The Choice Before Us:

Andrea Neil
Sep 18
9 min read

Domination & Transformation

TEDx Talk — Sports Leadership: Are We Lost?

Sport can reveal our best: teamwork, resilience, and confidence. But it can also expose our dark side: fear, control, and the stripping away of dignity. I spoke about this in my TEDx talk, Sports Leadership: Are We Lost?, where I shared how unhealthy patterns creep into our cultures of sport and life. I have seen athletes’ joy taken away in spaces that should nurture it. I have watched fear, insecurity, and anger distort people, teams, and communities.

And it prompts some more profound questions for us all:

Where have I turned against myself through harsh judgment, silence, or the failure to hold a healthy boundary?
Where have I dominated others through my emotions, words, actions, or by turning away in indifference or complicity?
What is my responsibility to myself, to those around me, and to the larger community?

The truth is, most of us already understand this weight. We feel it in the background stress that never entirely goes away, in the anxiety of sensing we do not belong or fear punishment for speaking out, in the confusion when words say one thing but actions demonstrate another. We experience it in our frustrations and hopelessness towards leaders of broken systems, and in the lack of clarity when trying to make sense of it all.

If we do not ask these questions, these patterns grow unchecked inside us. Left unchallenged, they shape our cultures without resistance. Their cost builds until it feels overwhelming, and we either shut down or numb ourselves just enough to keep going without facing the pain.

These patterns are not limited to sport. They permeate deeply within our workplaces, our institutions, and our wider society.

Leadership is not exclusive to CEOs, politicians, or coaches. It is not merely a role or a mark of status. The truth is, we all lead our lives daily through our choices, words, and how we show up for others. The real question is not whether we are leading, but how we do it.

DOMINATION

Domination starts with a disconnect from our hearts...a turning away from the space where empathy, courage, and integrity reside. At its root is ego, the "me, mine, and I" that cannot see beyond itself or its tribe. From this root of disconnection grow fear, selfishness, and the impulse to control. Sometimes it is loud, but more often it is subtle: expressed through a gesture, a tone, silence, or even a joke that hits close to home. It can also appear in inaction, when someone has the power to stop harm or offer help but chooses not to. At its core, domination diminishes people to mere compliance. Your worth becomes conditional.

We can see it on the sidelines. A young player hesitates before making a pass. The coach’s face hardens. He does not yell; he shakes his head, scribbles in his notebook, and looks away with disdain. The boy’s shoulders drop. For the rest of the game, he plays small, afraid to make another mistake. Not one word was even uttered.

Though the actions of domination can seem small or subtle, their reverberations are profound, and their consequences long-lasting.

In the workplace, domination infiltrates our minds and choices. Someone feels an idea emerge in a meeting but suppresses it: “Do not speak up, it will cost you.” Here, truth is swallowed before it can be spoken, and silence becomes a strategy of survival. A single silenced voice becomes the spark for a culture where no one dares to be honest.

These patterns are not accidental. As Dr. Jennifer Fraser describes in her forthcoming book The Gaslit Brain, cultures of domination thrive on three pillars: fear, humiliation, and favouritism. They divide people against each other so power remains unquestioned at the top. Institutions themselves are often bent to reward loyalty and punish dissent, consolidating authority like a slow tightening grip.

This consolidation of power is deliberate. In such cultures, truth-tellers are often punished while those who manipulate or stay silent are rewarded, reinforcing fear and discouraging integrity. Authority is not given on the basis of competence alone, but on loyalty; people are appointed precisely because they will protect the system, not challenge it. Over time, this centralization narrows power into fewer and fewer hands. Divide and conquer becomes a daily practice, making people look at one another with suspicion and resentment instead of questioning the leader or the system itself.

Domination thrives on self-interest, greed, and indifference. It narrows its vision to "us versus them," and demands more than it is entitled to, claiming “I (or a specified we) deserve more,” and views people and the earth as resources to be exploited. It flourishes on arrogance, believing “I know best,” seeking to elevate certain lives while diminishing others.

Illusions of appearance, status, and control may seem to offer happiness, yet they betray us, deepening envy, insecurity, and frustration, and escalating into anger or even hate.

This approach relies on our cooperation, and at times, our complicity. Whether through silence, isolation, or turning against one another, we can end up reinforcing the very patterns that harm us. Divide and conquer is not just a tactic of authoritarian leaders; it is a pattern that seeps into teams, organizations, and communities when fear is left unchallenged.

Domination does not always arrive in the same form. Sometimes it appears as outright aggression. Other times, it hides through passive aggression, apathy, or subtle sabotage. It cloaks itself in polished and strategic words, rebranding or promising change, only to repeat the same cycle of harm.

In moments of crisis, it attacks, denies, deflects, or hides behind procedures. It weaves lies into truths, creates confusion, and fosters division between us and them.

Domination never takes responsibility. Instead, it blames, shames, and punishes. It does not care about others’ perspectives, needs, or feelings unless they can be bent to its own advantage.

On the global stage, domination may look to justify violence as “necessary.” We see it in our social media feeds if we choose to look at some of what is happening, in the fifty-odd wars unfolding in real time on our planet. Families are being forced to flee their homes, dissenting voices are silenced, and entire communities are diminished, if not disintegrated.

The outcomes are painfully consistent. Domination works to bring death and destruction to what is dignified, creative, beautiful, life-giving, and harmonizing within and between us. It diminishes our humanity, our capacities for fairness, justice, and connection. It breeds anger, stagnation, and imbalance, sacrificing truth, humility, and unity in the pursuit of control and power.

TRANSFORMATION

The alternative is transformation, and at its centre is the heart. At its root is love, the quality that allows us to see beyond ego, beyond "me versus you", into our wholeness and belonging to something greater and to one another.

Transformation is not change for its own sake. It is the change that heals what domination distorts. It calls us to face the fear, greed, arrogance, and indifference within ourselves, so that they no longer rule us. These forces do not vanish on their own. They must be recognized, worked through, and transformed. In doing so, we reclaim our unconditional value. Our dignity is no longer tied to appearance, status, or achievement but to the wholeness of who we are.

It is an inner process of aligning mind, body, heart, and spirit so that we can live and lead from courage, compassion, and integrity.

These qualities are not soft or naive. They form the very ground of ethical leadership, making possible repair, renewal and genuine accountability that domination erodes within and between us.

Too often, we attempt to solve the crisis of domination by rearranging the surface: a new policy, a compliance measure, or another fresh education program. But this is like a gardener cutting off a diseased branch without tending to the roots. Unless the soil is healed, the tree will sicken again.

Transformation requires us to look deeper, to address the underlying disconnection that gave rise to domination in the first place.

At the personal level, transformation might look like a parent pausing before reacting harshly, choosing instead to take a breath and listen to their child’s fear or frustration. That moment of attunement builds trust and strengthens resilience rather than breaking it.

Among friends or teammates, transformation might be one person choosing to encourage rather than mock, to include rather than exclude. A simple gesture of support can shift the culture of the group, reminding everyone that they belong and that their value is not conditional.

Within our businesses and institutions, transformation might look like a leader admitting, “We got this wrong,” "I am sorry," and inviting those harmed to help shape the repair. Instead of masking harm with spin, they choose honesty and accountability, making space for truth, fairness and reconciliation.

When we do this, we begin to see transformation not only in theories or policies, but in the small, human moments that restore confidence and connection.

Transformation is lived, daily, in how we reflect on our choices, repair what we have broken, and recommit ourselves to integrity. Sometimes the work is inward and solitary. Sometimes it is with the support of a mentor, a coach, a trusted guide, or a therapist. Either way, it is the ongoing return to the heart that steadies us when fear and domination tempt us off course.

Transformation also shows itself in the willingness to hold firm boundaries and to seek justice with compassion. It urges us to tell the truth even when it is costly, to listen beyond our own assumptions, and to act in ways that repair rather than harm. It asks us to pause and reflect: Am I speaking from fear or from courage? Am I protecting myself at others’ expense, or standing for fairness? Am I withdrawing into silence, or stepping forward with integrity?

On the global stage, transformation upholds dignity, promotes dialogue, and champions fairness and shared humanity. We see it when resources are shared rather than hoarded, when past harms are acknowledged, and when leaders choose dialogue over division.

The outcomes are consistently life-giving. Transformation fosters empathy, resilience, wisdom, and collaboration. It takes courage to face what must be confronted. Through transformation, fear gives way to love, not a sentimental love, but the steady force that grounds courage, justice and truth. Where domination binds us in fear and rivalry, love frees us to action from wholeness, harmony and care for one another.

The Choice Before Us: Domination & Transformation

When I stood on the TEDx stage, my aim was to share this message: we cannot change what we do not see. To choose differently, we must first perceive the contrast between the forces of domination and the forces of love and transformation. Domination traps us in an either/or mindset — win or lose, me or you, us or them. Transformation rises from the heart, which sees more widely. It shifts us from “this or that” towards “this and that,” opening space to recognize the possibilities that emerge when we are and act from wholeness, a place that honours both truth and care.

The truth is, both domination and transformation live within us and our systems. Both voices - one fearful and one hopeful - are present. The question is not whether domination exists, but whether we allow it to govern.

The choice is clear before us: in sport, in our institutions, in our communities, and in the broader world. Will we reinforce domination, or nurture transformation? Fear or love? Our choices shape us and leave echoes long after they are made.

It also raises an important question:

Who rises to the top in our systems, and what factors contribute to their 'success'?

Too often, leadership roles go to those who conform to a culture of domination rather than challenge it. This is not only about individual character but about what our societies tend to reward and normalize.

We are all leading something, and we each face this choice. Transformation begins within us, but it cannot end there. When we face the fear, greed, or arrogance in ourselves, we become more able to recognize and resist them in our systems. Inner work does not excuse us from outer action. It equips us for it. With this grounding, we can engage injustice with steadiness, compassion, and integrity.

The choice before us is not abstract. It lives in our words, our actions and in the way that we show up for one another. May we have the courage to turn from fear to love, from rivalry to wholeness, from domination to transformation. May our choices create echoes of dignity, justice, truth and care - not just for our own lives, but for the generations that follow.

With sincere respect,

Andrea Neil

Founder of The Coaching Compass

& Andrea Neil Consulting, Coaching, and Mentorship

If this piece resonated, here are a few ways to go deeper:

📝 Explore my work in leadership coaching, consulting, and mentorship. I support leaders, teams, and organizations in aligning with integrity and creating cultures of transformation: andreaneil.ca

🎤 Watch my TEDx Talk Sports Leadership: Are We Lost? — a call to return leadership to the compass points of integrity, fairness, and human dignity

📖 Read A River That Would Not Be Stopped — a reflection on the long, unfinished story of women’s football, where harm, suppression, and erasure have been met again and again with resilience, solidarity, and renewal

📽 Watch Football vs. Fightball and reflect on the difference between transformational and extractive leadership in sport

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