You don’t rise to the occasion. You fall to your level of preparation.
Rose Hecksher Schamberger learned this spiking volleyballs as a professional athlete, then proved it by leading more than 250 engineers across five continents as a fractional CTO and global technology executive. While most executives chase leadership frameworks and hire coaches to teach resilience, Schamberger built hers getting crushed on court, resetting between points, and understanding that individual brilliance means nothing without coordinated execution.
Schamberger believes leadership programs can’t teach preparation, because muscle memory through repetition, not insight, resilience is a skill developed through setbacks, not a personality trait you either have or don’t, and winning requires trust and shared goals, not individual achievement incentives disguised as teamwork.
Build Muscle Memory Through Repetition, Not Frameworks
“Whether I am leading 250 engineers or aligning on global strategy, I build muscle memory through processes, feedback loops, and repeatable rituals,” Schamberger explains. “Because clarity and consistency beat chaos every time.”
Most executives believe they’ll perform better when the stakes rise. Pressure doesn’t elevate performance; it reveals preparation level. Teams without muscle memory make poor decisions under stress, miss critical details when moving fast, and fall back on habits developed during calmer periods.
Athletes build muscle memory through thousands of repetitions until movements become automatic. Servers practice the same motion until tournament pressure doesn’t disrupt execution. Defensive specialists drill positioning until reading opponents becomes instinctive.
Leading 250 engineers requires the same muscle memory for decision-making, how issues get escalated, how trade-offs get evaluated, and how resources get allocated. Aligning global strategy requires repeatable rituals for stakeholder communication and priority setting.
Organizations without muscle memory react differently to similar situations based on who’s involved or what mood leadership is in. This creates confusion where teams don’t know which processes to follow and waste energy navigating ambiguity instead of executing.
Clarity and consistency beat chaos every time. But you build them through repetition, not by reading frameworks.
Develop Resilience Through Setbacks, Not Avoidance
In volleyball, you lose a point, then immediately reset. The teams that succeed aren’t always the most talented; they’re the most adaptable.
“I’ve led teams through restructures, turnarounds, and aggressive scaling,” Schamberger explains. “At IntellX, we turned a 40% drop in development cycles into a competitive advantage because the team stayed focused and flexible under pressure.”
Most executives treat resilience as a personality trait that some people have. Resilience is a learnable skill developed through practice. Athletes build it by experiencing setbacks repeatedly in training, learning to reset quickly after mistakes, and maintaining performance despite adverse conditions.
Professional volleyball taught Schamberger that losing points is inevitable. Champions don’t avoid setbacks; they reset faster than opponents. Between points, there’s a brief moment to process what happened, adjust approach, and refocus.
When development cycles dropped 40% at IntellX, the team could have panicked or reduced quality to maintain velocity. Instead, they stayed focused and flexible under pressure, treating the constraint as a forcing function to eliminate inefficiency and streamline processes.
Turning a 40% drop into a competitive advantage required resilience as a leadership skill, acknowledging setbacks quickly without dwelling, adjusting approach based on new constraints, and maintaining performance despite adverse conditions.
Understand Winning Requires Trust, Not Individual Heroics
No champion wins alone.
Great outcomes come from trust, clarity, and shared goals.
“That is exactly how I’ve built global teams across five continents, from India to Poland to the US,” Schamberger explains. “By fostering cultures where contribution is collective, and credit is shared.”
Most executives talk about teamwork while creating incentive structures rewarding individual achievement, decision-making processes centralizing authority, and recognition systems highlighting personal accomplishments. This contradiction undermines actual team performance.
Professional volleyball requires genuine teamwork. Setters can’t succeed without hitters executing. Hitters can’t succeed without passers delivering clean balls. Passers can’t succeed without servers creating favorable situations. Individual brilliance means nothing without coordinated execution.
Building global teams across five continents requires the same trust, clarity, and shared goals. Teams spanning India, Poland, and the US succeed when contribution is collective, credit is shared, and goals align so individual wins contribute to team outcomes.
“Athletics gave me grit, discipline, and an obsession with continuous improvement,” Schamberger notes. “Technology gave me the platform to apply it.”
Think Like an Athlete
If you’re looking to level up your leadership, start thinking like an athlete.
Build muscle memory through processes and repeatable rituals until clarity and consistency become automatic. Develop resilience through experiencing setbacks, resetting quickly, and maintaining performance under pressure. Foster cultures where contribution is collective and credit is shared, so winning becomes a team sport.
You don’t rise to the occasion.
You fall to your level of preparation.
And preparation is built through repetition, setbacks, and genuine teamwork, not leadership programs.
Connect with Rose Hecksher Schamberger on LinkedIn for insights on translating sports discipline into executive success.
