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

get the job. I’ve broken into football management. Thursday we come in to train.
Friday we’re training again and I have to select the team. I pick Paul Stevenson on the right. John Colquhoun came to see me to ask why he’d been left out. I said, “You
didn’t pick yourself in your team and you want to play in my team? Not a chance!” So I’m a player in the dressing room on Tuesday, and I’m the manager on Friday, making team
selections and leaving out personal friends. Not easy.’ McCarthy makes light of it, but, beneath the easy-going nature, there is steel in abundance. And the loyalty? ‘John and I have
been friends for years – and still are. Very much so.’
    So what did Colquhoun see in McCarthy that commanded his ongoing loyalty despite being dropped? Two things. The first is reliability. We often think of reliability as being on time, or playing a
solid, constant game – we talk admiringly of reliable goalkeepers, for example. However, being a good leader is more about whether or not they keep their promises – or, put even better,
whether they make promises they cannot keep. Tempted though he must have been to promise Colquhoun a place back in the starting line-up as soon as he was fit again, McCarthy did not take the easy
route. Beyond reliability, he acted with integrity. For a football manager with integrity, what he thinks, believes, says and does all align. McCarthy knew Colquhoun wasn’t fully fit –
and Colquhoun knew that McCarthy knew. In not selecting him, he behaved with integrity, and he and Colquhoun remain friends to this day. Integrity and steel can build loyalty.
    Steel works with real people
    A common issue – especially for less experienced leaders – is a nagging belief that steel can hurt people. But this does not have to be the case. The critical act is
to separate the problem from the person. In football, a common application of this principle is around leaving players off the team sheet. In other fields, an example might be delaying
someone’s advancement or promotion, or passing over a candidate for a specific task. No one enjoys dropping players, but the needs of the organisation or the club and the team are almost
always greater than the needs of the individual. If you keep your eyes on the bigger picture, then the tactical decisions become much easier to make.
    Great leaders make tough decisions, and still build powerful relationships. The first big challenge is the mindset of the manager. It’s important to recognise that tough decisions
don’t have to damage relationships – on the contrary, they can build them. The most powerful relationships have mutual respect in their foundations. A losing mentality is:
‘He’ll never forgive me for dropping him.’ A winning mentality might be: ‘If I select him, we’re not going to win. The right team for this match looks like
...’
    Walter Smith sees steel as an essential for dealing with players. ‘In football we don’t deal with products, we deal with people. And these people are not daft. They watch what you do
– that’s life as a manager. At Rangers in my first year they would have been looking at me asking: “Is he going to weaken under the pressure of having to handle this situation or
is he not? Is he going to be able to lead us out of this?” I realised I had to try and show all the time that I was going to lead us out of a tough place. There can be darker moments on your
own when you are making an assessment of the situation, where you think, no, this isn’t going to work – but in front of everyone I think you have to show that you can be up front and
handle it.’
    Managers also have to have clear reasons underpinning their decisions – even if, like Ancelotti, they tend not to share them: ‘Usually I don’t want to explain to the players
the motivation, because here we have 28 players and before the game I have to explain which 11 play and which 17 have to stay out. I don’t