NOW MORE THEN EVER, YOU HAVE THE TIME TO INVEST IN YOURSELF, THIS IS YOUR TIME TO WORK ON YOUR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Right now, we are all living in unprecedented times. We are not sure what reality will look like in 2 months from now. But what we do know is that a lot of people have lost their jobs and the industry will be harder to get in. Therefore we are happy to present this page to you with a lot of knowledge that you can learn! If there has been a good time to invest in yourself and to develop that certain skill you were lacking at your last job interview, then now is your time.
Sports require many key skills in the modern society
Below you will find EdX courses within the sports industry. Learn about value co-creation, learn about events or why not ethicss in sports. Scroll down to find each topic.
Sustainability & Major Sport Events: Implementation
Learn the best practices and tools you need to plan and implement a sustainable major sport event.
Value Co-Creation in Sport Management – A New Logic in a Changing Society
Do you want to become a successful sport management expert? Learn the importance of value co-creation and gather new insights that will make you more competitive in the field of sport management.
Leading academics in their respective fields will introduce you to the dynamic world of sports law and related business principles. You will develop an overall understanding of the key legal and commercial aspects of sports. You will gain useful insights into their application based on actual scenarios involving athletes and teams. You will test your learning by applying it to hypothetical problems involving sports.
NOW MORE THEN EVER, YOU HAVE THE TIME TO INVEST IN YOURSELF, THIS IS YOUR TIME TO WORK ON YOUR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Right now, we are all living in unprecedented times. We are not sure what reality will look like in 2 months from now. But what we do know is that a lot of people have lost their jobs and the industry will be harder to get in. Therefore we are happy to present this page to you with a lot of knowledge that you can learn! If there has been a good time to invest in yourself and to develop that certain skill you were lacking at your last job interview, then now is your time.
Sports require many key skills in the modern society
Below you will find courses within the sports industry. Learn about sponsorship, learn about training youth or why not sport and society. Scroll down to find each topic.
Sports Marketing
Today, there is demand for people skilled in Sports Marketing. Organizations want your expertise to strength and grow customer bases and teams want to enlarge their fan base, attract new sponsors to their sport, build strong programs with existing sponsors, and run their fan conventions and other events. In addition, a wide range of companies recognize the value sports relationships have in positioning and building their brands.
Sports have become an ever-present reflection of American culture, and an important symbol of the divisions and alliances in our society. Sports and political change walk hand in hand in America. The way that athletes and institutions deal with questions of race, economic hardship, nationalism, and political ties have become central to the way that we understand ourselves and our society. And yet, there are those who would prefer their sports free of controversy and opinion. Dedicated athletes, coaches, and media personalities have pushed back against this refrain, demanding to be seen not just as entertainers but as fully formed humans with political opinions and experiences. Their struggles against injustice have changed the face of America and kicked off a reckoning within modern-day sports.
Have we reached the boundaries of what can be achieved in sports and building design? The answer is definitely “NO”. This course explains basic aspects of bluff body aerodynamics, wind tunnel testing and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations with application to sports and building aerodynamics. It is intended for anyone with a strong interest in these topics. Key fields addressed are urban physics, wind engineering and sports aerodynamics.
Sports play a giant role in contemporary society worldwide. But few of us pause to think about the larger questions of money, politics, race, sex, culture, and commercialization that surround sports everywhere. This course draws on the tools of anthropology, sociology, history, and other disciplines to give you new perspectives on the games we watch and play. It’s the new and improved version of Professor Orin Starn’s original “Sports and Society” for Coursera, which drew more than 40,000 students. We will focus on both popular sports like soccer (or “football,” as anyone outside America calls it), basketball, and baseball, and also lesser-known ones like mountain-climbing and fishing. You will never watch or think about sports in the same way again.
Would you like to understand which actors participate in sport sponsorship? Would you like to know the latest and innovative proposals that are arising in the sport sponsorship world? Are you interested in learning and connecting with sports enthusiasts/students from all around the world? The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Johan Cruyff Institute jointly offer this introductory course in sports sponsorship for all those interested in knowing how to create a sponsorship plan for a sports event. There are no special requirements to take the course. Thanks to this course you will be capable of facing a real challenge: the activation of a sponsorship plan for the Johan Cruyff Foundation.
This course will provide learners with a fundamental understanding of the characteristics and marketing strategies related to two key global industries, sports and entertainment. The growth in both industries have been fueled by their ability to innovate via CCCI, i.e. cross-country and cross-industry expansion. There will be a graded quiz that will consists of 10 questions during the first two weeks (together worth 50% of the grade) and a final quiz that contains 20 questions (worth 50% of the grade) in the third week.
An immersive experience in the world of sports that will take students through the four stages of a professional athlete’s career. Utilizing lectures, guest speakers, reading assignments and hypothetical walkthroughs, students will learn how the best sports agents manage clients at each of these four stages.
The objective of this course is to encourage a critical understanding of doping. To achieve this goal, this course will rely on a multidisciplinary approach that allow you to see how different disciplines get into a single object, in different perspectives and in often complementary ways. This approach will also allow us to appreciate the complexity of a subject like doping.
Before you can have an Esport, you must have a video game to play and a game developer to design it. This course is dedicated to discussing game developers and their relationship with their respective Esport. The content will help you recognize the qualities a video game must have to become a successful Esport. We will examine the diagram demonstrating the various competitive structures commonly found in Esports.
This course will be focusing on the competitive Esport team and individual professional players. Whether you are playing on a team or competing as an individual, you will find that being a professional Esports player is more complex and nuanced than most people realize. We will be talking a lot about the support staff surrounding players, the intricacy of navigating contracts, and the hardships of committing yourself to professional play.
This course gives you a complete insight into the communication and managerial techniques put into practice in the creation of the most important sporting mega event in the world. You will learn about the essentials of television production, programming strategies and television rights management of the Olympic Games. At the same time, you will gain valuable knowledge about the fundamentals of communication via social media and of the Olympic culture which is so closely connected with classic culture and humanism.
Seventy percent of kids drop out of sports before their high school graduation. Only 15% leave because they feel they are not good enough. Almost 70% leave because they were not having fun, or due to problems with the coach. Injuries cause 30% to give up sports. This course is packed full of practical sports science information that provide youth coaches and parents with the practical pediatric sports science insights to successfully retain young athletes and develop their sport potential while avoiding injury and overtraining.
In this course you will learn how to design the type of training that takes advantage of the plastic nature of the athlete’s body so you mold the right phenotype for a sport. We explore ways the muscular system can be designed to generate higher force and power and the type of training needed to mold the athlete’s physical capacity so it meets the energy and biochemical demands of the sport.
NOW MORE THEN EVER, YOU HAVE THE TIME TO INVEST IN YOURSELF, THIS IS YOUR TIME TO WORK ON YOUR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Right now, we are all living in unprecedented times. We are not sure what reality will look like in 2 months from now. But what we do know is that a lot of people have lost their jobs and the industry will be harder to get in. Therefore we are happy to present this page to you with a lot of knowledge that you can learn! If there has been a good time to invest in yourself and to develop that certain skill you were lacking at your last job interview, then now is your time.
Sports require many key skills in the modern society
Below you will find courses within the sports industry. Learn the basics of football, learn from a sustainable perspective or why not mental skills. Scroll down to find each topic.
Become a better manager
Become a better manager with online courses from FutureLearn. Find your specialization and join for free.
It is time to learn more about social responsibility in sports and more specifically in football. The tenth annual ranking of international football leagues’ environmental, social and governance commitments, RESPONSIBALL helps us explore and learn more about the work outside of the pitch. In this report you will be able to explore: how the different football leagues are ranked according to the topics; Governance; Community; Environment. Additional key issues are also included in the report: Racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and other discrimination in football; Domestic violence; Refugees and migrants; Women’s football. Lastly, the report also shares some good practices from each topic. In this article we will share some highlights from this report and you will learn who tops the ranking.
About RESPONSIBALL
RESPONSIBALL is the first point of reference for responsible football clubs. It supports the progress of social responsibility at all football clubs.
Funded by the work of SchweryCade, RESPONSIBALL provides an online platform for a community of practitioners within the football sector to act together and promote and maintain high standards of meaningful social responsibility.
RESPONSIBALL has two key goals at the heart of its mission: • To showcase good practices in governance, community development, and environmental stewardship; • To support a community of practitioners
Lili Borisova, Kenneth Cortsen, Juan Manuel Ferrer, Sung Jung, Jean Lee, Nina Lunkina, Alex Matsuo, Oscar Manuel Palma, Ilias Petrogiannis, Manas Rastogi, Mia Salvemini, Marisa Schlenker, Taizo Uchida, Graziella Widmer, Jakob Wikenstål.
The purpose of the annual RESPONSIBALL Ranking is to raise awareness and demonstrate the level of social responsibility in elite level professional football, looking specifically at governance, community and environmental aspects of a club’s activities and commitments. This season saw an increase in all aspects of the research scoring, with the German Bundesliga ultimately being crowned the top of the 2020 RESPONSIBALL ranking. Their efforts in community and environmental work, in particular, pushed them ahead of the 19 other leagues that were studied this season.
This season, an extraordinary one marked by a latter half filled with disruptions, delays and a constant redevelopment of the idea of what could or could not be done, was not solely defined by the Covid-19 pandemic. The first half of the 2019/2020 season, which for most leagues began in August or September of 2019, was business as usual; it was not until March of 2020 that the global pandemic changed the face of football for the remainder of the year.
*The indication of the arrows in the ranking is in comparison with the leagues’ positions in last year’s ranking. Scores for some leagues did improve, though they may have decreased in their ranking position.
Governance
This season, 35% percent of the 320 clubs researched have at least one female representative on the superior decisionmaking body (board) at the club. Sweden led the charge with female representatives at 14 of their 16 clubs.
“Corporate social responsibility is a hard-edged business decision. Not because it is a nice thing to do or because people are forcing us to do it… because it is good for our business.”
Niall Fitzgerald, Former CEO, Unilever
Community
30% percent of the 320 clubs researched provide the contact information of a Disability Access Officer. Of the 20 English Premier League clubs researched this season, all 20 clubs provided contact information for a Disability Access Officer (DAO); no other leagues had 100%, though 16 of 18 German clubs and 14 of 18 Japanese clubs also provided contact information.
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend‘s or of thine own were: any man‘s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”
John Donne
Environment
Of the 320 clubs researched this season, 8% of clubs play in stadiums which achieved an environmental certification. The majority of those stadiums, 42%, are from the German Bundesliga.
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, overcivilised people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.”
John Muir
Additional Key Issues
Each year, we discuss the three key topics governance, community and environment within the RESPONSIBALL ranking, these focused on 46 particular indicators that were chosen to represent universal commitments and activities that make the basis of a socially responsible club.
In this edition, we would like to offer a broader perspective, looking at some of the key issues that are not within the indicators, but that have stood out to us, both as football fans and sustainability professionals. The issues we have chosen to highlight do not represent all of the issues within football that are possible to discuss; we chose these because of their particular global relevance.
In the last section around good practices you can learn more about governance from FC Schalke O4 (Bundesliga – Germany), Getafe CF (La Liga – Spain), St. Mirren (Scottish Premier League) and NAC Breda (Eredivisie – Netherlands).
When it comes about good practices within community you can learn more from FC Lugano (Swiss Football League), Ulsan Hyundai (K League 1 – South Korea), AC Milan (Serie A – Italy) and Aalborg BK (Danish Superliga).
Lastly there are some good practices around environment from New York Red Bulls (Major League Soccer – USA/Canada), Club Necaxa (LigaMX – Mexico), Gamba Osaka (J League – Japan) and St. Pölten (Tipico Bundesliga – Austria).
This article is just highlighting the tenth annual ranking of international football leagues’ environmental, social and governance commitments, RESPONSIBALL. When reading this you should have been able to have some understanding about the work outside of the football pitch. In this report we have briefly explored: how the different football leagues are ranked according to the topics; Governance; Community; Environment.
In this article we share 2 tips to find a job in sports. Many people have a sports job as the dream job and therefore this article could help you get closer to your dream. The tips we are talking about is believing in yourself and creating your own experiences. You will also learn about permissionless work.
This article is based on a conversation our founder Jakob had as a guest on The Half Time Snacks Podcast where he shared many great tips but the focus in this article will be about 2 tips around how to find a job in sports.
Sport as a job is a dream job
The first advice to find a job in sports: If sport is the dream job, keep believing that you can make it. That’s the first thing.
The second piece of advice to find a job in sports is a bit longer. This is all about being creative and being an entrepreneur. If you are very creative and want to do stuff, take the entrepreneurial pathway into sports, it’s not a bad thing at all. It’s actually a good thing because you could actually build your own experiences. So if you think you have a resume where it basically says that you do not have any working experience in sports, then you might ask yourself: how can I get into a job in sports? Well, actually, you can build your own experiences.
You could launch your own podcast and actually learning a lot from its content creation. It’s like learning interviewing skills. And there are so many more skills being gained behind the scenes that you’re not thinking about right now. You can also run a blog, where you will learn a lot when you do your research. Both these two can be shared with people; you will actually create a lot of value. These things shouldn’t be thought of as something cheap, just a free time thing. It’s actually something that you can use in your own experiences for your future work.
And then just think of the mindset where you are trying to help as many as you can. It could be one person you help, but it could be 20 people too. Or why not 1 000. But start easy and smart. Start with that one person that you actually can help today. So building your own skills is one way to find a job in sports and just keep in mind that you always want to add value and help others.
If you want more advice about finding a job in sports you might like to read about this article too around how to build your sports job.
Permissionless work
Creating your own work and helping people without asking them first is also a concept called “permissionless work”. Basically, it is that you don’t really ask for permission to do something for someone. A guy called Jack Butcher from Twitter mentions this all the time. If there’s a company that you like to work for, just figure out the problem on their website or in their marketing, and just fix it. Publish it on the networks, or send it to them, or just do it and send an email to the CEO and be like, “Hey, you did this wrong, here’s how you should do it.” That’s how you can actually catch the attention of the people you want to work for or work with.
Conclusion
So to wrap this all up. There are many great ways to start to do right now and in this article we share 2 tips to find a job in sports. The first one is all about keep believing in yourself. You know and can do so much more than you think!
The second one is about adding value to other people and this could be done by creating your own working experiences like your own podcast, your own blog. Write or talk about things you find interesting and ask people to share their feedback. Learn from that and keep building. The more you build, the more experiences you got and can learn from and share with others.
The bonus advice is a concept called “permissionless work”. If you see problems in the sports industry, like a website or a newsletter that could be managed better, well write down your suggestion, build it and send it to them.
Time to share some highlights and what we have been doing under 2020. In this post, we share some important moments and steps for Sportidealisten’s development. We had a good start and then as the rest of the world, a pandemic hit all of us hard. However, we still saw growth and new ways to develop our services and this and a bit more will be shared.
Highlights of Sportidealisten 2020
While we all are excited that 2021 is finally here, 2020 was a good year for us – largely thanks to people like yourself who make us a part of your monthly routine! We couldn’t come to this point without you and therefore we want to highlight our year in review including the most popular reads 2020.
I developed into we. From being an one-man show we got two more people working hard and passionate about building the #1 sports jobs platform. With our innovative and open-minded mindsets and thanks to your loyalty and trust, we have managed to develop the website with an improved design and content which seems to be enjoyed by everyone. The same goes for our newsletter that has gotten some improvements.
In 2020 our founder and CEO, Jakob had the great opportunity to moderate a panel at the Creative Business Cup Sweden with world-class athletes. If you want to learn more about this, we shared a four part series about this (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4).
Soon after this we developed our list we call “the Passion List” where people looking for sports jobs can add themselves onto the list. A great feature in order to better connect future employees and employers in the sports industry and to provide impactful matches between hiring managers and job seekers in sports.
Covid-19 has also put many people out of work and we felt the urge to help out. Our job is to find yours and we want you to feel empowered and ready for a successful career in the sports industry. Therefore we developed another feature called “Develop your career“. We have shared lots of education that is free to learn on this page. Since we know how important personal development is, it is crucial to always learn something new every day and we hope that you have had the opportunity to do so.
Lastly, during 2020 we took another big step by creating the first-ever education for club directors in sports in Sweden together with Sportseminarier. We had a good mix of sports and the clubs were a great spread from around the country thanks to our online format.
Our vision
We believe that all sports bring a lot of engagement and emotions and that is why many of us want to work in sports. Our vision is to have a world where everyone can work with their passion.
I personally want to thank you for being part of Sportidealisten. Without you and your passion this platform and vision wouldn’t have been the same. As I usually am talking about it takes a lot of time to find the dream job in sports but also to find and recruit the best candidates. And from the start of Sportidealisten I have wanted to change this and I know that we can change this. Let us keep working to make employment in sports easy, fun and allow more people to work with their passion.
2020 Sportidealisten Recap
– 1 ➡️ 3 team members – Launched a new web design – 176% increase in monthly readership to the site – 208% increase in monthly pageviews – 134% increase in newsletter readers – Hosted a panel with 4 world elite athletes at the Creative Business Cup Sweden – Launched our education page – Launched the first-ever education for club directors in sports in Sweden in collaboration with Sportseminarier
Top reads 2020
Now a successful list we launched 2019 where we share the most popular reads from our newsletters during the past year. We can conclude that you like topics around:
Subscribe to our newsletters, your first step to a lifetime of knowledge in sports, that will make you inspired and empowered. Every month you can receive the latest insights, jobs, trends, and news from the world of sports. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Excited to stay in touch and if there’s anything we can help with in terms of jobs/career development/consulting services (administration, marketing, events etc), or if you have any other ideas for collaboration just reach out!
How to handle the pressure? And what about being solely responsible? As an athlete there are many great skills being developed like discipline, focus, goal setting and balance and those are not only for an athlete, their skills can be useful in other contexts too, for example in an entrepreneur’s environment. This is what we call transferable skills. During the spring of 2020, right at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak in Sweden, our founder Jakob had the opportunity to sit down at an entrepreneurial event with four elite athletes with extensive knowledge of personal durability, the knowledge that has given them a total of thirty Olympic and World Cup medals combined. In this article, we will share aboutpersonal durability, pressure and responsibility with the former boxer Klara Svensson. Klara recently finished her career as a professional boxer and has begun a new career as a sole business owner.
Transferable skills from athletes: Skills you gain as an athlete
This is a four-part series where we share the conversation from a panel discussion from an entrepreneurial competition during spring 2020. We have divided each athlete’s story and experience into a separate blog post. Usually, when we are talking about skills, we are talking about skills needed in different jobs. Job ads contain some required skills for a role or some preferable skills needed. Even if you don’t have that skill from previous job experiences you might already have the skill from other experiences. This is called a “transferable skill”.
If you have played sports you probably have learned about teamwork, goal setting, or showing respect. This is something you could bring into your future job, which means, you transfer the skills into something else, like from youth sports to a job. Therefore, transferable skills. You could basically acquire skills from other experiences in life than your current job, but also from one industry into another. For example, what can we learn from athletes?
In the first part of the Transferable skills from competitive athletes four-part series we share a great story from Susanna Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists and she explained how to develop the secret to her successes and why it is her strongest skill. After that we had the second part Skills you gain as an athlete – Balance and focus where one of the best Martial Arts athletes, William share about the importance of balance and focus. And then in the latest article, we had Rob Haans, who has won three individual world championship gold medals and has been the coach of the Swedish national team in jujutsu. He shares about, among other things, how curiosity has given him success and how important it is to create a strong team.
In the fourth part of the series about personal durability we meet the former boxer Klara Svensson, who talks about the importance of working systematically without making excuses. Klara recently finished her career as a professional boxer and has begun a new career as a sole business owner. She joined during the Swedish final of The Creative Business Cup on the 12th March to share her experiences with entrepreneurs. An athlete must be prepared to constantly think and rethink in order to be successful – and the same is true for someone that runs a startup. Klara Svensson has gone from being part of a team to training alone as a professional boxer with an emphasis on the individual.
Klara Svensson has recently ended her career as a boxer. As an amateur she won several Swedish Championship gold medals, and a total of five silver and bronze at the World and European Championships. She fought in twenty fights as a professional boxer and won five titles, including winning the WBC interim welterweight title and light-welterweight.
Klara Svensson – you have experience being both an entrepreneur and athlete. Is it easier for athletes to put themselves at the center?
– As an athlete you often need to be selfish, but many people respect that because athletes have clear goals. As an entrepreneur it can be more difficult, but even as an entrepreneur you must be able to demand a lot from yourself and your surroundings.
How do you handle pressure?
– I have been under pressure many times. In professional boxing a fight can be very crucial for survival. I remember early on in my career seeing Armand Krajnc at a gala and I was nervous to see him alone in the big arena and by how much focus there was on him. But attention is something that you grow into and mature to. One method can be mental training and to prepare yourself by questioning what will happen if the match goes to hell. The world actually goes on.
How have you handled injuries and illness and what has it taught you?
– I have not had too many injuries, but I often became sick during hard training periods prior to big matches. Now in hindsight I can see that should have trained differently and demanded a different training schedule. It is difficult to appreciate this when you feel a lot of stress to get in shape and have many workouts to cope with. As an entrepreneur it is important to identify where the energy is and to see how it can be distributed in the long run. It is important to know yourself and to stop basing yourself off other people’s agenda. We are all different and it can be good to dare to step outside the box.
You have told us that your trainer worked according to certain guidelines – what significance has this had on you?
– My trainer was principled and disciplinary, and it takes clear leaders to move forward. I learned to never lie or be dishonest with training and that it takes patience to become good. It is important to work in a systematic way without making excuses or dodging responsibility.
How to deal with pressure and be solely responsible
As a professional boxer you are often on your own without teammates. What has it been like to work alone?
– Ever since I turned professional, I have trained alone. I knew that I did not have any teammates to hide behind. I have grown into the notion that I have to deliver and that is part of the charm of it. It is both demanding and wonderful to be solely responsible.
You have recently retired as a boxer. How should you prepare yourself for life after sport?
– In Sweden we are generally bad at taking care of former elite athletes. We don’t have that culture. I had aspirations and plans, and early on got an assignment in the media. Both as an athlete and as an entrepreneur it is good to have a plan B, or else the uncertainty can cause stress. And that’s not good if you, as an entrepreneur, have a constant fear of bankruptcy and panic.
If you missed the first or second or third part about Mental strength, Balance and Focus, teamwork and Values Curiosity check them out here.
This story is made by Caroline Wendt at Future By Lund and the original story comes from here: Personal durability, Part 4: Klara Svensson “It is both demanding and wonderful to be solely responsible”.
We want to help more people finding their dream job and also feed you with the latest news and lessons form the sports world. Do you have any feedback or advice or news, please share that to us. You can contact us or reach out LinkedIn.
See you soon with more lessons learned from the sports field that will enhance your creativity and your career in sports.
What makes a leader successful? What does it mean to be a transformational leader? In this article, we will talk about modern leadership from the football context. We talk about building trust and put the group together. One of the innovative leaders from the sports context that revolutionised leadership and football is Pep Guardiola. You will learn why he used a utilitarian approach and a charismatic approach in his leadership and why he needed to have players who trusted each other and him.
3 leaders who changed the leadership forever
This is the third and final part of the miniseries about leaders who changed the leadership forever. In this third article, we will introduce the story about Pep Guardiola, why he became a better coach with less trophies and how to be successful.
Leadership lessons from 3 football managers who changed the sport forever
If you haven’t read the first or the second part of this miniseries, make sure to jump over there to read more about the growing field of leadership, what leadership is and the introduction about the three football coaches that changed the way to lead in football.
Education about leadership is growing exponentially, it has become a multibillion-dollar industry. Leadership education can be provided in many different formats like conferences, certifications, human resource training, seminars from leadership gurus, coaching, books, and even post-graduation courses. But all of these formats can also be taught and learned from the sports context, particularly in football management.
If you still haven’t read part 1 or 2 you might want to understand what we mean by leadership. In the first article in this miniseries, we looked at leadership as the process (act) of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement.
The groupthinking manager – Pep Guardiola
The 2007-08 season was the second successive trophy-less season for FC Barcelona. And the departure of the then first-team manager, Frank Rijkaard, was confirmed after a 4-1 defeat by the hands of arch-rivals Real Madrid on 8 May 2008. On the recommendation of Johan Cruyff, FC Barcelona promoted their second-team coach, Pep Guardiola, as the Barca First Team Head Coach ahead of a more prominent contender, Jose Mourinho[1]. During his playing days, Guardiola was promoted from academy to the FC Barcelona first team by Cruyff only. Having spent a significant part of his playing career under Cruyff, there was a strong analogy in their coaching styles and football philosophies. Pep was the most exceptional Cruyff disciple not only in promoting the typical Barcelona brand of football but also in emulating the Dutch’s transformational style of leadership.
The charasmatic and creative manager – Pep Gaurdiola
Guardiola, who is now a charismatic leader worldwide due to his achievements over the last decade, was a transformational leader when he started his football management career. Immediately after the appointment, the Catalonian manager stated that the most enigmatic players of the team, like Ronaldinho, Eto, and Deco, were not part of his plans and will be sold. He made radical improvements in FC Barcelona’s existing playing style and implemented an upgraded version of Cruyff’s ‘Total Football’ style. He popularized Tiki-Taka and invented the ‘False 9’ football formation.[2] Tiki Taka refers to a playing method comprising of short passes, the domination of possession, and ball retention through pressing. Also, he leveled up Cruyff’s ‘Total Football’ by involving the goalkeeper as an extra outfield player. Pep restricted players of his team from playing aerial balls. As a creative manager, Pep added new football training methods in order to align players with his philosophy. One such example of strange Guardiola methods was short-sided games with goals facing outwards. He developed this method to restrict players from attempting long shots. Hence, the teams can only score a goal in an outward-facing goal by passing through the goal line and tapping in from short distances. He also created several other drills to train the players on how to play in tight spaces and create overloads.
Lead with the group
Pep took an autocratic approach in implementing his postmodernist (unorthodox) style of playing football, and the players who were resistant to adopting his system were distanced. Guardiola was never shy of benching or substituting expensive signings like Zlatan Ibrahimovic when they didn’t play according to his football philosophy.
As a leader, Guardiola has a zero-tolerance policy towards players who did not align with his football philosophy or influenced groupthink (groupism) and discipline in the team. He showed this in Barcelona by selling Ronaldinho, Eto, and Deco and repeated the same at Manchester City, where he sidelined Joe Hart. Pep identifies unity within the team on and off the pitch vital for the success of his playing style and getting desired results. As a result of which, Pep never felt insecure about promoting utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest number[3]) by eradicating troublesome players irrespective of their international reputation and influence in the club.
Trust your teammates
Transformational leaders engage in actions that gain the trust of their followers and that in turn result in desirable outcomes[4]. One of the crucial principles of Guardiola’s football philosophy and leadership style is ‘trust your teammates’[5]. Trust within the team can be witnessed on the pitch through equal involvement of all the players (including the goalkeeper). The centre backs are never insecure about passing the ball to the goalkeeper. Off the pitch, Pep utilized the tool of trust to a significant effect through his talks, actions, and team selections. The most famous example of Pep’s trust was the selection of Eric Abidal in the starting lineup at the 2011 Champions League final. Abidal had returned to the Barca squad not so long ago having been treated for cancer and was not 100% match fit. Eric’s inclusion worked as a catalyst to inspire the entire team to a memorable victory against a star-studded Manchester United at the Wembley Stadium.
Guardiola utilized the tight-loose approach in his leadership to a significant effect. On the one hand, he was very strict on diets, body weights, and training of his players while, on the other hand, he gave them regular day-offs. In the documentary, Take the Ball, Pass the Ball, Thierry Henry identified a stark contrast in match preparations of Arsenal under Wenger and Barcelona under Pep. At Arsenal, the whole team spent a night before the match at the hotel so that the management staff can keep track of diet and activities of the players. Alternatively, Henry recalls himself spending time with his family and friends at a hotel room in Rome one night before he won the Champions League with FC Barcelona in 2009. According to Pep, giving players time with their families was essential to get them off from the excess pressure before the big matches.
How to become a better coach
After supremely successful four seasons with FC Barcelona, where Pep won fourteen trophies out of possible nineteen, he joined Bayern Munich. At Bayern, Pep replaced the treble (Bundesliga, DFB Pokal, and Champions League) winning coach Jupp Heynckes. Pep’s agility and resilience were severely tested during his time at Bayern Munich. Promoting Cruyff’s football at Franz Beckenbauer’s club was bound to have challenges. Pep admitted that he became a better coach at Bayern than his time in Barcelona, where the things were pretty straightforward with Messi in his side. He has to work hard to find new sets of combinational plays, formations, and other alternative ways to penetrate defenses in the Bundesliga. Pep was not only tested on the field but off the ground as well, with several critics and journalists questioning his squad selection decisions. His resilience was severely gauged whenever he excluded Gotze, Muller, or Lewandowski from the starting eleven. Moreover, his performance was frequently compared to his accomplishments in Barcelona.[6]
Ultimately, Pep managed to win seven out of possible fourteen trophies in his three seasons with the Bavarian club, but he was not able to lead Bayern to any European glory. However, he upgraded his personality with a new approach – learn from the mistakes and move on. The stubborn ex-Barcelona manager became more agile, versatile, matured, resilient, and modest from his relatively less accomplishing period at FC Bayern Munich.
A rejuvenated and upgraded Pep is now a charismatic leader at Manchester City Football Club, where he won the Premier League with a record points total of 100 in the year 2018. He further improved his standards next year and made Manchester City the first club in England to win domestic quadruple in men’s football.
Modern leadership lessons from Pep Guardiola in bullet points
Innovative thinking and futuristic approach are the characteristics of a successful leader
Eradicate groupthink (aka groupism) within the organization
As a leader, advocate for utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest number)
Trust members of your organization and also inspire them to trust their fellow teammates
Adopt the tight-loose approach to get the best out of your people
An agile and resilient leader takes an organization to unprecedented success
A great leader humbly accepts failures, learns from mistakes, improves and moves on
Conclusion, what modern and transformational leadership is all about
From the abovementioned well-known football management examples, it can be concluded that leadership is a skill of inspiring an organized group to pursue a particular philosophy, a process, a method to achieve the desired goal. Cruyff, Wenger and Pep Guardiola reinvented football by convincing their respective teams to follow the new ideas, playing styles, formations, diet regulations, and training regimes which seemed weird at the beginning.
The trio utilized the transformational style of leadership to abruptly challenge the status quo of football. However, their respective styles slightly differed from each other because of their respective social constructionisms (cognition and personal upbringings), the context of respective football clubs and the timing of their appointments. These advocators of the postmodernist (unorthodox and relatively new) style of football exploited important elements like trust, communication, coaching, agility, resilience, innovation, utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest number), tight-loose approach, and Taylorism (create efficient work processes) in their leadership to cope with the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world.
Additionally, they also showed agility in improving and sometimes altering their leadership styles whenever needed due to the changing circumstances. Their leadership was not only limited to the success they achieved through the trophies they won but also through their contribution towards the development of football cultures in the clubs they served for and beyond.
This was the third part of the miniseries about leaders who changed the leadership forever.
If you missed out from the first or the second part about Johan Cruyjff and Arsene Wenger, you can head over to the first and second part about leaders who changed the leadership forever here.
Postmodernism – A complex set of ideas that emerged in the later part of the twentieth century which promotes dynamics in roles, shifting of power, blurred boundaries among groups and individuals’ sensemaking, and horizontal interconnections rather than vertical hierarchies in an organization[7].
Groupthink – A phenomenon sometimes occurring in very highly cohesive groups in which group members are more concerned with maintaining group spirit than in making the most realistic decisions[8].
Utilitarianism – Utilitarianism in simple language can be defined as the greatest good for the greatest number[9].
Transformational Leadership – An ideal style of leadership which promotes innovation. Transformational leadership can be defined as the set of five observable and learnable practices: challenge familiar organizational practices, inspire a shared vision among employees, enable employees to act in accordance with their vision, model the way for employees to perform, and encourage employees through recognition and celebration of success. In this type of leadership, a leader takes risks and initiates radical changes[10].
Social Constructionism – A philosophical approach to understand how people make sense of, and act in relation to, other people, their interactions and the contexts in which these take place[11].
Taylorism – A modernistic approach developed by Fredrick Winslow Taylor to create efficient work processes for the organizations[12].
Charismatic Leadership – Charismatic Leadership refers to the type of leadership in which the followers follow the leader because of emotions rather than calculations. They are inspired to enthusiastically give unquestioned obedience, loyalty, commitment, and devotion to the leader and to the cause that the leader represents[13].
We want to help more people finding their dream job and also feed you with the latest news and lessons form the sports world. Do you have any feedback or advice or news, please share that to us. You can contact us or reach out LinkedIn.
See you soon with more lessons learned from the sports field that will enhance your creativity and your career in sports.
[3] Mill, J.S., 2016. Utilitarianism. In Seven masterpieces of philosophy (pp. 337-383). Routledge.
[4] Podsakoff, P., MacKenzie, S., Moorman, R., & Fetter, R. (1990). Transformational leader behaviors and their effects on followers’ trust in leader, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Leadership Quarterly, 1, 107–142.
[6] Perarnau, M., 2016. Pep Guardiola: The Evolution. Birlinn Ltd.
[7] Stokes, P. (2016) ‘Chapter 3: Using critical approaches in managing people and organizations’ in Stokes, P., Moore, N., Smith, S., Rowland, C. and Scott, P (2016) Organizational Management. London. Kogan Page, 51-66.
[8] Janis, I.L., 1972. Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes.
[9] Mill, J.S., 2016. Utilitarianism. In Seven masterpieces of philosophy (pp. 337-383). Routledge.
[10] Bass, B.M., 1985. Leadership and performance beyond expectations. Collier Macmillan. Howell, J.M. and Higgins, C.A., 1990. Leadership behaviors, influence tactics, and career experiences of champions of technological innovation. The Leadership Quarterly, 1(4), pp.249-264.
[11] Stokes, P., 2011. Critical concepts in management and organization studies: Key terms and concepts. Macmillan International Higher Education.
[12] Stokes, P. (2016) ‘Chapter 3: Using critical approaches in managing people and organizations’ in Stokes, P., Moore, N., Smith, S., Rowland, C. and Scott, P (2016) Organizational Management. London. Kogan Page, 51-66.
[13] House, R.J., 1976. A 1976 Theory of Charismatic Leadership. Working Paper Series 76-06.
This is the third article in our four-part series discovering what transferable skills we can learn and gain from sports. As an athlete there are many great skills being developed like teamwork, curiosity, and values and those are not only for an athlete, these skills can be useful in other contexts too, for example in an entrepreneur’s environment. In this article, we get an interesting insight Rob Haans, who has won three individual world championship gold medals and has been the coach of the Swedish national team in jujutsu. He talks about, among other things, how curiosity has given him success and how important it is to create a strong team.
Transferable skills from athletes: Skills you gain as an athlete
This is a four-part series where we share the conversation from a panel discussion from an entrepreneurial competition during spring 2020. We have divided each athlete’s story and experience into a separate blog post. Usually, when we are talking about skills, we are talking about skills needed in different jobs. Job ads contain some required skills for a role or some preferable skills needed. Even if you don’t have that skill from previous job experiences you might already have the skill from other experiences. This is called a “transferable skill”. Learn more about transferable skills here.
In the first part of the Transferable skills from competitive athletes four-part series we share a great story from Susanna Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists and she explained how to develop the secret to her successes and why it is her strongest skill. After that we had the second part Skills you gain as an athlete – Balance and focus where one of the best Martial Arts athletes, William share about the importance of balance and focus.
In the third part of our series about transferable skills from competitive athletes we meet Rob Haans, who has won three individual world championship gold medals and has been the coach of the Swedish national team in jujutsu. He talks about, among other things, how curiosity, teamwork and values has given him success and how important it is to create a strong team.
When competing in jujutsu, Rob Haans won three world championship gold medals and became the first to do in three different weight classes. On two occasions he won the World Games (Olympic Games for sports outside of the Olympic program). He competed for Holland but has been the coach of the Swedish national team for nine years.
What goal has driven you – is it money and medals?
– Not at all. Of course, it would have been much easier if I had earned money, but I started with the sport because I wanted to exercise. I originally competed in judo, but an injury meant that my coach recommended jujutsu as rehab. When I started with jujutsu, I was already a trainer in Fitness and Martial Arts. I was curious about new sports and jujutsu appealed to my creative side. So, I began to compete and joined the national team and felt that I could develop as an athlete and person by continuing. My coach put the person first, then the athlete. It is a concept that I have adopted as a red thread throughout my whole career – both as an athlete and then as a coach.
How do you ‘crack the code’ for a new sport?
– Something you should never take away from yourself is curiosity and to be open. You should never forget your inner child. As a Dutch person this is part of our culture – to first try and then decide. You should not settle with being the best in your own world, but rather be open and surprised by what others are doing and not to close any doors. Curiosity is key.
After your competitive career you became the coach of the Swedish national team. In a short time there has been almost one hundred championship medals won. Why is this?
– I think it was important that at the first camp I made it clear that despite being Dutch, I work for Sweden and we are a team that is doing this together, what we call teamwork. Each person is on their own on the floor, but without each other we have nothing. Right from the start we set values and created a strong culture. We lost many athletes in the beginning who did not want to go along with this, but we gained others that succeeded in winning medals. The deputy coach Michael Kuntz and I started what we called Team Sweden Jujutsu – but the official name was the “Swedish Jujutsu National Team”. We thought it was important that Team came first, as we put the culture and values of the team as the most important thing.
Togetherness and teamwork have always been the focus, but at the same time everyone in the team has had the opportunity to develop individually and we have always placed an emphasis on individual driving forces and personal requirements. We want to train them to be athletes instead of “just” doing what we say. We hope they have learned to take responsibility on their own and be able to enjoy their own sporting career.
– Being a team was pivotal even in the national team management. We shared visions and values with the team and there was a sense of responsibility and a high-quality standard in all the coaches. I am extremely grateful that I have had the honor of working with them all these years!
– After nine years working with the national team, we hosted the World Championships at the Baltic Hall in Malmö. During the team competition it was William Seth-Wenzel who, after winning gold individually, took on a leadership role and guided the team so that they actively decided what was a good preparation for the team competition. It was a fantastic experience for us all. The athletes took it on themselves and did what felt right, finally taking home a bronze medal, which was a big deal. We had developed a culture with strong values that gave this result and it felt much better than any individual medal. In doing so, we got the reward for everything we had worked on from the beginning. Team, We, Hard work, Take responsibility, Enjoy and Pride are keywords that were shared by everyone who competed in the Baltic Hall during the team competition and afterward.
Individual versus teamwork
Rob, you have also worked with groups and teams as part of xPlot. What is it you are doing?
– My colleagues at xPlot have a long background in innovation and entrepreneurship and they see the link with the sport, because in many ways it set the same requirements on the individual. The answer to how to move forward with a business concept is not always envisaged alone, but it can be good to have someone that explains how to proceed. An important part is to see how you can establish a business and still have a life. You should always make it able to last.
How can an entrepreneur have a sustainable personal life?
– Those working in startups are in many ways like elite athletes with a strong desire to achieve something. You are looking for opportunities but may not have all the knowledge required. Then you get to see who can help to build a team. You cannot do everything alone without needing other people around you. Whoever builds a strong team has the greatest chance to succeed.
If you missed the first or second or fourth part about Mental strength, Balance and Focus, Pressure and Solely responsible check them out here.
In the last and final part (part 4) will learn about the professional boxer Klara Svensson, who talks about the importance of working systematically without any side-stepping or excuses.
This story is made by Caroline Wendt at Future By Lund and the original story comes from here: Personal durability, Part 3: Rob Haans “Whoever builds a strong team has the greatest chance to succeed”.
We want to help more people finding their dream job and also feed you with the latest news and lessons form the sports world. Do you have any feedback or advice or news, please share that to us. You can contact us or reach out LinkedIn.
See you soon with more lessons learned from the sports field that will enhance your creativity and your career in sports.
We are so happy to share in this post more about the award our founder Jakob Wikenstaal recently received, as a young entrepreneur and innovator. Jakob won the award SKAPA for young talents. In this post, we will explain what SKAPA is and why Jakob won.
When you are reading this, you have probably already read this news but since we are proud to have our founder as one of the winners of the SKAPA Talang award, we wanted to share it with you. This is an award for young entrepreneurs and innovators in Sweden and Jakob Wikenstaal was one of the winners of 2020.
Words from the young innovator Jakob Wikenstaal
It is so fun when you get feedback. I am also grateful that I can get results and show that I never give up. Recently, I took part in Sweden’s biggest innovation award and I received an award as a young innovator. I won the prize, SKAPA talent – for young innovators in Skåne, a competition for people who are under 30 years old.
Once again, I am so happy and grateful 😃.
Why did I win? Well, I have won for the idea, Sportidealisten. If you aren’t aware of what we do and our idea, then here you go:
Sportidealisten is a niche solution for match making with sports jobs.
Vision of Sportidealisten
The vision of Sportidealisten is to have a world where everyone can work with their passion. We believe that people work better and longer if they have a passion for their work and in our perspective that is a passion for sports.
“Wikenstål has created a niche solution for recruiting employees and matching dream jobs in the sports industry. The principle is not new, but applying to a niche industry is an incremental innovation. This young entrepreneur (28 years) will be exciting to follow in the future.”
– Johan Olsén, Business Manager, Almi Företagspartner Skåne AB
SKAPA award – Sweden’s Innovation award for innovators
The SKAPA award is Sweden’s biggest innovation award, with the aim of providing support to inventors in order to develop their ideas. SKAPA is a foundation founded in the memory of Alfred Nobel in 1985 and awarded its first prize in 1986.
This prestigious prize, SKAPA Talang is awarded to the talents of the future. The prize is awarded to the young person or persons who have made the most deserving efforts in terms of innovation and creativity, the development of products and services that can lead to commercial opportunities. The award gives power to the innovation climate in Sweden.
We want to help more people finding their dream job and also feed you with the latest news and lessons form the sports world. Do you have any feedback or advice or news, please share that to us. You can contact us or reach out LinkedIn.
See you soon with more lessons learned from the sports field that will enhance your creativity and your career in sports.
As an athlete there are many great skills being developed like discipline, focus, goal setting and balance and those are not only for an athlete, their skills can be useful in other contexts too, for example in an entrepreneur’s environment. This is what we call transferable skills. During the spring of 2020, right at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak in Sweden, our founder Jakob had the opportunity to sit down at an entrepreneurial event with four elite athletes with extensive knowledge of personal durability, the knowledge that has given them a total of thirty Olympic and World Cup medals combined. In this article, one of Sweden’s most successful Martial Artist, William Seth-Wenzel, will share, among other things, how to put yourself first and to ask for help when it is needed in order to find the optimal balance and focus!
Transferable skills from athletes: Skills you gain as an athlete
This is a four-part series where we share the conversation from a panel discussion from an entrepreneurial competition during spring 2020. We have divided each athlete’s story and experience into a separate blog post. Usually, when we are talking about skills, we are talking about skills needed in different jobs. Job ads contain some required skills for a role or some preferable skills needed. Even if you don’t have that skill from previous job experiences you might already have the skill from other experiences. This is called a “transferable skill”.
If you have played sports you probably have learned about teamwork, goal setting, or showing respect. This is something you could bring into your future job, which means, you transfer the skills into something else, like from youth sports to a job. Therefore, transferable skills. You could basically acquire skills from other experiences in life than your current job, but also from one industry into another. For example, what can we learn from athletes?
In the first part of the Transferable skills from competitive athletes four-part series we share a great story from Susanna Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists and she explained how to develop the secret to her successes and why it is her strongest skill. But you can also head over to the next part, part 3 with the unique world champion.
In this second part we will learn how to find balance and focus and why those skills are valuable to transfer into your daily life. William Seth-Wenzel is a martial artist with both World and European Championship gold in jujutsu. In 2019 he was named the Champion of the Year and Martial Artist of the Year at Kampsportgalan.
Athletes must balance short- and long-term plans and it is important for them to feel good and be resilient in order for them to achieve consistent results. Even if you do something that you really love, you may sometimes need to take a break or talk with someone that can offer new points of attack to the challenges you face. Below is the transcribed version from the panel discussion.
William Seth-Wenzel – what drives you to persevere with sports?
– Mainly, it is because I love the sport and get something out of it. As long as I feel that I am developing and have goals to fight for, I will continue. When it becomes more draining than fun and rewarding, then I quit – or should quit. You can continue to fight if you see there is a future beyond that is within reach, or else it will not work in the long run. I think many business owners can feel that type of stress and maybe let it get too much.
Mental health is a topic that has been widely discussed within sports in recent years. You have won European and World Championships but have also talked with a sports psychologist – explain why?
– To start with, I did not end up there voluntarily. It was the coach that gave me the opportunity to talk with someone because I was going through a period where I was less happy than usual. My first thought was “as an athlete I shouldn’t need this, I compete as a weapon”. In retrospect, I noticed how much it helped and that the psychologist made me think differently. He offered a solution that only he could give because he was outside of my usual world. The solution was focused on me and the more I visited the psychologist, the better my results became. My advice is to have the courage to seek help in time and take the opportunity to work more proactively.
A high level of discipline is required by elite athletes and many are forced to choose between friends and training. What are your thoughts?
– Elite athletes sacrifice many things, but I don’t want to sacrifice things that I think are important. I need a life as an athlete and a life outside of it. If I need to give up something that is important, I will reprioritize. Perhaps I can shorten one of my sessions by half an hour. You need to make sure that the right things are sacrificed, or else you may not enjoy it. Prior to the last World Championship, I was feeling stressed out and had several things I wanted to take part in at the same time. I was studying full-time at KTH, I wanted to spend time with friends, I had a part-time job and I was unsure whether I would be able to push it all aside. I did it my way and added all the things in life I find important and that I want to keep. I trained less but in a more effective way and this gave me more time for other things, which made me happy, focused and balance in life.
How can you create a sustainable personal life as an entrepreneur?
– Dare to be selfish! Focus on yourself first, then help others and be an inclusive person.
Find your balance and focus with a challenge
There are many athletes that have been challenged in their lives around the competitions. Should they compete for their own sake or someone else’s will? Everyone, even athletes needs to find balance in their lives. One of the greatest heptathlon athletes, Carolina Klüft lost her motivation and focus even though she was the best athlete in her sport. So what happened? Instead of competing in that sport she moved to long jumping. She wasn’t the best one in this sport, but she found joy and balance in her life and her athletic career. Another one that has done a similar thing in 2020 is Stina Nilsson. One of the greatest cross-country skiers and she decided in April 2020 to change the sport to biathlon. Once again, to find joy, to find balance and focus in her life.
If you are not familiar with these two, then what about Michael Jordan? Perhaps did you like most of us sports interested people watch Michael Jordan’s documentary series on Netflix, The Last Dance? Did you think about that he stopped playing basketball for a while? He actually started a career in baseball in order to find balance and focus in his life. Even though if you are the greatest in your sport, you are the one who should decide your life. Maybe a new challenge like Klûft, Nilsson or Jordan is the way to go in order to find balance and focus in your life? Like Seth-Wenzel, dare to be selfish and learn how you work at your best. Focus and Balance are transferable skills you can use in other contexts too, just remember that it is okay to make your own decisions.
If you missed the first or third or fourth part about Mental strength, Teamwork and Values curiosity, Pressure and Solely responsible check them out here.
In the next part about transferable skills from athletes, we speak with Rob Haans, who explains the importance of putting people in focus and the significance of the team for both athletes and entrepreneurs. Rob Haans has his own experience as a triple world champion in jujutsu and as the team captain for the Swedish jujutsu national team.
This story is made by Caroline Wendt at Future By Lund and the original story comes from here: Personal durability, part 2: Martial artist William Seth-Wenzel talks about why you should dare to ask for help.
We want to help more people finding their dream job and also feed you with the latest news and lessons form the sports world. Do you have any feedback or advice or news, please share that to us. You can contact us or reach out LinkedIn.
See you soon with more lessons learned from the sports field that will enhance your creativity and your career in sports.
Leadership is nothing that only exists within the corporate world, it is a core factor in the world of sports. In this article, we will talk about modern leadership and how to be efficient, especially look into how this has been adopted in a sports context. One of the innovators that revolutionised the game of football and developed a new leadership is Arsene Wenger, also called “Le Professeur”. You will learn why the single ingredient is called efficiency and why you should remain true to your values and trust the process.
3 leaders who changed the leadership forever
This is the second part of the miniseries about leaders who changed the leadership forever. In this second article, we will introduce the story about Arsen Wenger, why he wanted to be efficient and how to be efficient, like for example changing the diet and changing the status quo.
Leadership lessons from 3 football managers who changed the sport forever
If you haven’t read the first part of this miniseries, make sure to jump over there to read more about the growing field of leadership, what leadership is and the introduction about the three football coaches that changed the way to lead in football.
Education about leadership is growing exponentially, it has become a multibillion-dollar industry. Leadership education can be provided in many different formats like conferences, certifications, human resource training, seminars from leadership gurus, coaching, books, and even post-graduation courses. But all of these formats can also be taught and learned from the sports context, particularly in football management.
If you still haven’t read part 1 you might want to understand what we mean by leadership. In the first article in this miniseries, we look at leadership as the process (act) of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement.
How to be efficient as a leader in the world of football
Johan Cruyff, Arsene Wenger, and Pep Guardiola. These managers not only reinvented the way of training and playing Football but also made it more understandable and exciting for the viewers. In the rest of this article we will look into Wenger’s lengthy spell with Arsenal, a radical change in the way football was play and how to be efficient as a leader.
The following piece will cover some of the most common terminologies used in Leadership literature with their academic definitions at the end.
The exotic manager – Arsene Wenger
Arsenal is regarded as one of the first football clubs in England to introduce organizationalambidexterity. On the one hand, the club considered the construction of a new stadium to exploit its growing fan following while, on the other hand, the Gunners wished to explore a unique form of football at the same time. Motivated from the increasing culture of the expensive style of play throughout Europe, Arsenal appointed an exotic French football manager, Arsene Wenger, in the year 1996. Wenger’s social constructionism mostly influenced his transformational leadership at Arsenal, which you will learn more about further down.
Arsene’s father, who was forced to fight for the Nazis in the Second World War, worked as the manager of his village football team. Arsene completed his degree in Economics from France while he was playing football semi-professionally. Wenger’s entire football playing career was in France. After initial football management assignments were in his home country, he had a brief managerial stint in Japan with Nagoya Grampus Eight before joining Arsenal.[1] All abovementioned life events had a substantial influence on Wenger’s decisions and coaching methods in England.
As typical French, Wenger had massive admiration for art and culture. He used to see football as the thing of art. Wenger’s artistic football philosophy of progression via possession was based on short passes and accurate movement of players. Some of the team goals Arsenal scored during the Wenger era were as delightful as an extraordinary piece of art (including Wilshere’s goal against Norwich). Additionally, his signings of classy players like Dennis Bergkamp and Mesut Ozil underlined his love for elegance.
In order to show what we mean with the artistic philosophy, here are Top 5 Arsenal Team goals in Wenger’s Era
How to create efficient work processes
Wenger’s modern leadership with attention to detail and Taylorism (create efficient work processes) in player development and football coaching gave him the name of ‘Le Professeur’ (the Teacher) by the English media and fans. He initiated the French Revolution at Arsenal through his transformational leadership inspired by his social constructionism and Taylorism. Wenger is regarded as the first football manager to introduce sports science, food supplementation, and diet regimes to enhance the efficiency and performance of the players.[2] His idea of combining technology with diet and football can be contributed to his time in Japan, a country which is considered as one of the pioneers in technology and scientific research.[3] He abolished the drinking culture at Arsenal upon his arrival. According to a famous Arsenal player during the Wenger era, Ian Wright, Arsene restricted players from the consumption of sugar. The manager even considered an improvement in the food chewing habits of the players to increase their efficiency. By doing so, he and his management team believed that the food is absorbed as soon as it ingested.[4]
Having spent almost entire life in France, Wenger was socially constructed in French organizations, which are mostly iceberg-styled. Being the boss at the club, Wenger was unarguable. His strict and disciplined behaviour can also be seen as the result of the military background of his family. Initially, the players felt monotonous and uncomfortable, but as soon as the positive results followed, the attitude of the player towards the leadership of Arsene started to become optimistic. According to Ian Wright, because of amendments in diet and training methods, the Arsenal players were transformed into high performing machines. The players remained injury-free and got less tired during the matches. Their fitness complemented Wenger’s modern leadership and philosophy of progression via possession style of playing football.[5]
Another feature of Wenger’s modern leadership was the identification of undervalued and underdeveloped players and then utilizing his technical coaching skills and psychological training techniques to enhance their performance, productivity, and value. One of the most excellent examples of Arsene’s expertise in player development was the legend of Thierry Henry. Upon Henry’s arrival at Arsenal in 1999, the ex-Monaco winger was not confident to play at the centre forward position and told Wenger that he couldn’t score goals. In addition to countless hours spent on the training ground, Wenger utilized his mentorship by promising Henry to give ample opportunities irrespective of the number of goals he will score. Later, Thierry Henry went on to become the all-time highest goal scorer in the club’s history with 232 goals in all competitions.
From a transformational leadership to a charismatic leadership
Arsene’s education in economics along with his knowledge of football gave him the title of ‘King of Transfers’. He revolutionized the player scouting and recruitment system with his futuristic ideas. He was ahead of the time as he started exploiting the use of data analytics and worldwide scouting networks before it became a standard in the football industry. Wenger recruited players like Sylvain Wiltord, Dennis Bergkamp, and Marc Overmars who were initially regarded as small and weak for the highly physical English football but went on to become supremely successful Premier League players later. One prominent example of Arsene’s eye for talent was Nicolas Anelka. On the recommendation of Wenger, Anelka was signed by Arsenal for a reported fee of £684,000 from Paris Saint-Germain in the year 1997.[6] Two years later, he was subsequently sold to Real Madrid for a transfer fee of £22.3 million.[7]
As a result of the growing international popularity of the club, the Highbury Stadium’s capacity of 38,419 started to feel less. In the year 2001, the club was granted permission to build a new stadium with capacity more than 60,000. The £390 million stadium project was given a green light by the Arsenal management prioritizing utilitarianism (the greatest good for the greatest number) over the forthcoming financial pressures. Wenger was the fundamental part of Arsenal’s loan repayment of £260 million for the construction of the Emirates Stadium. He has to alter his leadership style from transformational to charismatic to attract new players to the club while keeping hold of the best players under growing financial pressure. The impact of charismatic leadership was so immense that the major banks granted further loans to the club depending on the contract duration of Wenger.[8]
The result of the modern leadership, how to be efficient by Arsene Wenger
Arsene’s tayloristic approach helped Arsenal to plan and develop the modern state of the art Arsenal academy. He not only emphasized making the most technically advanced academy but also granted first-team opportunities to several academy graduates. After 22 years of service, in 2018 Arsene Wenger left Arsenal with 3 Premier League Trophies, 7 FA Cups and 7 Community Shields. His most remarkable achievement was winning the Premier League without losing a single game throughout the 2003-04 season, a feat that is yet to be achieved again by any other Premier League team to date.
Summary of leaders who changed the leadership forever – Arsene Wenger
All in all, the entire life of Arsene Wenger is nothing less than a modern leadership lesson in itself. As a true leader, Wenger learned from his experiences throughout his life. From a disciplined lifestyle inspired by his ex-military father to his education in economics, he utilized his upbringing to his and Arsenal’s advantage. The French manager was never afraid of challenging the status quo whether it is the typical style of play or prevalent drinking culture in English football. There were several instances when his methods were questioned by players, media, and fellow managers. However, Wenger remained true to his values and trusted the process of how to be efficient. With time, the team’s performances improved both on and off the pitch. And all his critics who doubted Wenger, in the beginning, were left with no option but to applause.
Another important lesson from Wenger’s life is staying focused on your vision while remaining flexible in your approach. Arsene had a clear idea for the club when he first arrived from Japan. Nevertheless, he had to take different approaches to realize his idea on different occasions during his career as Arsenal manager. Initially, he was faced with a challenge of convincing seasoned players to adopt his unique and relatively strange methods, while in later part of his career he faced financial restrictions in the transfer market by the club’s board. As a true leader, Wenger overcame it all through his flexible approaches and innovative solutions.
Keeping an eye on the future, upcoming developments and new technologies and their implementation was the core of Arsene Wenger’s success with Arsenal. As an efficiency-seeking leader, Wenger improved work processes, identified undervalued human resources and developed them for the long-term profitability of the organizations. Wenger was among pioneers to introduce data-driven scouting, food supplementation, and diet plans in football, which are regarded as standard activities for professional and semi-professional football clubs throughout the globe.
Modern leadership lessons from Arsene Wenger in bullet points
Learn from past experiences and use your upbringing to your advantage
Never feel shy to challenge the status quo
Remain true to your values and trust the process
Stay focused on your goal but remain flexible in your approach
Stay open to new ideas, keep an eye on future, upcoming developments, innovations, and new technologies
Improve efficiency of work processes, identify undervalued human resources and develop them for long-term profitability
This was the second part of the miniseries about leaders who changed the leadership forever. Stay tuned for the third part, where will introduce our next great leader from the sports world, Pep Guardiola.
If you missed out from the first part about Johan Cruyjff, you can head over to the first part about leaders who changed the leadership forever here.
Organizational ambidexterity – Organizational ambidexterity can be understood as the relationship and dynamic potential operating between exploitative and explorative resources and dispositions in organizational contexts.[9]
Social Constructionism – A philosophical approach to understand how people make sense of, and act in relation to, other people, their interactions and the contexts in which these take place.[10]
Taylorism – A modernistic approach developed by Fredrick Winslow Taylor to create efficient work processes for the organizations.[11]
Iceberg-styled – An Iceberg styled organization has stronger informal and intangible elements like values, attitudes, beliefs, leadership style, behavior, organizational culture, power, politics, informal groupings, conflicts, etc. as compared to formal elements like goals, strategy, structure, standards, procedures, products, services, management, financial resources, etc.[12]
Utilitarianism – Utilitarianism in simple language can be defined as the greatest good for the greatest number.[13]
Charismatic Leadership – Charismatic Leadership refers to the type of leadership in which the followers follow the leader because of emotions rather than calculations. They are inspired to enthusiastically give unquestioned obedience, loyalty, commitment, and devotion to the leader and to the cause that the leader represents (House, 1976).
We want to help more people finding their dream job and also feed you with the latest news and lessons form the sports world. Do you have any feedback or advice or news, please share that to us. You can contact us or reach out LinkedIn.
See you soon with more lessons learned from the sports field that will enhance your creativity and your career in sports.
What makes people tick? How do you build a sustainable career in sports and why is sports such a strong passion for people? In this post, we will learn how to start your career in sports by identifying your own values. But also, we will learn about three personal values examples why sports matters, and why it doesn’t matter where you are or how little you play sports or what language you speak, the passion still remains.
A sustainable career starts with you and what you value
You might be struggling with knowing what you actually value in life and in particular in your working life. But don’t worry, it is not that hard. Let us share why you should put a strong focus on identifying your own values in order to build a sustainable career in sports. At Sportidealisten we believe that working with a passion makes you work in a sustainable way. If you don’t have a burning desire to wake up every morning in order to go to work, you probably don’t have a passion for that job.
Start your sustainable career in sports by identifying what you feel happy about. Think about what tasks you do and identify those that give you confidence and happiness.
How would you describe those working environments when you feel passionate? At Sportidealisten, we strongly believe in values like Transparency, Innovative Mindset, Open-Minded, Trust, Inspiration and Loyalty. Values will steer you towards a sustainable career because when you identify your work’s values with your own, you will feel more involved and part of something bigger. You and your colleagues will collaborate better than ever before.
Now when you know how to describe them, think about what have been the key factors in any success you have achieved, either solo or in a team. Think about how communication has been working. Usually, you will notice that you desire certain ways to communicate with your friends, colleagues, teammates.
Lastly, you can also learn your values by thinking about what you need and feel if you would delegate your favorite task to another person. Do you need quick answers? Do you need a certain trust? Would you enjoy the person to be creative in their problem-solving process or do you want the person to ask you the whole time?
These are some steps you could think about in order to identify your own values and start your journey towards a sustainable career in sports. We know how much it would mean to work with your passion, sports and we know the importance to support and work together. Our mission is to help you reach your own goal in the sports sector.
WHY DO PEOPLE WANT TO WORK WITH THEIR PASSION, SPORTS?
This is the third part of our mini-series of learning more about why people have a passion for working in sports and what makes them tick. From a project that was developed from the Covid-19 outbreak, we started to gather like-minded people that align with Sportidealisten’s values and drive. This part is all about understanding why a sustainable career in sports about identifying your own values. If you want to learn about the other two parts, check them out below.
In this third article about a sustainable career in sports you will learn why:
Sports always inspires me, no matter where
Less sports, the greater passion for sports
The universal language we all understand
Sports always inspires me, no matter where
As a child, and as an adult I always wanted to get involved in sports. It doesn’t matter if it’s an active or passive way, on the field, or as a spectator, behind the TV or game consoles, but I always follow the events. That’s why I chose this field, to make sport not only my hobby but also my profession. It really inspires me to work in the background of the events, to get a role in a team’s management or to work on making sports available for everyone.
– David
David Tolner – Sport Economist Manager
PS. He is looking for opportunities in Economics, Management, Marketing and Sales (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with David and support his sustainable career in sports.
Growing up in India, a developing country in all sense, sports was always a luxury. And coming from a middle-class blue-collar background, sports always came second to academics. At the age of 10 when I had to drop out of my formal cricket training because of financial issues, the passion for sports only grew exponentially.
As I excelled through my academic routine, the love for sports went beyond the field to what goes on behind the stage. And years later when I had the opportunity to make the shift into the sports sector, I took the plunge and arrived in Madrid for my Master’s in Sports Management. My aim is to work towards making sports affordable to every kid growing up in any city anywhere in the world.
-Shreenath
Shreenath Pillai, MBA in Sport Management
PS. He is looking for opportunities in Administration, Communications, Digital, Management and Marketing (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Shreenath and support his sustainable career in sports.
I like everything about Sports, the insides and the outsides of it, from the daily operations leading up to the gameday event, the entwined businesses all around it. As a kid growing up in the eastern part of the world, I observed that not even religion can unite people as a sports team can. And the same can be said for nations all over the globe! As a whole, sport is one of the universal languages that make this world a better place. I would love to work, contribute and be a part of this culture because I believe in it. I believe in it based on the way it keeps us evolving.
During my recent internships, I have tried to learn more and more about the functioning of the sports industry. And in the process, I loved creating content through words, images and videos for various businesses to deliver their unique brand. For the coming period, I am looking forward to engaging myself in the business of sports. And based upon my past experiences I am here to create a better tomorrow.
– Chintan
Chintan Lalwani, Digital Marketing Consultant
PS. He has interests and experiences in Marketing, Sales, Digitalization and Communications (exclusively in the sports industry). Let us know if you want to connect with Chintan and support his sustainable career in sports.
3 examples of personal values from the sports industry
Thank you David, Shreenath and Chintan for sharing your reasons why you have a passion for sports and why you want to work in the sports industry. These are three unique stories and people and they are all three determined to share their passion and values in the sports industry and to work towards a sustainable career in sports.
My aim is to work towards making sports affordable to every kid growing up in any city anywhere in the world.
– Shreenath
This quote from Shreenath is sort of a summary of the impact and the passion these three people share around sports. They are all passionate about the engagement sports give them, no matter if it is on the stadium or behind the stage. They have understood that you need some ingredients in order to have a sustainable career in sports.
In summary, you have now gotten some examples of how to build a sustainable career in sports and how to identify your own values, but also three ways to express a passion. Sports could be experienced in all different scenarios, and it could be a good memory from an early age even though that you are playing sports and it could be a connecting language that we all can relate to. But to summarize, three personal values examples from the sports industry from David, Shreenath and David are:
Sports always inspires me, no matter where
Less sports, the greater passion for sports
The universal language we all understand
Our question now is to hear what you value? What is your passion? Do you also want to share your story? Comment below and contact us.
We want to help more people finding their dream job and also feed you with the latest news and lessons form the sports world. Do you have any feedback or advice or news, please share that to us. You can contact us or reach out LinkedIn.
See you soon with more lessons learned from the sports field that will enhance your creativity and your career in sports.
As an athlete there are many great skills being developed and those are not only for an athlete, their skills can be useful in other contexts too, for example in an entrepreneur’s environment. This is what we call transferable skills. During the spring of 2020, right at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak in Sweden, our founder Jakob had the opportunity to sit down at an entrepreneurial event with four elite athletes with extensive knowledge of personal durability, the knowledge that has given them a total of thirty Olympic and World Cup medals combined. In this article, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists, Susanne Gunnarsson will share how she become one of the greatest and what skill that took her to the top.
Transferable skills from athletes: Skills you gain as an athlete
This is a four-part series where we share the conversation from a panel discussion from an entrepreneurial competition during spring 2020, and we have divided each athlete’s story and experience into a separate blog post. Usually, when we are talking about skills, we are talking about skills needed in different jobs. Job ads contain some required skills for a role or some preferable skills needed. Even if you don’t have that skill from previous job experiences you might already have the skill from other experiences. You might have played sports and probably you have learned about teamwork, goal setting or showing respect. This is something you could bring into your future job, and this is what we call transferable skills. You could basically acquire skills from other experiences in life than a job, but also from one industry into another. For example, what can entrepreneurs learn from athletes? First up is Susanna Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists and she explains how to develop the secret to her successes and why it is her strongest skill.
Want to learn more about balance, focus and curiosity, pressure, head over to part 2 or 3 or 4 below.
A panel discussion with elite athletes at Creative Business Cup
The entrepreneurs in the Swedish final of the Creative Business Cup held on 12 March competed with their ideas, business models and teams – but also had to learn how they can think for themselves to manage their business concepts. To aid the contestants there were four elite athletes with extensive knowledge of personal durability, the knowledge that has given them a total of thirty Olympic and World Cup medals combined. An entrepreneur and an athlete are quite similar, they want to succeed. And therefore we can look into what an entrepreneur could learn from sports into their own adventure, what are the transferable skills from athletes?. Over four articles we present the thoughts of the four athletes. In the first, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists, Susanne Gunnarsson, talks about mental strength.
As entrepreneurs strive to build the companies of the future it is important that they also find ways to maintain satisfaction so they can perform what is necessary. Elite athletes and their coaches are used to finding ways to perform to the highest level, both in the short and long term. For this reason, four representatives with elite sporting experience were a key part of the Swedish final of the Creative Business Cup.
– We want to give start-ups, businesses, and organizations the opportunity to share the broad knowledge that elite athletes and top coaches have in relation to strategies and processes for personal durability. Our vision is for an ecosystem where entrepreneurs, business coaches and investors collaborate closely, in sustainable business practices and with people at the core, says Lars Mattiasson from xPlot, who organizes the Swedish part of the Creative Business Cup. The arrangement was made in collaboration between Lund Municipality and Future by Lund.
The panel consisted of William Seth-Wenzel, a gold medal winner in jujutsu at both World and European Championship level and a student at KTH; Susanne Gunnarsson, with a total of 17 World Championship or Olympic medals in canoeing and now working as a coach, lecturer and treatment assistant; and Rob Haans, with several individual World Championship medals and now part of the Swedish national team in jujutsu. Joining via video link was Klara Svensson, former professional boxer with several world titles and now a self-employed business owner. The debate was led by Jakob Wikenstål with both an academic degree in sports management and experience as an entrepreneur through the job platform Sportidealisten.
The discussion came to be about what it is like to deliver every day to maintain momentum and stick to your big goals and dreams. It was also about how to work for the team to function, but also daring to be selfish and clear when asking for help to get what you really need. All necessary skills for an entrepreneur, basically great transferable skills from sports.
First up in our interview series about transferable skills is Susanne Gunnarsson, one of Sweden’s most successful canoeists. Susanna has won Olympic gold in K-2 500m in 1996 and World Championship gold in K-1 5000m in 1993, in addition to two Olympic silver medals, and three silver and five bronze at the World Championships. Furthermore, she won five World Championship golds in the canoe marathon between 1992 and 1998. She is unique in that in 1996 she won gold for both the Olympic sprint race and World Championship marathon. Nowadays she works as a coach, lecturer, and treatment assistant.
– When I was active, I remember that we listened to a tape with the psychologist Lars-Eric Uneståhl before training, but not much more was done at the time. During the 90’s I began to wonder what I needed to be the strongest – of course it was good to train, but also to change my thoughts. I worked on my thoughts by myself and it really strengthened me. What I did was, amongst other things, every night repeat the following words ten times “I am the best, I am the strongest”. Until finally it was ingrained in me. In a World Championship or Olympic final all the competitors are equally well trained – but it is the one that is mentally the strongest that wins.
How did you work on your goals?
– For me it has been important to write down my goals and my sub-goals along the way. I made it simple and drew a mountain with dashes on the path where I highlighted what I needed to do to reach the top. There were visions and sub-goals and the dream at the summit was Olympic gold. I kept my goals on my nightstand so I could look at it. Whenever I faced adversity, I analyzed what had happened because there are no shortcuts, and you must make changes to be able to take the extra step. That way I learned what was needed to make it all the way to the top. It is tough to be an elite athlete, mother, and friend at the same time and you have to learn to be part of and withdraw from circles and sometimes it is important to let go of something to get the energy. I recognise that this is the case even for entrepreneurs who work and focus on their businesses.
You gave birth to your second daughter four weeks before the 1994 World Championship in the canoe marathon. Many women may have waited to have children in their career – do you notice any differences today in that discussion?
– When my daughter was born it was four weeks to the World Championships and I had not really been able to train for eight weeks. But I was out trying to paddle five days after giving birth and it felt good. Then at the World Championships I won gold. I was one of the first in the world to resume my career after I became a mother. If it feels right, then it works. In a way, it is quite easy to bring children along when they are young, and you have a lot of energy as a mother. It should be the same when working for companies and it is good to be able to bring children to work. I believe that I see more young children brought to work these days.
How can you attain a sustainable personal life as an entrepreneur?
– It is important to feel joy and inspired by what you do. If you can do that, you will be able to achieve what you want to do!
In the next part about transferable skills from athletes, we speak with William Seth Wenzel, a martial artist in jujutsu. In 2019, William was named Champion of the Year and Martial Artist of the Year at the Kampsportsgalen (an award gala for combat fighters) for his gold medals at the World Championships and European Championship.
If you missed the second or third or fourth part about Balance and Focus, Teamwork and Values curiosity, Pressure and Solely responsible check them out here.
This story is made by Caroline Wendt at Future By Lund and the original story comes from here: Athletes teach entrepreneurs to be durable, Part 1: Susanne Gunnarsson – mental strength.
We want to help more people finding their dream job and also feed you with the latest news and lessons form the sports world. Do you have any feedback or advice or news, please share that to us. You can contact us or reach out LinkedIn.
See you soon with more lessons learned from the sports field that will enhance your creativity and your career in sports.
Leaders exist in all different industries as well as in sports. There are two types of leadership. There are formal and informal leaders. No matter who you are, you will find out that sports could be your go-to place to learn and build your leadership skills. In this article, we will talk about what leadership is, and especially look into what leadership lessons we learned from Johan Cruyff. An innovating footballer and manager that always tried to become more efficient and open to new ideas
3 leaders who changed the leadership forever
This is the first part of a new miniseries about leaders who changed the leadership forever. In this first part, we will introduce what leadership is, and then introducing some great leaders from the sports world and what these miniseries will talk about.
If you want to already jump to the second part about modern leadership and efficiency click on the button below.
Leadership lessons from 3 football managers who changed the sport forever
In the past few years, the business coaching industry has grown exponentially to become a multibillion-dollar industry[1] and leadership education is a part of this rapidly expanding industry. Multinational companies, business professionals, managers, entrepreneurs, and students invest a substantial chunk of their money on leadership development and education[2]. Leadership education includes conferences, certifications, human resource training, seminars from leadership gurus, coaching, books, and even post-graduation courses. However, if analyzed properly, a lot of significant leadership lessons can be learned from the sports industry, particularly in football management.
What is Leadership?
Before we dive into the examples, it is important to understand the true definition of Leadership. One of the most famous leaders of all times, Martin Luther King Junior defined a genuine leader as a moulder of consensus rather than a searcher for consensus. His definition is in prime proximity to one of the earliest and most meaningful academic definitions of leadership provided by Stogdill, who summed up leadership as the process (act) of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement[3].
“Leadership has nothing to do with the title on your business card or the size of your office. Leadership is not about how much money you make or the clothes you wear. Leadership is a philosophy. It is an attitude. It is a state of mind. And it is available to each one of us” writes acclaimed author Robin Sharma in his book, Little Black Book for Stunning Success. According to me, leadership is a skill of inspiring an organized group to pursue a particular philosophy, a process, a method in order to achieve the desired goal.
Prominent leaders in the world of football
From long balls, rough sliding tackles, and static player roles to slick ground passes, interceptions, and floating player positions, the world has seen a drastic change in the way football is played. Among many known and unknown contributors, the credit for the development of modern eye-pleasing Football goes to three prominent managers over the past three decades; Johan Cruyff, Arsene Wenger, and Pep Guardiola. These managers not only reinvented the way of training and playing Football but also made it more understandable and exciting for the viewers.
During Cruyff’s and Guardiola’s time at FC Barcelona and Wenger’s lengthy spell with Arsenal, the world saw a radical change in the way football was played. These three football managers inspired their respective teams to achieve great feats during their time and beyond. The playing style, training methods, diet schedule, training regimes, and psychological preparation introduced by them were so effective that it became a culture at FC Barcelona and Arsenal.
Nevertheless, altering the status quo of a football club, it’s traditions, training, and playing style was challenging for all of them to begin. The timing of their appointment and the context of the football clubs at that period was also complicated. In the beginning, all three faced a variety of obstacles, resistances, and questions from the players, management, and fans. Having a firm belief in their philosophies, these managers adopted the transformational (for an academic definition please see at the end) form of leadership.
The following piece will cover some of the most common terminologies used in Leadership literature with their academic definitions at the end. This article will also discuss the leadership lessons from the life events of these three football managers and how they changed the sport forever.
Total Football – Johan Cruyff
The 1970 FIFA World Cup, Mexico, was the first-ever FIFA World Cup to be telecasted on newly invented colour televisions. Through vivid colours, football started to become a more glamorous and entertaining sport for its television audience worldwide. Because of this development, the squads begin to think about playing an attractive style of football to serve the entertainment desires of the fans of their respective teams. The Netherlands was the first team to catch the eye of the world with their new form of playing football at the 1974 FIFA World Cup. The Dutch team cruised through the finals after defeating two South American heavyweights of the game at that time: Brazil and Argentina. Under the leadership of their captain and the reigning Ballon d’Or winner, Johan Cruyff, the team introduced a postmodernist (for an academic definition please see at the end) (new) style to play football coined as ‘Total Football.’
In Total Football, any outfield player of the team was allowed to take over the position of any other outfield player without changing the overall formation. It was a successful strategy against orthodox (and modernistic, for an academic definition please see at the end) man to man defence, which was the usual way of defending during those days. This attractive brand-new style of football came agonizingly close to winning the highest prize in the football world when the Dutch team took the one-nil lead in the opening minutes of the final. However, West Germany came back to win the match 2-1 at the end.
From a player to a manager
After retiring as a player, Cruyff got the opportunity to replicate his transformational leadership as FC Barcelona’s first team manager. He was recruited at the club on 4 May 1988 under the most controversial and difficult circumstances. The club had won one league title in the last fourteen years, and the whole first team was against the president. Six days before Cruyff’s appointment, one of the most unfortunate events happened. Twenty-one players and then head coach of the first team, Luis Aragones publically revolted against Josep Lluis Nunez, who was the president of FC Barcelona at that time.
Some severe changes were imminent, considering the context of the organization and the circumstances. To renew the squad, Cruyff sold fourteen players, and they were replaced with twelve new players. In the era of formations like 4-4-2 and 3-5-2, Cruyff was first to introduce 3-4-3. Moreover, the recruitment system at FC Barcelona was also revolutionized under Johan. Going against the general recruitment policy of the club, he signed various short players from the academy and other clubs who were technically excellent. A 1.70-meter tall midfielder, Eusebio was signed from Atletico Madrid while players like Guillermo Amor and Albert Ferrer were promoted from the Barcelona academy both less than 1.75 meters tall. Eventually, the three abovementioned players went on to represent the Catalan club for more than 200 occasions. To make his possession, passing, and movement-based ‘Total Football’ playing style successful, Cruyff invented new training drills. Rondo, which is one of the most famous football training exercises nowadays, was developed by Cruyff.
Comment to the tweet above – Johan Cruyff led FC Barcelona to their first-ever European Championship title in 1992 as a coach
The football culture
The influence of his transformational leadership was not only limited to the first team. He laid the foundation of a football culture (for an academic definition please see at the end) at FC Barcelona. As part of developing a football culture, La Masia, the modern FC Barcelona Academy, was established on Cruyff’s ideologies. He promoted talent ahead of physical attributes and eliminated the Prueba de la muneca (test of the wrist) at the Barca Academy. The Prueba de la muneca was conducted on all the academy players to check the height they will achieve ultimately. If it was found that the player is expected to grow below 1.80 meters, he was rejected from the academy[4].
Furthermore, he introduced fitness through football. Johan developed a unique short passing, possession, and retention of the ball through pressing based playing philosophy at FC Barcelona, which became characteristic from the grassroots level to all the way top to the first team. As a result of this culture, the club is regarded as one of the best in promoting academy players to the club’s first team. In the span of eight years as the head coach of Blaugrana (1988-1996), Cruyff helped the club to win eleven trophies, including the club’s first-ever European Cup in the year 1992. If Cruyff hadn’t amended the rules at the academy and developed a culture at FC Barcelona, the world would have never seen the players like Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi.
Johan Cruyff, antrenorul cu cele mai multe victorii din istoria Barça! El a creat „Dream Team”, care a câștigat prima Cupă Europeană. … Johan Cruyff, the coach with the most victories in Barça history! He created the "Dream Team", which won the first European Cup.#barçapic.twitter.com/3ENLsFc5GL
— PenyaBlaugranaBucharest (@BucharestPenya) April 25, 2020
Comment to the tweet above – Cruyff – Innovator, Researcher, Visionary, Revolutionary, Risk-taker, and a Leader
Summary of leaders who changed the leadership forever – Johan Cruyff
To summarize, Cruyff provided the modern leaders of the world with four important lessons to become successful. Firstly, Innovation was at the heart of everything the Dutch prodigy implemented both as a player and as a coach. He was always open to new ideas. Today’s globally accepted playing philosophy, ‘Total Football’, the most common means to practice football, ‘Rondo’, and an amazing move to beat the defender, ‘Cruyff Turn’ were some of his most noticeable inventions.
Secondly, Johan not only played and managed the sport, but he also studied the sport like a meritorious scholar. During his entire lifetime, he constantly examined for the avenues of improvements in playing style and coaching methods. Once he concluded his research on a certain issue, he stood behind his research and philosophies. Cruyff’s persistent and patience with his researched methodologies (especially during testing phases), made him one of the most iconic players and managers in history.
Thirdly, Johan was never shy of exterminating bad practices and stereotypes of the sport. He abolished long-practised Prueba de la muneca (test of the wrist) at the Barca Academy. By doing so he advocated for equal opportunity to play irrespective of physical attributes. FC Barcelona reaped rewards of his good work by producing world-class players like Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi. Last but not the least, the three times Ballon d’Or winner taught us the importance of taking risks. He took the biggest risk when he agreed to become the gaffer of the Blaugrana at the time when the club was at the tip of its adversities and the rest is history. He personified the saying – the bigger the risk, the greater is the reward. Big risk coupled with his impeccable work ethics led Barcelona to unprecedented success during his eight-year reign as the manager.
Johan Cruyff, the winningest manager in Barça history, would have been 73 today. Johan was the father of the Dream Team, which won the Club's first European Cup in 1992.
But Barça's managerial Hall of Fame has plenty of other greats …
Though the footballing world recognizes Cruyff as one of the greatest players and managers, the iconic Dutch deserves to be mentioned in Leadership education as an illustration as well.
🔊 Bartomeu says that the club is talking to Johan Cruyff's family about a permanent tribute to the former Barça player and coach #FCBlivepic.twitter.com/W6Yzb6Q4wG
This was the first part of the new miniseries about leaders who changed the leadership forever. Stay tuned for the second part, where will introduce our next great leader from the sports world, Arsene Wenger.
Transformational Leadership – An ideal style of leadership which promotes innovation. Transformational leadership can be defined as the set of five observable and learnable practices: challenge familiar organizational practices, inspire a shared vision among employees, enable employees to act in accordance with their vision, model the way for employees to perform, and encourage employees through recognition and celebration of success. In this type of leadership, a leader takes risks and initiates radical changes[5].
Postmodernism – A complex set of ideas that emerged in the later part of the twentieth century which promotes dynamics in roles, shifting of power, blurred boundaries among groups and individuals’ sensemaking, and horizontal interconnections rather than vertical hierarchies in an organization[6].
Modernism – A set of ideas that endorses specified roles, defined boundaries, vertical hierarchies, and centralization of power.
Culture – A set of values, beliefs, atmospheres, customs, and practices in the achievement of higher productivity and efficiency[7].
We want to help more people finding their dream job and also feed you with the latest news and lessons form the sports world. Do you have any feedback or advice or news, please share that to us. You can contact us or reach out LinkedIn.
See you soon with more lessons learned from the sports field that will enhance your creativity and your career in sports.
