It has been said that leadership success always starts with
a vision. However, it is not always easy
for a vision to come to fruition. Simply
visualizing something is not enough to carry something across the finish
line. Some key questions arise when analyzing
the role of vision in leadership. For
instance, how does an individual vision become a shared vision? How do you keep a team invested in a vision,
especially during difficult times?
Reading about vision and thinking about these questions made me reflect
on the role of a manager in a football campaign, and the things that they must
do in order to achieve their vision of success.
Take for example, the English Premier League, also know simply as the
Premiership. There are 20 teams
competing for the Premiership, usually 5 with a realistic chance of winning,
and the other 15 left to determine what for them is considered a success. Typically, the lower teams simply wish to
avoid relegation. The mid-table teams wish
to qualify for the Europa League. Lastly,
the big teams wish to either win the league, or qualify for the Champions
League via a top 4 finish. So, what does
all this have to do with vision? If your
goal is just survival, how do you get a team of professional athletes to share
that vision when the natural competitive nature asks them to dream bigger? How do you tell a group that they are not
good enough to win the league, but they are good enough to win the necessary
amount of games required to stay up? It
is true that most teams go into each match with the intention to either win or avoid
defeat. However, realism prevents each
team from going into every season expecting to win a championship. It just isn’t possible. Manchester City or Chelsea rightfully expect
to challenge for the top every year.
Huddersfield or West Ham should never expect to. That is just the way it is. However, none of this gloom and doom means
that it is impossible to stay the leadership course of vision. Perhaps the best example of leadership vision
in recent history is that of former Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger.
When Arsene Wenger arrived in London to take over as manager
of Arsenal in 1996, he was nicknamed Le Professeur because of his studious
nature, his economics degree, and because he was French. Wenger, of course, went on to become the most
successful manager in Arsenal history during his 22-year tenure. In the Premier League, he oversaw 828
matches, 476 wins, 199 draws and more than 1,500 goals for. Additionally, he won the Premier League 3
times, Manager of the season 3 times, Manager of the month 15 times, and a
record 7 FA Cups. Despite all of his
achievements, Wenger, especially towards the latter end of his career, was brutally
criticized for not keeping up with the changes in the world of football, and for
too stubbornly pursuing his (utopian) football vision.
The main reason that Wenger become seen as a football relic
was that he had a vision of how the game was supposed to be played. He never adopted a win at all cost mentality
and was often accused of valuing losing beautifully over winning ugly. Wenger’s vision required changes being made
to Arsenal that had never been done in England before. He was not a man who came in, spent money on
transfers, and bought success. The new
Arsenal vision included dietary and nutrition changes for players, playing
style, trusting youth, and repurposing players.
His presence even led to more foreign managers in England. At the time of his hiring, he and Ruud Gullit
were the Premiership’s only foreign managers.
Getting back to the key substance of the Wenger vision, lets discuss
youth players for a moment. Wenger’s
model was to find promising youngsters that he could develop, rather than
splashing big for a name superstar. Let’s
compare that with the Galactico model of Real Madrid. During the 2000-2007 era at Real Madrid, Luis
Figo, Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo (the Brazilian one), and David Beckham were all
recruited. These players combined purchase
cost Real Madrid 222.5 million euros. For
a top club manager, Wenger’s spending never came close to his
counterparts. The most expensive transfer
under Wenger was Mesut Ozil for 42 million euros, less than half the amount spent
by the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, and Juventus.
In addition to developing youth, Wenger also put a premium
on repurposing former promising players that didn’t quite become
superstars. His signing of Patrick Viera
after a failed stint at AC Milan proved a masterstroke, as did his acquiring of
Thierry Henry, who went on to become a World Cup winner with France and one the
greatest players the Premier League has ever seen. Leicester City’s miracle Premier League win
in 2015 was largely thanks Wenger-like methods of using bargain players, as N’Golo
Kante and Riyad Mahrez formed the nucleus of that title winning side.
Arsene Wenger’s vision of a healthy, dignified club resulted
in having to change the diets of his players.
In his first season, most of his players were 30 somethings who were
rather set in their ways. He had the
club cafeteria remove burgers, chocolate, and restricted alcohol. Those menu items were replaced with chicken,
fish, and steamed vegetables. He stated “I
think in England you eat too much sugar and meat and not enough vegetables”. Although many former players have revealed
that they believed the dietary influence of Wenger was overstated, his actions
speak volumes about the man and his vision.
Most managers in the modern game are overly focused on results. Wenger cared about the process. He believed that you could win with
values.
Wenger’s success in the last decade of his tenure was
limited to Football Association (FA) Cups and Arsenal were largely regressed in the Premier League and
the Champions League. As the world
changed around him and billionaire owners infused cash into teams, Wenger
maintained his vision. He was able to do
that because the team ownership had trust in him and the shared vision of what a
football club should be. He was labeled
a specialist in failure by Jose Mourinho, who has had contentious relationships
with every club he has ever been associated with. Wenger became ridiculed as a relic, a naïve manager
for believing that football should be played beautifully and that championships
could be won by modern clubs without buying success. And yet, despite the dried up well that
Arsenal became, Wenger remains a revered (although a bit polarizing) figure for
all that he did and for caring about things that modern managers no longer care
about.
In analyzing the Arsene Wenger situation, I believe that
there are lessons to be learned. Primarily,
I think that his Arsenal tenure proves just how much vision is an element of
leadership. Typically, when football
managers are interviewed for jobs, they are asked by club owners to speak about
their leadership philosophies and vision for the club in order to determine if
they are a good fit. In researching the
importance of vision in leadership, I found an article by Entrepreneur’s
Organization called 9 Leadership Lessons from World Cup Soccer. The article states that smart leaders nurture
their company culture by sharing their vision to ensure that the team is populated
with like-minded individuals. I think
that therein lies true value of leadership vision. If people "see" things the same way, they
have an elevated chance of success, whether in football or life.
Reference:
https://www.inc.com/entrepreneurs-organization/9-leadership-lessons-from-world-cup-soccer.html
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