I love the watching dynamics between Football Managers, Chairmen, Players, Fans, Media … left anyone out?

Looking at the role of the team manager we see the leadership function boiled down to its elements and played out with unusual transparency, before our very eyes. We see the whole cycle; birth, adolescence, honeymoon, acceptance, failure, forgiveness (sometimes) and death. We can usually pinpoint the tipping point too, that point from which it was always going to be impossible to recover.

This reality is harsh but generally consistent because the number of people involved is small, the processes simple, the hierarchy flat and information is relatively easy to get hold of (whether you believe it all is another matter, but a book always fills the blanks in after a couple of years). It’s leadership in microcosm, a bit like unravelling the secrets of the universe through particle physics

Returning to the theme of an inconvenient truth where I suggested that perception (of the followers) is everything, you can see this boiled down to its raw constituent parts, the significant relationships

Think of it from the manager’s perspective: He can always be sacked by the Chairman so he needs to hold the confidence of this man or woman (there are a few). In itself, not a leadership issue, just employer and employee, but it is largely affected by one key leadership issue

The Chairman will usually act if results are poor and he believes the manager has “lost” the dressing room. And the number of occasions where a dressing room has been “lost” and then recovered are rare, if it has ever happened at all.

But we can boil this down even further: It’s not like the manager has to work to keep the faith of the whole squad in equal measure (like they’re the ant-hill mob) as the mood of the dressing room will be dictated by 3 or 4 senior pros. Lose these and you are dead, because the rest will follow. Now, there’s a tipping point …

Managers know all about this tipping point. Does this explain the occasional “inexplicable sale” of a team’s star asset like Beckham, Henry, Viera, Stam, Van Nistelroy, Trundle?  In the words of Russell Mael “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us” -  it’s you or me, and while I’m in charge, it isn’t going to be me

Let’s look at some key features of football management that I’d suggest are, near as dammit, leadership rules in that environment. Do you think they have universal application? Should they, even?

1. Chairmen are prepared to look far and wide for a new team manager and will usually appoint the best that the budget will allow

2. New managers, given the choice, like to bring in their own back room team so a new appointment at the top often leads to wholesale change of the top tier

3. Development and promotion from within is not unknown but it is relatively uncommon (Liverpool used to be good at this) and even when it happens, poor performance is usually very swiftly and decisively dealt with, maybe even more so than with outside appointments

4. Some players do become successful managers, but very rarely when they are promoted to manage the group they played within. Usually, they have to go and cut their teeth elsewhere

5. Weaknesses in leadership approach are never addressed by leadership training, but mentoring is often used with some success

6. Turnaround is rare, in fact, it’s virtually unheard of

7. Failure of leadership, not the team, isn’t terminal to the individual, but it usually means they’ll need to look elsewhere for
another chance

8. You only get 2 or 3 chances before people stop giving them

Who would have thought it? The inconvenient truth is that to learn anything at all, it’s perhaps best not to keep your eye on the ball, but on those around you