Humility, focus and compassion – what leaders can learn from Gareth Southgate

It’s hard to be English and not get swept up in the excitement and anticipation of the actual, real, possibility of a world cup win right now (and I write this before the game against Croatia…. just in case). But there is another reason to celebrate what’s going on here, the wonderful humble, compassionate and grounded leadership being shown by Gareth Southgate. This is mindful leadership at its best.

 Humility: Southgate has pulled together a team that psychologically seems to have a shared collective of humility. As Southgate himself says “ there are other teams in the tournament that have better collections of individuals but we have been a real team.” This way of leading creates a team that has less ego-driven behaviours, less need for anyone to be an individual star, which in turn gives each player more space to be courageous. If you aren’t working hard to protect your personal “star status” you can afford to take more risks. And if things don’t work out, its not so bad, you can bounce back quicker as your ego hasn’t take a big hit. This isn’t something that has just happened by chance, it’s a way of being that has been modelled by Southgate, and then spread by osmosis to become the team psyche and how the team behaves.

 Focus: This is a team devoid of celebrity acts or hero show-boating. After the win over Sweden the English side were seen to be immediately returning to focus, rather than parading around on open-top buses and celebrating, they were seen watching the footage from the match just played, putting together their video clips for analysis, preparing and focusing on what’s next. Not getting distracted by what’s just gone, they seem to be able to simply return to focus of what needs to happen next. As team leaders it’s easy to get just as swept up and distracted by a win than it is by a loss. There is a great strength in simply acknowledging a job well done, then without clinging to the moment of glory, returning to understanding lessons learnt and focusing on what’s next. Attachment to the glory of a win doesn’t serve us any better than hanging onto the disappointment of a loss, enjoy the moment, but re-focus and move forward, let it go, this seems to be Southgate’s leadership style.

 Compassion: It was hard to miss the poignancy of the moment when the Colombian player, Mateus Uribe, missed a penalty causing Colombia to be knocked out of the World Cup. It’s a moment that is all to familiar to Southgate (as those of us who watched him miss a crucial penalty in England’s Euro '96 semi-final against Germany can attest to), but it was itself a clear indication of where Southgate’s mind was, not with his own needs (to celebrate England’s victory) but instead he took time to show compassion to a player, from the opposing team, who was having a hard time. As leaders how often do we have the presence of mind to think about those who lose when we win? The competitor we happily crush, the promotion we get over someone else? It takes a great presence of mind to be able to balance our immediate emotions of joy and achievement and at the very same time be aware of what’s going on for others, and be able to tend to that.

 Humility, focus and compassion in a football manager is not something I would have been anticipating I would be writing about anytime soon, but then I also would not have predicted we would get so far in a world cup, and it’s a joy to be witnessing this on both accounts.