while building a future apart from it; she looks forward to continuing her career as an Army Officer. Since joining, Beard won the 2023 World Championships in the Women’s Smallbore Team event and has racked up 11 national titles and various continental games championships — and she’s just getting started.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career in athletics?
I grew up plinking around with air rifles and shotguns, mostly because my Dad wanted us to be able to safely handle firearms and to hunt ethically. Even though he was a rifle competitor for the Army with the Army Marksmanship Unit and on the 1984 Olympic team, his goal was to keep shooting sports enjoyable for us.
When I was about 15 years old, I insisted that he take me to a competition and teach me how to shoot Olympic-style rifle. More than anything, I loved the time I could spend with him on the range when we would practice and compete next to each other. I never had any goals with it other than enjoying it until I started to develop skills and see my improvement. Eventually, I walked on to the Texas Christan University Women’s Rifle Team. During my freshman year, I also made the National Team and started competing internationally. I helped my team win two NCAA titles, which fueled my desire to continue competing when I graduated and made an easy decision to move to the Olympic Training Center.
After a couple of years of working part-time and training part-time, I knew I needed to start working on a career. That’s when I met some Army Soldiers in the World Class Athlete Program (WCAP) who made me realize that it may be a way I could continue my career. I knew I had a good chance of acceptance into the program because I was on the National Team and met the minimum requirements, so after the 2016 Olympics I met with a recruiter and joined as an officer in the Army Reserve. It is by far one of the best decisions I made for my career and has allowed me way more opportunities than I had before, including the highest level of resources that WCAP offers to me as an athlete. I’m able to serve part-time in the Army Reserve as a signal officer and platoon leader to build a future career for myself after shooting, with the benefits of a stable income and healthcare that all let me focus on my training right now.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
It’s tough to look back on 15 years and only pick one! From learning cultural differences the hard way at times to trying to compete through some rather extreme physical effects of different foods, there are plenty of stories.
One of the most memorable experiences was last year at World Championships in Azerbaijan. Typically, we arrive to international matches a few days in advance to acclimate to the time zone and familiarize ourselves with the range. The day before the match, we always have an official training time to make sure all competitors “test” their firing point. However, my arrival flight connected through Frankfurt, and that day, Frankfurt experienced excessive rainstorms to the point of flooding the entire airport. So, while I made it through Frankfurt, my rifle and equipment did not. I waited 5 days — including the official training day — and spent as much time as I could just observing the range and visualizing without being able to shoot.
Finally, the morning of my match I got a call that my equipment made it to the Baku airport. I took a taxi, found my bags, went through customs, and taxied to the range just in time for my match to start. I ended up shooting one of my best performances at that match and took home the gold in the Women’s 50m 3-Position Team event.
Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Work ethic. Once I realized how much I loved shooting, there was nothing I enjoyed more than being able to work all day at the range. Improvement was incremental and sometimes almost seemed backward, but packing up after a long day on the range is one of the most rewarding feelings. And in the Army at WCAP, I have the chance to do that day in and day out with nothing stopping me from training as hard as I want. Training camps are some of my most enjoyable experiences because they are incredibly effective with the right plan. It’s “the grind” in its purest form because your only job is to work on weaknesses for an upcoming match.
Problem solving. Like anything, over time, I became more skilled at the process of identifying a problem, forming a plan of attack, testing, and repeating the process. Out of the 3 positions we shoot from in 50m rifle, kneeling was my most challenging and least consistent for a long time. It took almost 10 years of really working through it — hypothesizing ideas, testing them at matches, lots of failure and frustration, and going back to the drawing board — but eventually it became one of my strengths. There’s an amazing feeling of working on a problem for so long and so hard, but then finally putting together the pieces to understand it on a level that few people reach.
Valuing learning. I have always enjoyed learning new skills and new environments. In any sport, learning is a huge component of improvement — possibly the most important part of it. When I joined the Army, I had just failed to make the 2016 Olympic team and was struggling with the common saying that failure is just a stepping stone. Not making a team after more than four years of work was brutal. I was thankful that one of the main skills taught in the Army is resiliency. I found that in this mandatory training, the basic skills they introduced to us were relatable to my athletic journey. I think being willing to learn about resiliency and working through the process of coping with failure really helped my later successes at multiple international championships.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you share a pivotal moment in your athletic career that taught you a leadership lesson you’ve applied outside of sports?
One of the most impactful lessons I’ve learned is from Craig Kozeniesky, the recent CEO for our Olympic governing body for USA Shooting. He developed a large part of his leadership style during his 28 years in the military. But what I noticed about him the most was that every time he interacted with an athlete, he took the time to recognize a recent accomplishment or wish them luck in an upcoming competition. That small gesture had a huge impact on the athletes and organization. While that is something I learned from my career in athletics, it is something I will incorporate into my Army career goals to make an impact on other Soldiers.
How has your experience in team dynamics within athletics influenced your approach to leadership in the workplace?
Every team is composed of individuals with different strengths and weaknesses. That’s the first step to realizing what defines the true role of a leader. Building and leading a team is like putting a puzzle together in a way that aligns with the overall mission. In the workplace, that means figuring out what the goal is (in athletics, it’s pretty straightforward — winning a gold medal) and then making sure everyone knows their role in contributing to it. For example, WCAP has Army Soldier-athletes from the Active, Guard, and Reserve components, yet each Soldier-athlete is working to represent the US and the Army at the Olympics. We are also part of the broader Army team and demonstrate to potential recruits that joining the Army may be the single most influential decision someone can make to achieve their personal goals.
In what ways has facing defeat or challenges in sports prepared you for handling failure and setbacks in your professional life?
I love this question because it has been my focus over the past few years of my career. Since joining the National Team, my goals have always been pretty simple — medals and the Olympics. The past two Olympic quadrennials, Tokyo and now Paris, I made Olympic alternate. Since the alternate isn’t likely to compete at the Olympics, it’s easy to look at the result as simply a failure. But I’ve since realized that only viewing past results as either a success or failure is extremely limiting.
One of the quotations we have on a wall at WCAP is by Elbert Hubbard — “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” With a lot of support from both the Army and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, I’ve been able to shift that perspective to be more encompassing. I can be both disappointed in only being an alternate and simultaneously proud of many of the personal battles I’ve overcome during the journey. That failure is part of my story but certainly not the whole story, and that is now how I view goals and failure in my personal and professional life. It leaves a lot more room to adjust and bounce back for whatever might be next.
How do you apply the discipline and training regimen from your athletic pursuits to your current leadership role?
There is a lot of overlap between the skills and discipline of being a Soldier and an athlete. The first few schools I went through in the Army (Basic Combat Training, Officer Candidate School, and Basic Officer Leadership Course) gave me the chance to observe a huge variety of leadership styles to which I had never been exposed before. I could see a very direct connection between disciplined leaders and great leaders. That is where I see the greatest potential in athletes for leadership positions — if an athlete maintains that level of rigor and discipline in other areas of life, they are extremely likely to succeed. The quality of resources offered in the Army only reinforces that level of expectation for each Soldier-athlete to give everything they have to win. In a leadership role, there is a similar process of identifying areas of weakness to connect myself or a Soldier with a solution. That solution may lie either within the Soldier’s actions or in a resource that they can access.
Reflecting on your journey, what specific skills or attributes developed through athletics do you believe are most essential for effective leadership?
One of the most important aspects of being an athlete or being a leader is having a consistent internal compass. When I first started trying to make an Olympic team, I tied to my identity almost exclusively to wanting the title of Olympian. But one day, I realized that of the many people who have made an Olympic team or even won an Olympic medal, I have never heard of most of them. The ones that made a difference in my life were those I knew personally — my dad, some teammates, some Soldiers. Making an Olympic team is a huge accomplishment that is worthy of a lot of respect, but after being in athletics long enough, I have developed a strong belief that I have a far greater impact in how I treat people rather than on what I have accomplished. I think it’s essential for leaders to never lose sight of the impact of daily interactions, even while trying to accomplish a lofty or difficult goal.
Based on your experience, can you please share “5 Ways That Athletics Can Help Train Great Leaders?”
1 . Master the basics. The athletes who are the best in the world at their craft do not necessarily have the most diverse skillset. Instead, they have obsessed over the fundamentals of their sport to the point of near perfection. In the Army, our first introduction to this is in the name–basic training–which is meant to create a strong foundation for the values and physical training essentials for all Soldiers, no matter their position. In rifle, the shooters consistently on the podium train the same things as junior shooters — natural point of aim, sight alignment, triggering, follow through, etc. — the only difference is how well they have mastered it. This understanding to continuously focus effort on the foundations translates into leadership. The best leaders know that there is always room for improvement in establishing clear vision, communication, integrity, selfless service, and other fundamentals. The work never stops, and the key to excellence is not in embracing the newest fads, but in mastering the basics.
2 . Embrace teamwork. Even in an individual sport like shooting, success is dependent upon how good the team behind the shooter is. That’s why joining the Army was one of the best things for my career — I adopted an entire team that supported my goals. Because of teamwork, the Soldier-athletes at WCAP are well-versed in communicating and collaborating, holding others accountable, and recognizing how individual strengths and weaknesses fit together to best accomplish the goal.
3 . Expose yourself to different kinds of leadership. Every athlete and Soldier has a history of parents, coaches, directors, commanders, or even CEOs that they have observed along their career. With so many different types of leadership styles, athletes and Soldiers have examples of the type of leaders they want to become. A person who develops a vision of exactly the type of leader they want to become is a step ahead of everyone else, and athletes have a front-row seat in observing what types of actions a great coach takes to ensure the team successfully works together.
4 . Prioritize work ethic. Perhaps one of the most obvious connections between athletics and preparing for leadership is how hard someone is willing to work to accomplish a goal. Good leaders are not lazy; good leaders do not make excuses. They move very fluidly from failure to analysis to trying again. In the shooting community, I have been known to try some pretty off-the-wall methods to work on my problem areas. While a lot of people would laugh or joke, my most valued words of advice were to keep trying no matter how insane I looked. I learned to embrace the effort. If it didn’t work, I moved on to something else, but if it did work, I had solved the problem. A lot of athletics is about being so obsessed with a goal that nothing is too hard to try. Leading people can be brutal at times, but continuing to work at it matters.
5 . Know that success is a team accomplishment. A great leader finds the connection between their own goals and the team’s goals. In that way, the work becomes a two-way street: how does the leader help each teammate succeed, and how does the team help the leader succeed? Realizing and communicating the overlap between these two fuels everyone to work as hard as possible. For example, the WCAP wrestling program has its own dedicated coaches that train the team. Naturally, the goal of the coaches is to have a winning team. On the other side, each Soldier-athlete wants to earn a slot at the Olympics. When everyone realizes the common ground, it’s easier to work through any disagreements with the mission as the priority.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
In a world that is so outcome-driven, I would love to encourage people to focus more on the person they want to become than on the goals they want to accomplish. At the end of the day, goals are important, but true fulfillment comes from the small things, like your everyday interactions with people.
How can our readers further follow you online?
For more information on the many possibilities available in the Army, go to GoArmy.com.
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is a mom, entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion allowed her to be one of the most acclaimed Latina CEO’s in the last 30 years. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Broadcom to bring innovative solutions to travelers and hotels around the world. Vanessa is the lead inventor on 120+ U.S. Patents. Accolades include: FAST 100, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies, Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year among others. Vanessa now spends her time sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles, speaking engagements and music. In her spare time she writes and plays music in the Amazon best selling new band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, trains dogs, and cheers on her children.
Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and X and of course on her website VanessaOgle.
