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The leadership principles that Gary Bailey learnt from Sir Alex Ferguson and Jake WhiteGary Bailey distinguished himself in goals for Manchester United on 373 occasions from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, and also played two games for England. On returning home to South Africa, he spent two further years with local glamour club Kaizer Chiefs. During his time in England, he enjoyed playing for one of the most successful English football managers of all time, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Gary was one of those rare footballers who pursued an academic career, finishing a BSc in Physics while playing for Man United, and subsequent to his retirement, he completed an MBA from Henley in Oxford.
During his studies, he focused on leadership abilities with Professor Rakesh Sondhi, and has since created a fun, inspiring and informational presentation based on four powerful leadership principles, which he believes are virtually guaranteed to make you a better leader. In his own words below, Gary shares his insights on leadership principles with Leadership.
With the recession having placed leaders under greater pressure than ever, I believe that the world of sport offers insights into how to handle these problems, and also how to plan for a great future. That football is a pressure business is not in doubt and nearly one-third of all premiership managers get the sack (or resign) in the course of a season. So how do those managers cope with producing weekly results (as opposed to quarterly or annual results!) and what skills do they use to motivate their teams? Rugby is also incredibly competitive, and Jake White showed how to win a World Cup by sticking to some fundamental leadership principles.
Added to that, Professor Sondhi and I have scoured the world for the latest in leadership thinking from all the top business schools, and have produced a cutting-edge presentation to show what basic steps need to be taken in order to improve your leadership skills, and take your company into a wonderful future full of growth and opportunity.
I put forward four areas for improvement of any leader, and show how Sir Alex, Jake White (former South African rugby coach), Jomo Sono (former Bafana Bafana coach), Pieter de Villiers (current Springbok coach) and many other top soccer managers such as Arsene Wenger (Arsenal manager), Rafa Benítez (Liverpool manager) and Mark Hughes (Manchester City) compare in these areas.
I also use current business examples to show that the principles are relevant to normal business as well as to the business of winning sports leagues. The comparison is made between the sports leaders and business leaders such as Sir Richard Branson.
Even if you are not a soccer fan, the principles are still easy to follow, and the business comparisons obvious and powerful.
The simple memory tool is the word LEAD – it stands for the following four focus areas:
L is for Level 5 Leadership
From the excellent research book on leadership, Good to Great, by Jim Collins. In his extensive research, the most successful leaders managed to combine two special features side by side – Professional Will and Personal Humility.
This may seem simple, but in reality is extremely difficult. Those leaders who are strong and determined are rarely humble, and those leaders who are humble and show great care for those around them are rarely tough and firm minded.
Can the two be found together? Absolutely, and the best example is that of Sir Alex Ferguson.
I remember meeting Sir Alex the morning after we won the treble in 1999. I was gushing to the United manager about what a great achievement this was and how wonderful Sir Alex is, and all he said was, “Gary, weren’t the players magnificent last night!”.
He is tough and yet incredibly humble, and when you listen to him talk on radio or television, you hardly ever hear him talk about himself and his achievements.
Contrast that with José Mourinho (former Chelsea coach who calls himself the “Special One”). Does that make the “Special One” a poor leader? Not in the short term, but perhaps when it comes to building long-term success, which is often the true test of any leader’s ability.
When José was at Chelsea, he created a strong belief in the players in himself as opposed to the club, so when he left, the team fell apart, and the new leader Phil Scolari had an extremely tough time getting the players to play for him.
I believe that when Sir Alex departs, he will leave in place a system that will ensure the next manager has the best chance of being successful – perfect sustainability, now that is a true leader in action!
So how to be strong and yet humble? The greatest leaders to whom I have spoken all point to one action that is critical, and that is being GRATEFUL. It creates a positive and strong foundation for all leadership actions, and research has proven conclusively that a grateful existence substantially improves your chances of success in ALL areas of life!
I learnt about professional will, personal humility and being grateful the hard way – being one of the youngest goalkeepers ever to play in an FA Cup final back in 1979, and at the tender age of 20, I was blamed for Arsenal’s winning goal in the dying minutes of a 3-2 defeat.
By accepting some blame for the result, it taught me to be strong and show professional will, and it also left me no choice but to be humble. I was also able to be grateful for at least having played in one of the great events on the world sporting calendar.
Based on this, I had a very successful career until injury curtailed my playing time at the young age of 28.
E is for Emotional Intelligence (EI)
This is probably one of the most talked about skills required in leadership. Many of the world’s top business gurus believe that it is far more important than IQ, particularly the higher up the business ladder you climb.
So what is EI? Simply put, it is self-awareness and empathy. Self-awareness so that you know who you are in relation to the world, and empathy so you can connect to others.
Empathy can be broken down into four steps: Observing, Evaluating, Feeling and Responding.
Once again, Sir Alex is superb when it comes to empathy with his players. He has an uncanny ability to observe their behaviour and to be aware of their emotional state, and this means that he can pick players who are at the top of their game, and rest those who are showing any form of stress.
Another great example of EI is Jake White. On the eve of the 2007 Rugby World Cup final when he could have been dining with his family or building his image with the press, he instead wrote a personal letter to each of the World Cup final team members, stating how proud he and their families and country were of them, and then slipped this under their hotel doors late at night.
What an amazing thing to do for your team, and what a response he received the following day as South Africa beat England to become world champions.
A for Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
This is also a hot topic in business schools, and simply put, it is a modern approach to being positive.
The days of fear-based leadership are over, for the simple reason that it is not sustainable.
People will work under threats and punitive measures for a certain period only, and then they will either decrease in performance, or simply leave the business.
AI is the way to create a fun, positive and interactive environment in which everyone can prosper. It does not mean you do not get tough when you have to, but it does mean that you do it in a way that does not break the spirit of the workers.
For example, you have 95% customer satisfaction and the leader focuses on the other 5%!
Imagine how you would feel if you were among the staff when this happened – perhaps the more positive approach is to focus on the 95% success, and then to come back to the 5% and see how that can be improved upon.
What AI also promotes, is involving staff in the solving of problems, and this is achieved more easily when the environment is positive and conducive to input and ideas.
Modern-day football managers have become far more positive about their players than the 1980s era of screaming, threatening bosses – players simply would not accept that today.
Another angle to AI is the appreciation of what everyone brings to the table. In South Africa, we have different cultures, and these cultures can all bring something special and unique to a business solution.
Jomo Sono used this approach when he was coach of Bafana at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan. He shaped a mixture of black, coloured and white players by taking their various strengths and moulding them together in a unique way, and so nearly made the second round of the World Cup – which would have been an amazing achievement!
Certainly, Arsene Wenger comes across as an intelligent and caring manager who focuses on the positives, and Mark Hughes also has shown the same excellent qualities.
D for Destiny
The pressure is huge these days to achieve immediate results, and both in football and general business, this is no different. However, if you want to become a great leader, and be virtually assured of constant good results – as opposed to chasing targets day after day – then you have to plan for a great future.
Sir Alex proved the wisdom of this approach when he scoured the country for the best talent for his academy in the late 1980s – not easy to do when you are busy trying to survive in the top league. But he did it, and when Man United began its awesome winning streak in the mid-1990s, the team was built on the players who came out of that academy – Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, the Neville brothers (Gary and Phil), Nicky Butt, among others.
It may be easy to say “build for the future”, but difficult to do so. Leaders have less and less time to focus on the future, and need all their time simply to survive the present. So how do you ‘create’ time in order to be able to build the team of the future and grow yourself at the same time?
According to the Harvard Business School, the simplest way to ‘make’ time, is to increase your energy so that you get more done and have ‘spare’ time to use for long-term planning. So what are the areas to increase your energy?
The first is your BODY – are you eating correctly and are you exercising? Failure to do both lowers you energy levels and makes you less productive.
So even if you cannot get to the gym, do your exercises at home before you go to work, and then cut down on the coffee and biscuits, and replace it with water and nuts or dried fruit – the benefits will be quick and very noticeable.
The next area to increase your energy is your SPIRIT – if, for example, helping people is something that lifts your spirit, then use your tea breaks to support someone who is facing difficult times, and that will lead to an increase in your energy levels.
Next is MIND – use the latest technology to manage your lives, and one suggestion is to switch off you mobile five minutes from home (pick a regular landmark to remind you) and then focus on your spouse and family and what they have been doing with their day. In that way, you enter the home in a positive and caring manner, and not busy arguing with someone on the phone.
The last thing you want to do, is create an unhappy atmosphere at home because that is a large part of your foundation for success.
The fourth area to increase your energy is EMOTION – if you get upset, then you are likely to say and do things you regret and that will take an inordinate amount of time to rectify (and sometimes you can never rectify them!).
So watch your response, find out what your buttons are that get you upset, and if that happens, then breathe deeply to calm yourself or simply excuse yourself and go to the bathroom to recover your composure.
So these are the LEAD principles, and from them I challenge you to practise four habits that will almost certainly improve any person’s leadership skills and improve them dramatically.
The first thing to do, is to find three new things for which to be grateful every day.
The second is to observe three things about someone you had not noticed before.
The third is to find three positive ways of saying something that normally sounds negative.
And finally, to make three changes to your body, spirit, mind or emotional behaviour that improves your energy levels.
Do this, and Professor Sondhi and I believe that you will definitely improve your leadership skills. ▲
Gary Bailey
To find out more about the one-hour keynote presentation by Gary, and the three-hour workshop, visit www.lead-sport.com
