News and Insights
From Crisis to Unity: Southgate’s Blueprint for Modern Leadership
July 31, 2024
Sports psychologist Michael Caufield recently likened managing the England football team as putting ‘your hand in the fire’. After eight years in one of the most highly scrutinised jobs in world football, England manager Gareth Southgate has now taken his charred hand from the flames, acknowledging that it was “time for change, and for a new chapter.”
In response, England FA chief executive Mark Bullingham paid tribute to Southgate’s ‘most extraordinary’ big tournament record and his ‘unique’ success in transforming the team’s culture. According to Bullingham, Southgate had ‘made an impossible job possible’.
An accidental appointment and poisoned chalice
Before Southgate’s appointment, the England managerial job had long been the very embodiment of a poisoned chalice. Over the previous two decades, the FA oscillated between big-name foreign managers and grizzled homegrown veterans, without ever coming close to a winning formula. Incumbent managers met one of two fates: tragic punchline (Steve McClaren, Roy Hodgson) or red-top scandal (Glen Hoddle, Sven-Göran Eriksson, Sam Allardyce). In effect, it was a recurring tale of tears and tabloid fodder.
Southgate’s appointment was never part of the FA’s plan. After an unremarkable three-year stint as England under-21s manager, he was promoted to interim senior manager after Sam Allardyce resigned just one match and 67 days into the role, following a tawdry newspaper sting.
His appointment came soon after England’s humiliating Euro 2016 defeat to Iceland, when the prevailing sentiment was that English football had hit a new low. In the absence of any more credible or exciting alternatives, good ‘company man’ Southgate was effectively the last man left still sitting in the waiting room.
On the eve of World Cup 2018 in Russia, Southgate’s first major tournament as manager, then FA chief executive Martin Glenn sought to temper expectations, suggesting “we go there wanting to win it but also being realistic”.
Embracing the diversity narrative
However, the team surpassed all expectations by reaching the World Cup semi-finals. More impressively, long before a ball had been kicked in Russia, Southgate and his team had restored a feel-good factor in English football not seen since Euro 96. Remarkably, the unfiltered rage that had accompanied England’s Euro 2016 exit had been superseded by a different narrative: one of joy, unity and greater inclusivity.
In the months leading up to the World Cup, Southgate recognised the counterproductive relationship between media and players, and embarked upon a PR charm offensive aimed at fostering greater openness and goodwill between the team, media and supporters. Incredibly, it worked. Southgate tamed the British tabloids and created a new team culture that embraced the diversity of its young players and their different backgrounds.
A unifying figure amidst division
Significantly, Southgate’s appointment came a mere three months after the Brexit referendum, and his reign played out against a backdrop of political division, culture wars, Covid-19 restrictions, and domestic economic stagnation.
Amidst societal chaos and hostilities, Southgate became an unlikely unifying figure representing traditional English values whilst embracing modernity.
Critically, he came into the job at a time when a new generation of young footballers were finding their voice on social issues, including race, discrimination, mental health, and child poverty. Southgate welcomed this development and supported his players when they took a stand against racism, including their decision to take a knee before games. In doing so, he inadvertently portrayed a new, more inclusive, understated model of English patriotism and leadership, one liberated from the toxicity and contradictions of many of his political equivalents in Westminster.
The DE&I manager?
Numerous critics have sought to dismiss Southgate as a mere DE&I manager. This entirely misses the point. His progressive new model of Englishness was perfectly encapsulated in his ‘Dear England’ open letter published in the Player’s Tribune in 2021. In the letter, he spoke of ‘Queen and country’ and his grandad, a ‘fierce patriot and proud military man, who served during World War II.’ He also reasserted his support of his players using their platforms to ‘help put debates on the table’.
Southgate isn’t the only international manager to take on such a prominent role on social issues. On the eve of the recent French parliamentary election, France manager Didier Deschamps stopped short of condemning the far right, but acknowledged the social responsibilities of his players, stating they are “immense footballers but first and foremost French citizens,” and that they “speak with their own words and their own sensitivity.”
Speaking with substance vs superficial gestures
In recent years, corporate leaders are increasingly expected to take positions on the key societal issues of the day. They are tasked with articulating their organisation’s position, or defending their lack of a position, on often complex and divisive issues facing modern society, whilst balancing this against the risk of alienating vested stakeholders. Some get it right. They speak and listen from a place of authenticity and substance. Others lean into superficial gestures or hiding under the desk.
Akin to a CEO of English football
In the last eight years, Southgate has emerged as an adept leader and communicator, akin to a CEO of English football. In doing so, he has shielded the FA from many of the sharper edges and tougher questions that come with being a public institution in a decade defined by division.
As public and private sector leaders grapple with many of these same challenges, Southgate has created a compelling blueprint for others to follow; one that respects established institutional values, combined with a progressive approach that welcomes diversity and encourages inclusivity and openness. Crucially, this blueprint allows institutional leaders to admit that they don’t have all the answers.
By following Southgate’s example, corporates can develop a leadership style that not only navigates these challenges but ultimately fosters a more inclusive, engaged, and resilient organisation.
Paddy O’Dea is a senior partner at FINN Partners Ireland.
A version of this article first appeared in the Business Post on 21.07.2024
POSTED BY: Paddy O’Dea
