Expectations, Success, and Leadership
I love watching the Winter Olympics. The human stories carried across ice and snow. There is something moving watching an athlete standing alone at the top of a downhill course, skis pointed toward a narrow ribbon of white, separated by flags, knowing that years of early mornings will be measured in minutes. I’m also moved by the pride that surrounds it all. Families in the stands gripping flags and holding their breath. Parents who drove to rinks at 5AM and believed in the dream years before.
Each night, I find myself learning something new about leadership, success, resilience, preparation and countless other topics.
I watched something unfold on television during the men’s figure skating final at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Ilia Malinin entered the free skate in first place. The 21-year-old American, nicknamed the “Quad God” (which he proudly wore on his t-shirt). He had mastered techniques that no one else ever had and he held a lead. The commentary assumed he would win Gold and instead focused on how legendary his performance would be.
Then he skated…and fell…and fell again. Jumps that should have been four rotations only hit two. It was painful to watch the performance. By the time he ended, he had dropped to eighth place. The gold medal that seemed inevitable for him instead went to Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov. And it was well-deserved for his performance.
That’s the Olympics. You just never know. But what struck me was Malinin’s own assessment afterward: “I think people don’t realize the pressure and the nerves that actually happen from the inside. It was really just something that overwhelmed me and I just felt like I had no control.”
He had skill, that was clear. What he also had was the weight of everyone’s certainty about what should happen.
the competitor nobody knew
Meanwhile, Shaidorov skated with something different: lower assumption. Nobody had written his victory speech in advance and assumed gold.
Shaidorov delivered a clean, powerful performance that earned Kazakhstan its first Olympic figure skating gold medal. He skated exactly as he planned. But Malinin skated against an invisible opponent opponent that proved more formidable than any human competitor.
The contrast illuminates something crucial for anyone leading high-stakes initiatives: confidence and certainty are not the same thing. Confidence says “I can do this.” Certainty says “This will definitely happen.” One energizes performance. The other calcifies into pressure that can crush it.
the line between fuel and weight
Expectations aren’t the enemy. Used properly, they become fuel and raise standards. They push you past comfortable limits.
But there’s a line. Cross it, and expectations transform into burden.
When expectations expand your sense of capability “I’m capable of achieving this” they energize. When they calcify into demands “This absolutely must happen” they constrain.
Malinin crossed that line somewhere between dominating international competition and arriving in Milan. His own words reveal it: “Maybe that might have been the reason, is I was too confident it was going to go well.” Confidence became certainty. And when the performance started deviating from that predetermined script, there was nowhere to go except into the collapse.
how to carry expectations without drowning in them
If you’re leading anything that matters, you will face expectations. Sometimes those expectations come from others. Often they come from yourself. The question isn’t how to eliminate them. It’s how to carry them without letting them crush what they were meant to inspire.
Hold capability, not outcome. When facing high stakes, anchor yourself in what you’re capable of doing, not what must happen. “I have the skill to execute this well” maintains psychological freedom. “This must go exactly as planned” destroys it.
Distinguish your voice from the noise. Other people will project their certainty onto you whether investors, colleagues, media, and especially the audience that lives only in your mind. You cannot control expectations but you can choose which ones you internalize. The expectations worth carrying are the ones that stretch your capability are excellent. Everything else is noise wearing the disguise of motivation.
Check whether you’re chasing excellence or certainty. Excellence is a direction. Certainty is a destination. One keeps you moving, learning, adapting. The other locks you into a single acceptable outcome and eliminates the very adaptability that high performance requires. Before high-stakes moments, ask yourself: Am I pursuing the best version of this, or am I demanding a specific result? That distinction determines whether expectations fuel you or suffocate you.
the freedom to simply perform
Shaidorov’s gold medal wasn’t luck. It was skill meeting preparation meeting the psychological freedom to simply skate his program and, fortunately for him, without the weight of predetermined narrative. He could respond to what each moment required rather than what everyone expected it to deliver.
That freedom isn’t reserved for underdogs. It’s available to anyone willing to carry expectations without surrendering to them.
Malinin will compete again and he will be cheered for his comeback. His technical brilliance hasn’t disappeared. But Milan Cortina taught him something practice never could: the difference between skating with confidence and skating under certainty. Between carrying expectations that expand possibility and drowning in assumptions that demand specific outcomes.
For anyone leading in high-stakes environments, the lesson is identical. Expectations will come. The question is whether you’ll use them or let them use you.
image credit: glen carrie
