News
Football managers who win a key ally can survive the sack
20/01/08
Having a ‘key figure’ ally at a club can be more important to a football manager than being good at their job.
That’s the view of an expert in the psychology of leadership, who said people who succeed at ‘impression management’ can cultivate more success.
Dr Patrick Tissington is a leading academic in Work and Organisational Psychology, based at Aston Business School in Birmingham.
He claims that creating a strong relationship with the chairman or club captain can have a great influence on success.
His comments follow the recent revelations at Liverpool and Newcastle Football Clubs, where good managers have faced tough times and the sack respectively.
They also follow the appointment of Kevin Keegan at Newcastle, which appears to have been an emotional decision based on the new man’s ‘impression management’ during a previously successful stint at the club.
The potential separation of Rafa Benitez from Liverpool follows a breakdown of the relationship with the club’s rich American owner Tom Hicks, who was seen talking to potential replacement Jurgen Klinsmann this week.
And Sam Allardyce’s sacking from Newcastle United followed losing the board’s confidence, despite a career history that proves he is a good Premiership manager.
Dr Patrick Tissington said: “If the manager is not fitting in behind the scenes at the football club, the results on the pitch can be irrelevant to whether he stays or goes.
“Identifying the ‘key figure’ influences at the club, such as senior players or shareholders whose views are listened to, will strengthen the manager’s position.
“This is called impression management and there is a whole repertoire of skills behind it, but it basically boils down to flattery.”
He added: “I imagine a manager’s main motivation for the job has to be success, given the immense pressure they are under.
“So any advantage they can gain within the club to help their progress is important, no matter how small.
“In football the manager is seen as the most important man at the club, with much more responsibility than his players.
“And the life expectancy of a manager isn’t very long so it tends to be that success and failure are heaped upon the individual manager.”
The influx of foreign managers has put even more pressure on English manager to succeed, according to Dr Tissington.
“There is a larger market for foreign managers and players so that they are no longer the exception and may one day become the rule.
“This puts more pressure on English managers to succeed because there are less jobs available to them in the top flight.
“We need to give them time for things to pan out, because football games can be won and lost on random things from time to time.”
Dr Tissington used to teach that charisma can make good managers, but this ‘trend’ has faded in modern times.
He said: “There is something of charisma which can have a short term effect and if you have charisma, sometimes you can really make the organisation fly – look at Richard Branson’s Virgin and Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s Easyjet.
“But at other times it is a disaster – look at media tycoons Robert Maxwell and Conrad Black.”
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