“Have you ever been able to do a forward row?” Julia Middleton asks.
“It took me a while, I think,” Kelly McCallum chuckles. “But then I became a PE teacher, and then I had to teach it over and over again. I made sure that every six-year-old knew how to do a forward row.”
At six-years young, Kelly McCallum’s parents were told their daughter should never play sports.
Her Grade 1 teacher had called them in for what Kelly would only learn about years later: an emergency meeting. The concern wasn’t academic; it was a swimming class observation; “Kelly couldn’t do a forward row.”The teacher believed that if she was encouraged to play sport, she would be embarrassed, bullied and lose confidence. Better, she suggested, not to put her through it at all.
Kelly McCallum has captained and played for her country Canada in two rugby World Cups. She was recently inducted into the Canadian Rugby Hall of Fame and in 2020 she was the first women’s rugby player to be inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame.
Thankfully, her parents ignored the advice and, instead, doubled down on a philosophy that would shape Kelly’s leadership journey. They made sure Kelly explored both individual and team sports. I wonder how similar that is to leading yourself and leading a team.
The First Relationship We Learn Is with Ourselves
Most of us think we get to know ourselves as adults.
Kelly thinks it starts much earlier.
She remembers standing behind the swimming blocks as an eight-year-old, waiting for the whistle. There was no teammate beside her to carry the pressure, no one else to blame if the race went badly. There was only the lane ahead and the quiet conversation happening inside her own head.
Before every race she developed a ritual. She would pat her legs, take a breath, look straight ahead and block out everything around her. At the time, it was simply how she prepared to swim. Looking back, she realises she was teaching herself something much more important.
She was learning how to manage fear.
She was learning how to stay focused when uncertainty crept in.
She was learning that there are moments in life when the only person who can move you forward is yourself.
That idea echoes throughout the conversation. Long before we learn to guide teams or influence organisations, we begin by developing a relationship with ourselves. It is a relationship built through uncomfortable moments, through setbacks, through discovering that we are capable of more than we thought. Confidence doesn’t appear because life becomes easier. It grows because we keep stepping onto the starting block.
Then We Learn That Nobody Wins Alone
Swimming taught Kelly to look straight ahead.
Rugby taught her to look up.
Suddenly, success wasn’t about one person’s performance. It depended on understanding twenty-two other people, each with their own personality, strengths, frustrations and ways of communicating. Every relationship was different. Every teammate required something different.
Listening to Kelly describe life inside a rugby team, you begin to realise how quickly sport compresses the lessons many of us spend years learning in workplaces. Trust cannot be demanded. It has to be earned. Communication is never one-size-fits-all. The strongest teams are not made up of identical people; they are made up of people who have learned how to work with difference.
That lesson stayed with Kelly long after she left international rugby. Whether coaching young athletes, teaching university students or working in governance, she found herself returning to the same principle. Relationships are never static. They require curiosity, adaptability and the willingness to understand people on their own terms rather than our own.
The Moment Patience Stops Being Helpful
One story from Kelly’s playing career changes the direction of the conversation.
Preparing for the Rugby World Cup, one of her teammates—an extraordinary player capable of changing the outcome of a game—repeatedly arrived at training without learning the team’s plays. Kelly waited. She hoped the player would realise the impact she was having. She gave her another opportunity. Then another.
Nothing changed.
Eventually, Kelly looked around at the rest of the team. Heads were dropping. Frustration was building. The issue was no longer about one talented player. It had become about everyone else.
For the first time, Kelly stopped training.
She asked the player to leave, learn the plays and come back when she was ready.
The player wasn’t the person whose reaction stayed with her.
It was everyone else’s.
There was relief.
Relief that someone had finally protected the standards they had all committed themselves to.
It is one of those moments that quietly reframes what care really means. Many of us assume that caring for people means giving endless chances or avoiding difficult conversations. Kelly discovered that leadership sometimes asks the opposite of us. Sometimes protecting the whole team requires disappointing one individual.
That isn’t the absence of care.
It is care expressed differently.
Not Every Relationship Is Meant to Be Repaired
Towards the end of the conversation, Julia asks a question that feels surprisingly rare.
What happens when a relationship simply cannot be fixed?
Kelly doesn’t rush to offer an optimistic answer.
Instead, she reflects on what experience has taught her.
As she has grown older, she has realised that some relationships are simply not meant to become close. You can communicate respectfully. You can work towards the same objective. You can remain professional. But that does not necessarily mean a deeper connection will emerge.
It is a refreshing perspective in a world that often tells us every disagreement can be resolved if we just try hard enough.
Sometimes the healthiest response is not to keep forcing the relationship.
Sometimes it is to stop wasting energy trying to create something that was never meant to exist.
There is wisdom in recognising the difference.
Perhaps That Was the Lesson All Along
The article could have ended with rugby.
Or with the World Cup.
Or even with the teacher who believed Kelly should never play sport.
Instead, it ends where it began—with her parents.
Without realising it, they gave their daughter two gifts.
One sport taught her how to trust herself when nobody else could swim the race for her.
The other taught her how to trust people whose strengths, personalities and perspectives were different from her own.
Everything that came afterwards—from international rugby to classrooms, boardrooms and beyond—was built on those two relationships.
Perhaps that’s why Julia describes Kelly’s journey as a journey through relationships.
Not because relationships make the path easier.
But because, in the end, they shape who we become.
To hear Kelly McCallum reflect on resilience, teamwork, self-awareness and the relationships that have shaped her journey, listen to the full episode of the Women Emerging podcast.
About the Guest:
Kelly McCallum is a leadership expert, educator, and former elite athlete. Currently pursuing a PhD at Auckland University of Technology, her research focuses on emotional intelligence in sports leadership. A two-time Rugby World Cup player for Canada and the first female rugby inductee into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame, Kelly brings a wealth of experience in high-performance environments. She is also a sought-after speaker and facilitator, specialising in emotional intelligence and leadership development.
