Ruling by Fear and Why It Worked for Alex Ferguson

In this companion piece to the Boss Levels video series, Head of Content for Custom Charts for Jira Christopher Berry looks at why so many leaders suck. And why, occasionally, you find one who doesn’t.

It was half-time and Manchester United were two-nil up. The players were congratulating themselves and the captain told the fullback he was having a great game. Other team members echoed the praise.

Then manager Alex Ferguson, who had been silent up to this point, asked the fullback if he thought he was playing well. The fullback said, “Yes.”

And then Ferguson let rip, unleashing his full-on signature “hairdryer treatment”, so named because his tirades were like being blasted a loud and forceful propulsion of hot air. Ferguson complained about the fullback doing something he’d been explicitly told not to. The whole atmosphere changed and there was silence till everyone was back on the pitch. The team won 4-0.

The next day, the player challenged Ferguson about his reaction and insisted he had played well. And Ferguson replied with this:

“I know son but some of your team mates were getting over confident so I needed to refocus them. I knew you were strong enough to take it.”

Great leadership, eh?

When I started researching Alex Ferguson, it was because we were doing an episode of Boss Levels with two big Ferguson fans ready to tell me why they think the guy’s such a great leader. And I finished my research thinking, Whaaaat? A great leader? You kidding? Nonsense. Everyone knows only terrible leaders you want to murder à la Horrible Bosses will humiliate one of their team in front of their colleagues. Praise in public, criticize in private. That’s leadership 101. Moreover, if you’re a boss and you verbally abuse one of your staff, then you’re the one who’s likely to get fired.

But, like so many things, leadership isn’t black and white. And by the end of that Boss Levels episode, I had completely changed my mind about Mr Ferguson.

Let me explain.

By today’s standards, Ferguson was a bully. But the players of the 1980s and 90s didn’t feel bullied or consider Ferguson to be a bully. Ferguson’s behaviour was normal and expected at that time. According to the players, Ferguson treated them the way they needed to be treated to be as successful as they were. And they have since unanimously praised him as a manager and have the utmost respect for him.

It’s worth thinking about the context as well as the era. If Ferguson had been managing a marketing team comprising people of different genders, ages, and dispositions, screaming and shouting would’ve made them throw their computers at him. But the footballers Ferguson managed were all young, passionate men with working-class roots. For them, all that hair drying worked.

Since then, society has changed. People have changed. Footballers have changed. And Alex Ferguson knows it. He’s said, “Players these days have lived more sheltered lives, so they are much more fragile now than 25 years ago. I was very aggressive all those years ago. But today I’m more mellowed… And I can better handle those more fragile players now.”

Maybe a better description than ‘fragile’ or ‘sheltered’ would be: more conscious of their mental health and welfare and how they should and should not be treated. But in any case, the youth of the 80s and 90s aren’t the youth of today. And Ferguson has acknowledged that he would no longer scream and shout at his players, he would treat them differently. He’s evolved, and that is the hallmark of an agile leader.

So one of the lessons to take from his leadership is this: work to your audience. Treat your team how they want and expect to be treated, and give them the leadership they need. Most importantly, when your team’s expectations and sensibilities change, change with them.

This monthly newsletter is part of the Boss Levels series from the Custom Charts for Jira team at Tempo Software, in which Business Unit Manager Chris Cooke and Head of Content Christopher 'Berry' Dunford discuss leaders from history, fiction, and the present day. We have more debates coming up on Steve Jobs and Jacinda Ardern, so stay tuned!