Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Venture Capital, Leadership, How to start a business, successful startup, Entrepreneurship.Lifeguarding provides early lessons in decisionmaking under pressure, leadership, risk assessment, adaptability, and crisis management.This paper presents the results of a pilot study that explores the impact of ocean lifeguarding on leadership and entrepreneurial development.The setting for our research was the Wildwood Crest Beach Patrol in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey (WCBP), where one of the authors (Robert) served as a lifeguard during high school and college and was re-certified in 2024.By focusing on a single organization, our work aims to generate initial insights, test survey design, and assess the feasibility of broader research across other highstakes environments critical in professional domains such as venture capital, entrepreneurship, and management.The goal is to understand how early exposure to autonomous, high-pressure decisionmaking influences long-term leadership development, professional adaptability, and entrepreneurial capacity.Survey data and qualitative insights from former and current lifeguards provide an initial assessment of the transferable skills developed in lifeguarding and their long-term impact on career trajectories (Gompers et al., 2016; Zhang, 2007).
Authors: Robert Morier, Barrie Litzky
Institution: Drexel University
Language: English
Subfield: Management of Technology and Innovation
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4409806471