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the
manager
WINTER 2011
56
57
THE BACK OFFICE
MIND
GAMES
the pressure faced by football managers is an amplified version
of the stresses which face managers from all walks of life on a
day-to-day basis. michael caulfield of the sporting edge looks at
the effects of pressure and offers a strategy for coping
living in the pressure cooker
There’s nothing
quite like
professional football. It’s raw, ruthless,
judgemental, highly pressurised,
emotional, irrational, sometimes
completely illogical and – more
often than not – heartbreaking. But
despite all this, it’s horribly addictive...
however much it hurts, we all keep
coming back for more.
And that’s just us fans. Whatever
pressure we feel, it pales into
insignificance compared with what
the manager is going through.
Imagine you had to carry out your
daily duties in front of 30,000 people
– and not just any people... people
who believe they know how to do
your job better than you and are quick
to call for your dismissal at the first
sign that things are going wrong.
At Sporting Edge we support
people in a variety of sporting
disciplines. My own background
was originally in horse racing (and
that’s a world which breeds some
tough characters) but I have never
come across anyone with the mental
toughness to compare with football
managers. Those people who have
adapted and survived over the years
in what is a notoriously cut-throat
business are masters at managing and
dealing with pressure.
But while football managers may be
working at a different level to the rest
of us, all forms of management in all
areas of life carry their own pressures.
In fact, the parallels between elite
sport and business have never been
so clear. With the increased pressure
of expectation, targets and statistical
analysis of performance, board
room executives now experience
similar pressures to their sporting
counterparts. The question is, how
best can these pressures be dealt with?
If you accept and acknowledge
that you are working in a pressurised
situation – and most managers do –
then you must take steps to address
this. You undoubtedly provide a
support network of some form or
British sport. They provided unique
insights into dealing with winning
and losing, overcoming adversity,
emotional control, mental toughness,
confidence, creating the right
environment and how they learn from
failure and setbacks.
From our discussions with this elite
group, we have compiled a list of four
common coping skills which they use
to deal with pressure:
1
Focus on what you can control.
Everyone at the highest level
gets nervous and feels the pressure
and expectation of performing.
However hard it maybe, the only
way is to focus totally on the process
of preparation and elements that are
within your control. Not everything
can be defined by its outcome – even
though this is often how things are
perceived. An event’s outcome is
often the one thing that the manager
cannot control, so it’s important
that thoughts and efforts should be
concentrated elsewhere.
2
Confidence and belief are king...
even when things are going
against you. In moments of pressure,
people tend to focus on what’s going
wrong; they question everything and
begin to doubt themselves. In these
situations, it’s vital to reconnect with
past successes. Managers need to
remember what they are good at and
repeat those things which made them
successful in the first place.
“Senior
management
in all areas
of life, sport
and business
will be
pressurised”
other to every other individual
working in your organisation, but
do you have a support network of
your own? Everyone in sport who is
expected to perform at a high level is
offered the maximum level of support
and there’s no reason why this should
not be the same for managers.
Over the past six months at
Sporting Edge, we have had met
and worked with some of the most
successful coaches and athletes in