Sarina Wiegman shows us all what Effective Leadership Looks Like
The England Woman’s national football team have achieved a monumental feat in winning the European Championship for the first time in English football history.
As football is the national sport of England and the world’s most popular sport, we have witnessed, on a global level, what takes place when astute, effective, and cohesive leadership and teamwork synthesise to create and achieve monumental success.
Clearly, the beautiful game can teach us how to achieve project success, build and sustain winning teams, how to lead effectively and steer a team towards tangible success.
Lessons we can Learn From Football
At the heart of every great team is teamwork, team cohesion and more candidly, team chemistry. It is the willingness to cover your teammate, the genuine rapport built, the ability to get along with and the real and honest conversations you can have that lies at the heart of peak team performance and the Euro 2022 victory personifies great lessons we can all learn from.
Winning teams have high morale, genuine camaraderie, discipline and rigour and a true sense of togetherness and this stems directly from the leader/leadership.
England manager Sarina Wiegman was discussing the importance of using skill within build-up play and general attacking as a potential tactic and approach in an interview.
What was most interesting was before Wiegman even went into the football side of proceedings she suggested:
“First of all, I try to connect with players, so you can connect, you start with a conversation, you learn about each other, then you have a football plan.”
Immediately Wiegman shows glimpses of what kind of leader she is. Wiegman’s primary focus is on the person and ensuring there is an actual connection between her and her team before giving any football-related instruction.
A great leader is a people person first and last, without being able to bond with people you fail.
This might seem like a simple and logical first step but speaking from personal and professional experience, this step has unfortunately been overlooked many times, and has had detrimental consequences as a result.
Wiegman’s Man-Management
Lianne Sanderson, an English forward with 50 caps for England described Wiegman as the “missing piece” to English football. Sanderson, when asked by an interviewer about what makes Wiegman so successful and effective, Sanderson suggests:
“From speaking to the players and from what I’ve heard I think it’s man-management and communication.”
Rachel Daly, European cup winner goes onto add:
“She [Sarina Wiegman] has brought directness [sic] calmness to the group. The way she views things is something we’ve never had before.”
A great leader is decisive and an effective communicator, but directness and communication without approachability cannot work.
These complementary traits, amongst other winning traits such as positivity and trust have been exemplified best by England’s Women’s team and their amazing triumph.
It is said in football that a manager does their work on the training pitch and behind the scenes and the players do the work on the pitch, so the results and performance were the culmination of excellent leadership from Wiegman and high-quality teamwork from the England team.
Seven Traits of Great Leadership
Great leaders embody these characteristics in their personalities:
1. Positive Attitude
2. Proactive approach
3. Delegate and Trust
4. Approachable
5. Lead by example
6. Accountable
7. Decisive
These traits are a set, and a mix and match does not work. What Sarina Wiegman showed is that she has all these characteristics. Without any of them, the Lionesses would not have achieved such great success.
Wiegman was decisive by playing the exact same team from the first game to the last, not been influenced by the media and external stakeholders such as fans. Wiegman was clearly approachable due to many players praising her man managerial skills, her directness and honest communication.
These are just two that were on public display, but behind closed doors it is likely that the other characteristics were an active part of Wiegman’s leadership style.
When a leader does show and demonstrates these essential traits a harmonious, robust, and high-morale environment is created.
Poor performance tends to reflect poor leadership more than it is of individual error or incompetence.
Simon Sinek wrote in his book The Infinite Game highlights why leaders must strive to create an environment for their team to thrive in:
“Noah’s managers at the Four Seasons understand that their job is to set an environment for Noah in which he can naturally thrive. Leaders will work to create these environments when we train them how to prioritize people over results. And this is the true definition of what it means to lead.”
This fits into last week’s article where people, processes and technology were discussed, and the people first mentality was shown to be the most important part of technology project success.
Football Embodies Teamwork
Typically, when the ball carrier has the ball his/her teammates attentively watch them whilst they progress with the ball. Off the ball, the closest teammate usually covers the space that has been vacated due to the progressive movement of the ball carrier and the whole team shifts across to maintain balance and shape.
For example, if Trent Alexander Arnold, right-sided full back for Liverpool FC is carrying the ball, typically, Jordan Henderson (who plays right-sided central midfield) covers the space vacated. This maintains team balance, shape, and structure.
In the workplace, a good team knows that absence shouldn’t be severely felt because an effective leader ensures a teammate is covered. The leader produces an environment that radiates true rapport with themselves and with their teammates so that teammates are covered properly.
A good leader drills into his or her team the importance of covering for each other to maintain balance and shape. If the ball carrier loses the ball, then the space is not empty because a teammate has the space covered already.
Bad leaders create bottlenecks within their teams, whilst good leaders empower individuals to be confident and competent within a supportive environment where information flows fluidly and transparency is supported.
Conclusion
The European cup win shows the importance of high-quality leadership, a style that is easy to write about but not as common as you’d think. No matter the industry, high performing leaders put their people first.
The outcomes, complexities, intricacies, and the like will not miraculously fall into place, but without carefully cultivating and crafting an actual bond with a team, which will foster a healthy environment, results will be poor at best.
The worst leaders are hostile, rash, incompetent, erratic, shallow, insecure, and impulsive, failing to make any real connection with their team and alienating individuals without proper grounds.
These folk often result to tactics such as micro-managing, excessive and non-productive meetings, excessive and pointless paperwork and more time-wasting, non-productive and frankly useless methods to give the appearance of work, but no significant change in overall delivery or outcome.
Missed deadlines, over-promising and under-delivering, and unhappy stakeholders are just some of the hallmarks of poor leadership, irrespective of market, industry, or sector and this is rife in so many sectors today.
Leadership starts and ends with effective people management. If you have a lot of knowledge, career credentials, experience, and so on, but you cannot convey that with empathy to your team, then those skills do not matter.
There is no successful outcome without successful teamwork and no successful teamwork without quality leadership; only when this is grasped will people in leadership positions, who aren’t necessarily leaders make the progress they seek.
A massive well done to the England Woman’s National Team for showing us all what excellent leadership and teamwork looks like!
