Following our nature of Leadership
The most important often get forgotten
This week the English Premier League (EPL) will begin its new season. This is a twenty-team competition where each team will play 38 matches. One of the title contenders, Liverpool, will not only battle it out to win the EPL – they will be competing for seven different trophies. This includes all sorts of world and inter-national cups as well as local ones. The schedule for most teams will be hectic.
Buckley was a young coach full of fire and brimstone. Passionate about his club and pushing everyone to be better at all costs. When things didn’t go well, his over-riding message was to work harder. It was Buckley’s way or the highway. This is how he played, and how he was going to coach. If you didn’t like it you needed to toughen up or clear out your locker. It is not hard to see how this Authoritarian way of working got players and staff off-side and did not turn the ailing results around. When players disagreed with Buckley there was no platform to voice up. If they did, they would come off second best. The feeling of safety was low.
In our own work lives we see this often. When times are tough, or when we are new to a situation, we use our enthusiasm and want to achieve to direct those around us to “dig in” and get the job done. We demand a standard. Unfortunately, when we act like this most of the time, it fails to inspire. The intention is usually good but the delivery is poor. It sends a signal that people are not good enough, they in the wrong, and they are not empowered or encouraged to be autonomous.
This was proven in the Stanford Project (Barron and Hannan) undertaken in 1994, which is still held up as the biggest study to date of it’s type. This Stanford University study would run for 15 years tracking 200 tech companies in Silicon Valley. As the fastest moving segment at the time, this would magnify how business culture models impacted business results and longevity. They found that the Authoritarian Model of working was meagre in its results.
Buckley provided us with a visual case study of the ineffectiveness of Authoritarian Leadership, and through this documentary we saw the behaviours which ended with him almost losing his job. In 2017 he was given a new contract, which left many scratching their heads. It was clear and obvious that he was given some explicit feedback that the way he operated had to change.
All of the sudden this overbearing figurehead would take the team on a camp to connect, share, and talk through their problems. They were going out of their way to connect with the community, and this club that everyone hates was now becoming a friendly, approachable, and even likable entity. Buckley used philosophical story telling uplift, challenge, and align the playing group. It is amazing to see a footy team being spoken to about Kintsugi – the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery that accentuates the broken lines to make the piece more beautiful than what it was when it was unbroken.
Collingwood would make it to the Grand Final in 2018 and came within one kick of winning the whole thing.
Authoritarian to Connector. Authoritarian to Servant Leader. Authoritarian to Progressor.
If Buckley can re-invent himself and see such an uplift in results, it is possible for all of us. He shows us that being Autocratic can be natural for all of us when we are fighting on many fronts. When times are tough. When we are not sure what is coming next. But when we remain fierce without the aggression, we can elevate the commitment, courage, and confidence in those around us bringing the results we craved to being with.
