Today, we will be taking some lessons from the leadership styles of three famous and influential coaches who have been able to carve a niche for themselves in the game of football. But before I proceed any further, I have to be quick to mention here that this is neither a write-up analyzing teams nor another publication patronizing the game rather, all we want to do here is learn their leadership lessons and forget the details.
First, Arsene Wenger, he is the most successful manager in the history of Arsenal in terms of trophies and is also the club's longest-serving manager. In 2004, he became the only manager in FA Premier League history to go through the entire season undefeated. He is unarguably a great leader and this fact is evident in the number of leaders he has built who later became assets to the game. Over the years, he has successfully made profits for his team by trading his high profile players with a steady confidence of building a replacement and guess what, he always does.
Though so many people often criticize him for this act which most times reduces his chances of competing favorably in all competitions yet, the youngsters in his team are full of thanks to him for giving them unmerited opportunities to learn and grow on the job. A close look at his players traded so far shows that, when these players quit his team (Arsenal), their performance gradually depreciates. From Pires to Henry, Flamini, Adebayor and even Senderos just to mention but a few, the players have never kept alive their momentum.
Now the question to brood over here is: what could be responsible for the steady go to seed of the players’ expertise without Arsene Wenger? What is it about his leadership that makes this happen?
The next is Sir, Alex Ferguson who with over 46 trophies to his name as a manager is now known as the most successful British football manager in history. Fergie who had a complicated career as a footballer before becoming a coach is currently the longest serving manager of Manchester United after joining the team in November 1986 due to his exploits with underperforming Aberdeen in the Scottish league. After becoming a coach at a comparative early age of 32 Fergie has been regarded as a strict disciplinarian, though, and his players dubbed him Furious Fergie.
Fergie is a manager who is eager to win trophies as much as he is desperate to have a team with cohesion and in total submission to his Lordship. His management has always made his players know that no one is bigger than the club; though true, yet, with adverse effects as he has lost so many notable players to this sheer doings. Dwight Yorke, David Beckham, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Gabriel Heinze are examples of players who had fall outs with their boss and decided to call it a quit. Fergie has never given a damn as he always wants to be able to command the respect of all his players so he’s often taken a “my way or the highway” approach in his relationship with his players. What is striking about Fergie is the fact that despite his tough nature, he still has players who has been with him for over 15years like Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, and Gary Neville while those high profile players who left due to a fracas never write-off chances of returning to his team because despite their departure he still goes ahead winning trophies.
Now the question to mull over here is: what is special about Ferguson’s leadership that makes these players always yearn to return despite the way he treated them? Could it be because success has so many friends or because they later realized it success was more of teamwork than individual-work?
Finally, the third coach is Jose Mourinho who prides himself as the Special One and this fact is irrefutable because things have turned out well for him in just eight years since he came to limelight after winning his memorable treble in 2002/2003 and the UEFA Champions League a year after with FC Porto in Portugal. Since 2002, he has never gone a calendar year without winning at least a trophy. Mou is a diehard motivator and many call him a ‘Slave Driver’ because he never settles for less from his players and even match officials.
This attitude of his surprisingly, has won him a lot of laurels in three different leagues with a reputation of an egoistic being to the public and a vision driver as acknowledged by his players in all the teams he has tutored. Now, what is special about the Special One? He rarely gives youngsters opportunities to display what they’ve got rather he prefers to recruit the best talents and ensure he stretches them to their human limit. He is result driven and focuses more on his personal career which he never treats with Kid Gloves than on anything else. Also, a striking observation about the end product of his leadership at any club shows that every team Mou quits finds it almost impossible to maintain their feat. From União de Leiria to FC Porto then Chelsea and even Inter Milan, the glory has never remained the same as he has always ended up creating earthshattering accomplishments.
Now the question to cogitate here is: why would an entire team lose its performance simply because one man left? What is it about Mourinho’s leadership that makes this happen?
On taking a closer look, we could say that Wenger is a coach, whose leadership style is geared towards people development, and he achieves his overall goal, i.e. a top performing team. Indirectly, that is through raising top performing team mates.
Ferguson is a manager who does everything possible to get a united team and would not want to compromise his discipline for any reason. He knows when to part with mulish players who might later be bad influences to his team and then goes on to puts together a world-class team and continually steer them to success.
And finally, Mourinho we can say does not ‘invest’ that much in potentials. He is a tactician whose leadership style is in his ability to put together a high performing team that consists of high performing individuals while constantly motivating and driving them to quality success.
The question to ask is not really which leadership style is better, but to understand these leadership styles and know their pros and cons and the most appropriate situations to apply them.
Maybe next time you need to build a team and lead them to success, this could be a marketing team, a creative team or whatever team you might have, it might help to ask yourself this: what would Arsene Wenger, Sir Alex Ferguson, or Jose Mourinho have done?
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