On September 25th, 2025, ILI Digital hosted an extraordinary leadership event featuring Deniz Aytekin, professional football referee and accomplished business leader. You read it right, a football referee and a business leader, and you may be wondering “What does a referee who makes split-second decisions in front of 80,000 screaming fans have to teach to business leaders?”
Deniz’s journey is fascinating. He went from being one of the most controversial referees in 2011 to becoming one of the most respected figures in modern football. Sound familiar? It’s not unlike the transformative leadership challenges many organizations face today. His keynote during the event explored three critical dimensions of leadership that translate directly from the football pitch to the boardroom.
Making Decisions Under Pressure
Every leader faces a fundamental challenge: making critical decisions without complete information. In football, as in business, waiting for perfect clarity often means the moment has passed.
Anticipation as a Core Skill
The most effective leaders don’t simply react to problems, they anticipate them.
“Run to where the next problem will emerge,” as Aytekin put it.
This proactive mindset transforms decision-making from a defensive posture into an offensive strategy. In football, this means positioning yourself where the action will be, not where it currently is. In business, it means identifying potential challenges before they become crises.
Pattern Recognition and Experience
Automated pattern recognition is a powerful tool in high-pressure situations.
Think of it like this: “Last man foul. Probably red card.”
These aren’t arbitrary rules but patterns built from experience. The human eye and brain have limitations, certain sequences happen too quickly to process consciously. Yet experienced decision-makers develop an intuition built on thousands of similar situations.
For business leaders, this means trusting your experience while remaining open to new information. Pattern recognition accelerates decision-making, but it must be balanced with situational awareness.
In business environments, this process can be seen as the “institutionalization of instincts” – turning personal intuition into shared organizational capability.
The Power of Additional Information
Small details can tip the scales. Subtle cues like the direction of a ball changing mid-flight can transform a decision. Leaders must train themselves to notice what others miss. This isn’t about paralysis by analysis; it’s about developing sensitivity to the signals that truly matter.
Reading Body Language and Microexpressions
The ability to read body language and facial expressions provides a competitive advantage in decision-making. Whether assessing a player’s intent on the field or evaluating a colleague’s true reaction in a meeting, non-verbal communication reveals what words often hide. Drawing on Paul Ekman’s research, it shows how this skill can be developed and applied across contexts.
Emotional Leadership
Transformation doesn’t happen through technical improvements alone. It requires a fundamental shift in leadership philosophy, something Aytekin experienced firsthand in his journey from being heavily criticized to becoming widely respected.
Mood as a Business Driver
Here’s a provocative truth: mood creates revenue, not just strategy. This challenges the conventional wisdom that rational planning and execution are all that matter. The emotional atmosphere within a team directly impacts performance and, ultimately, results.
However, this isn’t about forced positivity or ignoring problems. Creating positive mood means establishing the right framework conditions while also addressing disruptions head-on.
Shared Responsibility
Leadership often gets blamed (or credited) for team morale, but mood is a shared responsibility. While leaders must create conditions where motivation and collaboration can flourish, team members must also contribute through their performance, attitude, and collaboration.
A single underperforming or destructive team member can undermine the entire group’s dynamics. Therefore, effective leadership requires both nurturing positive elements and decisively addressing negative influences. It’s not enough to create good conditions, leaders must also identify and handle disruptive factors so the team can reach its full potential.
The Dual Approach
The most effective leadership philosophy combines two seemingly opposite qualities: being clear in decisions while remaining warm with people. This combination of authority and empathy creates an environment where people understand expectations while feeling valued as individuals. It’s not about being liked in every moment; it’s about being respected over time.
Respect is Everything
The foundation underlying all effective leadership is respect, a principle that’s fundamental to any functioning society or organization.
Two Dimensions of Respect
Understanding respect requires recognizing its two dimensions:
Vertical Respect: This is professional or technical respect based on position, expertise, and competence. In football, players respect a referee’s authority and knowledge of the rules. In business, this is the respect earned through capability and results.
Horizontal Respect: This is human respect, treating everyone as equally valuable regardless of their position or status. It’s about recognizing the inherent worth of every individual.
True leadership requires both dimensions. Technical competence without human respect creates compliance without commitment. Human warmth without professional authority creates affection without effectiveness.
Respect in High-Emotion Situations
Referees constantly encounter intense emotions: anger, disappointment, perceived injustice. The art lies in meeting people in their emotions with respect. Through compelling video examples, the presentation showed how responding to frustration with empathy rather than defensiveness can de-escalate conflicts and build bridges.
This applies directly to business contexts. When team members are frustrated, disappointed, or feel treated unfairly, the leader’s response determines whether the situation escalates or resolves. Respect in these moments isn’t about agreement – it’s about acknowledgment.
Respect as Energy
Perhaps most importantly, respect unlocks tremendous positive energy. Organizations that cultivate genuine respect – both vertical and horizontal – demonstrably outperform those that don’t. Respect isn’t just a moral imperative; it’s a competitive advantage.
Bringing It Together
Looking back on the evening, here’s what made this event special: it was more than just entertaining football anecdotes. We left with a real, actionable framework for modern leadership.
- Anticipate rather than react when making decisions under pressure
- Recognize patterns while remaining alert to new information
- Create positive mood as an active driver of business success
- Share responsibility for team dynamics between leaders and team members
- Lead with clarity and warmth in equal measure
- Cultivate respect in both its vertical and horizontal dimensions
The transformation from controversial figure to respected leader proves that these principles work. The insights remind us that the most challenging leadership situations, whether on a football pitch or in a boardroom, require the same fundamental qualities: anticipation, empathy, decisiveness, and above all, respect.
The event served as a powerful reminder that leadership excellence isn’t about eliminating pressure or emotion from decision-making. It’s about developing the strategies, attitudes, and character to thrive within them.
The evening may be over, but the conversation continues. We had the opportunity to record a podcast episode with our CEO Serhan and Deniz before the event, diving deeper into his leadership philosophy and the lessons he’s learned throughout his career. The episode will be available soon, so stay tuned for more insights from this fascinating conversation.
Stay Tuned for the On Point. episode with Deniz Aytekin.
