Sport shows that leadership takes many forms

At a recent Football Association breakfast event I heard Fabio Capello, supported by a panel of Stuart Pearce, John Barnes, Dennis Wise and Sir Trevor Brooking, take questions from Club Wembley members on a range of topics such as the future of the England Football team (generally bright, it was agreed); how to manage a squad during a tournament (too hard didn’t work in South Africa, too relaxed didn’t work for our Rugby team in New Zealand, Mr Capello pointed out with a smile); and what has surprised our Italian boss since living in London (the weather is better here than in Milan apparently!).

Of particular interest to me was when the conversation turned to the issue of leadership on the field, and what it entails. Rose tinted spectacle wearers tend to look back at the days of the likes of Adams, Butcher and Robson and suggest that today’s crop of England players lack true leadership – grit, a extroverted character, combined with perception of the game – and that somehow the mettle of today’s players is diminished thus making them incapable of ‘stepping up to the plate’ when the pressure is on during a tournament – even with ‘traditional’ leadership figures such as John Terry around.

The panel rejected this assertion with vigour, claiming that leadership comes in many different forms. It was pointed out that John Barnes and his ilk of technically gifted ‘ball playing’ midfielders can be leaders as much as ‘vocal’ leaders in the Adams/ Robson/ Terry mould. The suggestion was that a technically gifted players inspire confidence because they ‘always want the ball’ and that players around them therefore feel more confident, more calm and are thereby more likely to do their job properly. Confident and calm is not something that England were in South Africa last year, so maybe this form of leadership was what they were lacking?  

In football, as in real life, the truth is that different forms of leadership are probably needed in a successful team.  One of football’s great thinkers, Arsene Wenger, often claims that “leaders are needed all over the pitch”. In businesses you can easily believe that leaders are needed throughout an organisation too. Just as Lionel Messi undoubtedly inspires the rest of his team (through his skill and confidence rather than oratory or an extroverted nature), so a star performer within a company can inspire and lead others to success. This is the person whom others know they can trust and rely on, the person that others are inspired by, of whom they are slightly in awe. This leadership can be just as important as traditional models.

Definitions and theories of leadership abound (and there isn’t space to repeat them here) but I think sport, and exceptional talents such as Lionel Messi, teach us that leadership is about having people around who inspire others, simply by being brilliant.