The Manager: Inside the Minds of Football's Leaders by Mike Carson Page A

managers will also have their own preferences. Leaders are unique too, and have a bias toward empathy or steel. The best ones can dial up either dimension when needed. Gérard
Houllier says of himself, ‘I think I’m tough, but I’m a loving person – and you need tough love to win. I can be extremely ruthless, but at the same time I can be extremely
generous, indulgent and patient.’ Ancelotti is high on empathy – but there is real steel. Sir Alex is high on steel – but there is real empathy. This is a case of
‘both-and’, not ‘either-or’. No leader will deliver real success without mastering the two.

CHAPTER THREE
BEHIND THE SCENES
    THE BIG IDEA
    Time spent on the field is short. How players live their lives off the field – what they believe and how they behave – shapes them as people and ultimately
determines the quality of their performance. Players of integrity build great reputations for themselves and their clubs.
    Creating the environment for success is an essential component of a leader’s role. Being able to engage with people one-to-one is, of course, a part of the answer, but there is more to it
than that. Having set a vision, a leader needs to ensure his people have a fighting chance of fulfilling it. He needs to address his team’s behaviours since right behaviours will assist on
the journey where poor ones won’t. Deeper than that, he has to establish some values which will help his people become self-determining. Deeper still, he may have to address some human needs
or risk losing his people along the way.
    These are important issues for leaders. Employees and even directors leave businesses when their basic needs are not being met – sometimes with serious consequences for the organisation
and those who remain. Players leave clubs when they are not playing – their need for growth and for belonging is not being met.
    Great football managers meet their players at all these levels. It is a rare skill indeed.
    THE MANAGER
    In the world of football, the name of Arsène Wenger stands for consistency and quality. An eight-year playing career in France included a league title with Strasbourg in
1978–79, but it is in football management that he has really found his purpose. He made his mark during eight years at Monaco, where he built a reputation for developing young talent and led
the club to a league title and cup victory. He left the club in 1994, wanting to broaden his horizons, and sought new experience in Japan, where he led Nagoya Grampus Eight to league and cup
trophies.
    In 1996, after the departure of Bruce Rioch, Wenger was offered the manager’s role at Arsenal. Seventeen years later, he has established himself as the club’s longest-serving and
most successful manager ever. Before Wenger’s arrival at Highbury, Arsenal had finished in the country’s top four places on 16 occasions. In the subsequent 16 seasons, Wenger has
achieved that status every time. He is one of only six managers to win the Premier League, which he has done on three occasions – twice as part of the coveted and still rare league and cup
double. Most notably, his team of ‘Invincibles’ in 2003–04 won the title without losing a single match – a feat unprecedented in the modern era. Wenger is the
longest-serving manager in the Barclays Premier League. He has an excellent reputation among his peers, who admire him for his breadth of knowledge, strength of mind and commitment to his
values.
    His Philosophy
    Wenger is known for many clear principles and beliefs. He is committed to internationalism, to youth, to fairness, to high-quality nutrition, to sustainable transfer and wage
policies, to entertaining and attacking football and to the purity of the game. That he should embody such rounded and progressive views is especially notable in the light of his small-town
origins. Born in Strasbourg in 1949, he grew up in the village of Duttlenheim, south-west of the city, where his