The Manager: Inside the Minds of Football's Leaders

by Carson, Mike

  CONTENTS

  Forewords

  Preface

  PART ONE – THE SCALE OF THE TASK

  1. A Piece of the Action (Roy Hodgson)

  PART TWO – CREATING A WINNING ENVIRONMENT

  2. The Art of One-on-One (Carlo Ancelotti)

  3. Behind the Scenes (Arsène Wenger)

  4. Building High-performing Teams (Sam Allardyce)

  PART THREE – DELIVERING RESULTS

  5. The Field of Play (Roberto Mancini)

  6. Handling Outrageous Talent (José Mourinho)

  PART FOUR – PERSONAL LEADERSHIP

  7. Pursuing a Career Under Pressure (Brendan Rodgers)

  8. Seeing the Bigger Picture (Harry Redknapp)

  PART FIVE – THE GREAT CHALLENGES

  9. Creating Sustained Success (Sir Alex Ferguson)

  10. Crisis Response and Turnaround (Walter Smith)

  11. Triumph and Despair (Mick McCarthy)

  Afterword

  FOREWORDS

  An intensely contested environment, where the competition constantly strive to outwit, outperform and beat your best endeavours. Where the will to succeed is just the beginning and the positive combination of a hundred small differences can be the deciding factor between winning and losing. Where the investment in culture, training and implementation of the game plan are crucial. Where results are judged in the harsh light of a few numbers and the best talent available is rare, highly mobile and in increasing demand.

  Elite football management... or familiar aspects of managing in the corporate world today?

  This is a rare book. It looks through the eyes of the people who manage some of the most high-profile football clubs in the world and asks: how do they navigate these challenges, how do they motivate their teams to achieve tremendous success and overcome underperformance? It’s an unprecedented glimpse behind the curtain at the true role of the manager.

  Louis Jordan

  Vice Chairman and Partner, Deloitte

  What does it take to be a good leader? Whether it is business, or football, leadership is an important quality if you want to succeed. There have been a myriad of management books talking about leadership in abstract terms. But what better way to learn about real leadership skills than by reading what people like Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger and José Mourinho say on this complex subject.

  Barclays operates in over 50 countries and employs nearly 150,000 people, so effective leadership in a global business such as ours is essential to sustained success.

  We have been global title sponsor of the Barclays Premier League and lead sponsor of the League Managers Association since 2001 so we are delighted to also support this book.

  Mike Carson has been able to draw on some of the most successful and best known managers in football, yet they all have very individual views about what leadership means to them, and how they get the best out of their teams. What is clear from this book is that there are traits that all great managers share: passion for the game and the drive to continuously improve.

  I hope you enjoy the book.

  Antony Jenkins

  Barclays Group Chief Executive

  1992 witnessed the birth of two great football institutions, the Barclays Premier League and the League Managers Association. In the 21 years that have followed, we have worked extremely hard to look after our members – the current and former managers from the 92 professional football clubs in England – to protect their welfare and represent their collective voice. As a group, these managers have a vast wealth of accumulated knowledge and experience, acquired by managing many thousands of games at the very highest level. During this time, through the LMA’s work in supporting its members, we have slowly and painstakingly earned their trust, their respect and their confidence. A priceless by-product of this process has been unprecedented access into their extremely private and personal world.

  Since our beginning, the education and development of our members, and prospective members, has been a responsibility we have taken very seriously. In this respect, one of our major objectives has been to meticulously research and identify those characteristics and traits common to the best of the best. Our findings leave us in absolutely no doubt; the quality which sets apart the very best from the rest is ‘leadership’. The best managers are passionate about football, obsessed and driven by the need to manage and succeed. Without exception, they also share a crystal-clear sense of where they are going; they know and understand how they will get there; and they have that precious ability to get inside the hearts and minds of those they work with and convince them to follow. They all possess an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, a passion for learning, and a willingness to successfully adapt to changing times and circumstances. In addition, they all have a huge generosity in their willingness to share information for the benefit of those taking their first treacherous steps up the slippery slope of football management. It is this willingness to share that has enabled the LMA to methodically develop our own Leadership Education Programme, ‘Survive, Win, Succeed’, as we have sought to ensure that all our members receive the best possible start to their careers.

  We are therefore extremely proud and delighted that this, our first book, has set the bar so high. The managers and former managers who have contributed to this book have amassed in excess of a staggering 15,000 competitive matches between them and along the way have accumulated every major domestic trophy available in their respective European competitions. Their success is due – in part at least – to their awareness that a football manager has to be more than what we traditionally understand the term ‘manager’ to mean, and to their ability to encompass aspects of leader, father figure, coach, and psychologist roles into their daily work. It is a complex job, all the more impressive for being carried out under the unique, relentless public scrutiny that accompanies their every move. Season after season, their unique skills enable them to transform vision into reality. Season after season, they are tasked to make the aspirations and dreams of millions come true, and they do.

  I thank all those who have contributed so generously to this very special book – including Mike Carson, whose energy and enthusiasm have been boundless – and I hope that you enjoy its content and the unique insights it offers into the hitherto very private workings of the football manager’s mind and into that hallowed place that is the professional football dressing room.

  Howard Wilkinson

  Chairman, League Managers Association

  www.leaguemanagers.com

  June 2013

  PREFACE

  Football as a sport and more broadly as an industry is unique – in the breadth of its appeal, the scale of its support and its ability to generate emotion. For generations, the game has created extraordinary memories, offering us visions of sublime skill and moments of great passion. It has also generated pain and anguish, and tragically has known its own human disasters. Across the world, it both divides and unites people of different races, nationalities and every conceivable status. It is the sport of rulers and workers, of children and the elderly.

  In Britain, the people with the task and privilege of leading football at the front line are the managers. In fact, their role has only a little to do with management, and much more to do with leadership. The men who lead in the upper reaches of professional British football – especially in the world-famous Barclays Premier League – are truly extraordinary. The work they do is intensive, personal, technical and critical – critical to the success of their teams, the growth of their clubs and the happiness of many. It is also subject to intense public scrutiny: their every move – whether wi
tnessed, surmised or merely imagined – is subject to widespread analysis in almost every forum imaginable, from bar rooms through offices to internet blogs and live television and radio broadcasts.

  My intention is this book will appeal to many people from different camps. At one level, it is simply a book for all football managers – both serving and aspiring. It brings together insights from the collective wisdom of almost 30 people at the very top of their game. At another level, it is written for leaders in all fields of endeavour: business, education, government, non-profit, the arts – any context where individuals lead other individuals and teams in their pursuit of meaning and success. My own work is with business leaders, enabling them to lead from their deep strengths, and I know that there is real value for them in this book. This is not to say that any one manager has all the answers – or even that the full cohort has cracked it between them. But there is a set of circumstances from which emerges a compelling language of leadership that will be useful to leaders in any and every setting and culture. And at a further level, the book is written unashamedly for the football fan: the men and women who love the game, and who – like me – are simply fascinated by the challenge and want to know how and why these people do what they do.

  These managers are fascinating. For the most part, they are true natural leaders. One of them commented to me: ‘You have the harder task. I just have to do this stuff – you have to explain it! I just do it all by intuition.’ This may be simple modesty, but there is a considerable element of truth in it – and this perhaps explains the appeal of the book. It is written as a first-hand insight into what these leaders think, feel and do to lead in this most dramatic and demanding of settings.

  In writing, I have made extensive use of the voices of the managers themselves who I was lucky enough to interview in depth through the 2012–13 season. As the work progressed, powerful themes emerged: in every case I have sought to surface, illustrate and simplify these themes so that we can all come away with practical and helpful ways of thinking. My intention is for the leaders among you to identify within these pages some of your own struggles, challenges and successes, and to create a language from this that will enhance your own practices. For the fans among you, I hope you will join me in appreciating the enormous complexity of the task that our often-criticised managers undertake. And for the football managers and coaches among you, I intend it to be an interesting and memorable take on how some of the great leaders achieve success.

  I would also like to acknowledge the excellent work of the League Managers’ Association. In providing a professional home for its members, it is taking the art of leadership in football on to excellence. The LMA’s own leadership model, emerging at the time of this publication, is perceptive and valuable. As it evolves, it will become a very valuable tool for the profession for generations to come.

  Hope Powell, manager of the England women’s team since 1998, has made an important contribution to this book and a huge contribution to leadership in the sport overall. As an important point of style, in all cases except for Powell, I have used the masculine pronouns of he, him and his. This is because the book is focused almost exclusively on experiences of Premier League leaders past and present, and the Premier League at the level of players and managers is an exclusively masculine environment. This issue of style in no way passes comment on the abilities of the rapidly growing body of women leaders in football or elsewhere.

  Finally, it has been a personal joy to work with the LMA and the managers themselves on this project. You have been generous with your time and your insights; and I have been struck by your humility. Thank you.

  Mike Carson

  June 2013

  PART ONE

  The Scale of the Task

  CHAPTER ONE

  A PIECE OF THE ACTION

  THE BIG IDEA

  Professional football is a crucible. Working inside that crucible, the managers of the 20 Barclays Premier League clubs in England have their leadership publicly examined, challenged, lauded and ridiculed on a daily basis. Some of us feel we could do a better job if asked. Others stand back in admiration of the great achievers, and cast a sympathetic backward glance at the ones who look like they’ve failed. But we actually have very little appreciation of the full scope of their work.

  The role of a leader in Premier League football is fascinating, complex and tough. Fantasy football leagues may convince us that it’s about buying players and selecting a team. In reality it is about creating winning environments, delivering on enormous expectations, overcoming significant challenges, handling pressure and staying centred throughout – a set of challenges familiar to leaders in all sectors.

  There are plenty of people with influence around the managers – all of them having or wanting a piece of the action: owners, fans and the general public, media, the players of course, and now the agents. This massive, global interest in top-level professional football is what sustains the game. But although the influence of these various parties may be welcome – and even necessary – they pose an ever-present challenge to the managers. So how do the managers cope?

  THE MANAGER

  Roy Hodgson is a football manager of considerable international standing. Since his early 20s he has been passionate about coaching and about the global nature of football. Since beginning his work in earnest in Sweden at the age of 29, he has accumulated and deployed a wide range of experience, leading 16 teams in eight countries over 37 years – including four national teams (Switzerland, the UAE, Finland and most recently his native England).

  In Sweden, he is widely acclaimed as one of the architects of the national game, introducing new thinking and styles with great success in his 12 years at Halmstads BK, Örebro SK and Malmö FF. At Malmö he led the club to domestic dominance and unprecedented European achievement – even defeating the Italian champions Inter Milan in the European Cup. In Switzerland, he transformed the national side into genuine performers on the world stage. Under Hodgson they achieved World Cup qualification for the first time in 28 years, Euro qualification in 1996 and, at their peak, third place in the world rankings.

  Roy Hodgson’s leadership has since been pressure tested in the toughest of club settings: the Italian Serie A with Inter Milan and the Barclays Premier League with Blackburn Rovers, Fulham, Liverpool and West Bromwich Albion. Among these, his greatest impact came at Fulham: he joined them in a mid-season relegation battle in late 2007, led them to safety that season, took them to a club record seventh in the following year and led them to a Europa League final the year after, defeating Juventus and the German champions Wolfsburg along the way. They lost the final in the last moments to Atlético Madrid. His achievements with Fulham that season saw Hodgson recognised by his managerial peers when he was voted the League Managers Association Manager of the Year. Previously holding a greater reputation outside his own country than inside, his coaching skills and leadership talent were fully recognised in 2012 when he was appointed manager of the England national team to succeed Fabio Capello.

  His Philosophy

  Hodgson is a thoughtful and focused leader who operates along simple and clear lines: ‘The manager is employed to coach a football team. That has to be his primary focus. So I concentrate for the most part on the team: making sure they are prepared for the challenge ahead. After that it’s about compartmentalising. The owner has employed me; and the fans are the people whose interest in the game has generated my job and my players’ jobs. We must never lose sight of that, but you can’t work for the fans or even just for the chairman. The only way you can satisfy both parties is to do your job well and win.’ Simple focus: team first, then each other party in turn, giving them real attention.

  But this elegant approach conceals a raft of challenges. What are the realities of life in this high-octane environment? How do the successful managers – Hodgson and others – practically navigate such difficult territory?

  Many Cooks

  In business they’
re called stakeholders. In football we might call them interested parties. Whatever we call them, they have always been there – since the beginning of the game there have always been those on the sidelines with an opinion.

  A traditional snapshot of the game in say the 1970s would reveal the principal groupings as the chairman, the players, the fans, the press and the public. (There were always the governing bodies too, but with little direct impact on the daily life of the manager.) Today the groupings are much the same. What has changed is the degree of influence and leverage they have. Take the chairman, for instance. In a game where cash is often king, the man who holds the purse strings has massive influence. He is, after all, the person ultimately responsible for hiring (and firing) the manager, and with the rise of the new all-powerful owner, these leaders are becoming public figures in a much more dramatic way than ever before.

  Other groupings have also become more powerful in their own right. Top players whose predecessors would nervously approach their manager for a rise now get their agents involved in contracting stand-offs with millions of pounds at stake. The public who used to confine their conversations to bars and pubs now exert influence through social media. And members of the press, who used to be the guardians of footballing standards, are now influential enough to get a manager fired. For the managers themselves, this means a tough, multi-layered and often frenetic environment. Never have the principles of centredness, self-knowledge, handling pressure and personal renewal been so important.

  The Centre of Authority

  The prevalent model of organisation in the world’s leading football clubs sees the manager as the centre of authority. Hodgson relishes this aspect of the role and considers it a privilege: ‘The reward for success in our profession as a coach is to reach a position where you are that focal point, where you are the person that everyone – from board to fans – is looking to for what they all require: a team that wins football matches. You’re the man who has been given the task of producing that team and organising that team – and it can’t get much more important than that in football. What is more important in a football club than the team that goes out every week and wins or loses? Manchester United today are a worldwide institution and they sold for hundreds of millions of pounds on the stock exchange. But the bottom line is, it’s still those 13 or 14 players who run out every Saturday in a red shirt who are the essence of the business. If Manchester United spiral down into the second or third divisions of the Football League, then all of this will fly out of the window irrespective of how good they are commercially. So Alex Ferguson was a key, key figure, because he was the man who governed the core of the business for so long.’