Caitlin Clark, Simone Biles and Ilia Malinin All Do 1 Thing That Every Great Leader Does Too

Caitlin Clark is back on the basketball court with the Indiana Fever. The superstar player spent most of the 2025 season sidelined by multiple injuries. Her last WNBA game was in July. But today, she’s playing in a highly anticipated preseason matchup against the New York Liberty.

Being unable to play for so much of last season was tough, she told reporters while at training camp. “It’s very isolating to come to practice every single day and spend two hours getting treatment and rehab, and then, you know, you come out here and you have to show up and be the best teammate you can be,” she said.

But then she added, “I think that taught me a lot about what I can do if I’m not on the court. And you know, I got to be their biggest fan.” She said it was a great experience, because through most of her basketball career, “everyone else was my biggest fan.” She always had cheered on her teammates, of course. But most of the time, she was on the court herself, usually with the ball in her hands. “When you’re not doing that, you have to find another way to impact the team.”

Being the best isn’t enough.

Think about that for moment. Clark is saying that it’s not enough to be one of the best basketball players the world has ever seen. You also must find other ways to help your team succeed when you can’t play the starring role yourself. Too many of us as entrepreneurs or leaders spend too much of our time and mental energy hyper-focused on our own performance. We don’t focus on cheering others on when we have to stand back and let them stand in the spotlight.

So it’s interesting to note that Clark is not the only greatest-of-all-time athlete to think this way. Simone Biles dropped out of team competition at the Tokyo Olympics to preserve her own mental health. She’d developed the “twisties,” a highly dangerous phenomenon where gymnasts lose their spatial awareness in mid-air.

But even in that incredibly difficult moment, she focused on supporting her team. After sharing the news that she had to drop out, she gave her shocked teammates a pep talk. “You have done all the training, you can do this without me and it will be just fine.” Even though Biles competed in only part of the team event, the team won silver, with Biles cheering them on the rest of the way.

Ilia Malinin’s wild cheering.

At the most recent Olympics, American figure skating phenomenon Ilia Malinin failed spectacularly at his solo routine after impressing the whole world with his skills and helping his team win gold. But even after flaming out on the world’s biggest stage, he came to the stadium every day to attend the women’s figure skating competition, which takes place after the men’s. His obvious joy and wild cheering for his female teammates captured the attention of the media and the viewing public.