Leading Like Jürgen Klopp – Five Reasons why Liverpool FC’s Champion Coach Should be Your Role Model as a Manager

After starting as an entrepreneur, I turned into a manager of other people's companies relatively young into my career.

As a sports fan, I usually resort to a sports metaphor when trying to describe what I am doing for a living.

Being a business' general manager is a lot, like being the coach of a football club. You put the best team together that you can afford; you do what you can do to make them play (work) well together; you motivate,  coach, troubleshoot, and eventually, you take responsibility for the results.

I guess I am not the only one who sees the similarity between leadership in sports and business. We all like winners and that a successful sports coach is pumped up as a leadership role model is common.

Success in sport comes and goes, and the faces of victory change frequently; this keeps leagues of biography and leadership book writers in the business.

I referenced Liverpool Football Club's Manager Jürgen Klopp not so long ago in my article on my learnings of the COVID-19 pandemic. That article was quite appropriately named "I'm not Jürgen Klopp – Four Takeaways from the COVID-19 Pandemic from a Non-Expert".

I am still no Jürgen Klopp, but I genuinely aspire to be more like him and believe that if I'd succeed, it would make me a better manager and leader.

I have followed Jürgen Klopp's career since he turned from player to manager at German's then second league club FSV Mainz 05. From the get-go, Kloppo (as he is affectionately referred to in Germany) showed some character traits that I believe contribute largely to his continuous success as coach/manager across his stints at Mainz, Borussia Dortmund, and now Liverpool FC.

Before I go into the details, why I believe Jürgen Klopp's example should be taught in the MBA curriculum, let me remind you, or, if you are not a soccer/football aficionado, introduce you to the fantastic career of Klopp.

When Klopp was officially introduced as interim coach at Mainz 05 in February 2001, he was still an active player on the roaster of the 2nd division club, pursuing his professional coaching license in part-time mode. Klopp was a solid league two defender, who probably understood the game of football beyond his ability to play it.

As Club Manager Christian Heidel recounts, Klopp's appointment as head coach was a bit like "the CEO of an airline asking a stewardess to fly the plane the next day" (an anecdote you can see in this German video). Upon his appointment, Klopp saved Mainz from the relegation ranks and then in the two subsequent seasons missed the promotion to the Bundesliga by a whisker (in 2002/3 by a single goal difference), leading to emotional scenes involving half of the city.

Klopp made eventually good on his promise that the team would come back stronger after the two last-minute disappointments and eventually lead Mainz to the club's first-ever promotion to Germany's elite 18 in 2003/04. This video (in German) captures the story quite well.

Mainz surprised many, placing mid of the table in the Bundesliga for two years, despite having the smallest budget in the league, before eventually being relegated. After another narrowly missed promotion, Klopp resigned in 2008 from Mainz, joining then troubled giant Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga.

At Dortmund Klopp, let the youngest squad ever to a German championship, winning the title in 2011 and following up with a title defense and the national cup in 2012, the last German championship to date not won by Bayern Munich.

Klopp decided to leave BVB in the summer of 2015 and ended up signing with Liverpool FC in the same year, where he has just won the club's first Premier League title in 30 years and the UEFA Champions League in the year before. For a good English summary of Kloppo's career, you can have a look at this BBC documentation.

So what is it that makes "The Normal One" so unique? In my opinion, there are five main character traits that you should try to emulate if you want to "lead like Kloppo."

1)    Keep the Fire Alive in the Rain

Even if you do not speak German and you don't understand the narration of the videos from Klopp's time with Mainz, linked above, you can't miss the emotional energy of the story. In Germany, we call characters like Kloppo "positiv verrückt," literally translated "crazy, but in a good way."

Klopp is passionate, not just about his job, his players, and football in general. He is just passionate, full stop. You can find videos of Jürgen Klopp crying when he missed the relegation with Mainz in 2001/2 and 2002/3, you see him freaking out completely in moments of triumph, there are a lot of Klopp hugging compilations, and you can see him firing back at reporters or find his moving farewell speeches from Mainz and Dortmund.

Jürgen Klopp, during the Champions League Season 2017/18, Photo credit: Bigstockphoto.com

Klopp is 120% pure emotion and has been over and over able to ignite his teams and their supporters, even whole cities with his fire.

Now, passion is a double-edged sword that can quickly work against you, and Kloppo occasionally gets carried away in the spur of the moment. However, when he has, he also is the first to admit his wrongdoings and is quick with a sincere apology, like this one for shaming a translator in December 2019.

You can neither run a business purely on emotions, nor can you whip a football club to success merely with fiery motivational speeches. But authentic (in bold) emotions boost a leader's credibility. As a leader, do not let emotions cloud your ability to think things through, but do not hold back on your feelings either.

If your team members don’t know that you care, why should they do?

Where Klopp's emotions have had the most impact was in moments of defeat. Where other coaches lash out, finger-point, or find excuses, you see Kloppo hugging his players with tears in his eyes. Klopp, over and over, sowed the seed of his later success in these moments of disappointment. Where other teams fell apart in the eyes of a failure, Klopp's teams got stronger.

2)    Stay Forever Authentic

I touched on authenticity when talking about emotions, as emotions perceived as affected, are an easy way to wreck your authority as a leader. People follow leaders whom they genuinely believe. The easiest way to achieve this kind of trust is by staying true to yourself and to your values.

If you watch interviews with old companions from his youth or his time as a player, almost every interviewee emphasizes that Jürgen Klopp hasn't changed. He is the prime example of "what you see is what you get."

This also means that Kloppo is never shy to hold back his opinion, even if it touches topics other coaches would stay away from, like criticizing the English Football Association and the Premier League for not doing a winter break like other leagues.

This style would not work with all employers, but Klopp chose his clubs wisely and you should do the same! Prioritize cultural fit, as you will only be able to stay true to yourself and in your job if your value system and the one of your employers are well aligned.

3)    Be Confident, but stay Humble

Jürgen Klopp is a rock star of a football coach and could hardly be blamed for buying into his own hype. That he doesn't, and even according to childhood friends, stayed mostly the same, speaks for his character. When he was asked during his first press conference as coach of LFC to describe himself and how the press should refer to him since rival José Mourinho (then coach at Chelsea) was already dubbed "The Special One," Klopp replied I am a regular guy from the Black Forrest, maybe call me "The Normal One." And as we covered in point the second bullet point, authenticity, that is not a shtick.

The Normal One - Klopp’s first press conference at LFC

Now Klopp surely knows that he is one of the best football coaches in the world, but at the same time, he also knows that football is, after all, just a game.

The ability to put himself and the football microcosm into perspective is an ability that is quite rare among his peers. Just take the video that was the centerpiece of my article on COVID-19, where he aggressively rebutted the question for his opinion on Corona: "I'm a football coach, I wear a base-cap, and I have a bad shave, and my opinion about Corona is not important."

I believe that Kloppo's ability to take a step back and to set things in proper relations is a powerful mechanism. You can be confident in yourself and your expertise and still be humble to understand that in the grand scheme of things, you maybe don't matter that much after all.

4)    Laugh a Lot, mostly at Yourself

Now you do not usually associate German's with humor, but I guess even the British do admit that Kloppo is genuinely funny. His press conferences are among the most entertaining ones in football, and his one-liners and witty replies make this routine part of the business fun for all people involved.

While Jürgen Klopp inevitably leaves no doubt that he is serious about his job, he surely doesn't take himself all too seriously. As former Mainz manager Christian Heidel said in the video linked in the introduction part of this article, the very first question to the newly named coach Jürgen Klopp was "how will you reach the players" to what Kloppo replied: "I am planning to dance naked on the table."

Humor is a powerful tool to defuse stressful situations. I got to know quite a lot of people over my 15 years career in business. From my own experience, I can confirm that people who can find humor in the most challenging moments, in general, seem much more resilient in the eye of adversity. Laughing about a dire situation does not mean that you are not taking it seriously.

And being able to laugh about yourself and your quirks, is another way to stay grounded.

 5)    Obsess about Excellence

Now all the character traits mentioned above would make Jürgen Klopp a great guy to have a beer with, but not necessarily one of the best sports coaches in the world. There is no doubt that Kloppo has a gift for understanding football far beyond his own ability to play the game. Already as a young amateur player, he coached youth squads and that he did not just complete his high school degree, but also earned a master's degree in sport science from the Goethe University Frankfurt, while playing professional football were early

Jürgen Klopp always knew that he wanted to be a coach, as a senior player at Mainz, he was much more than just a player. That's also where he got introduced to the then still new concept of zone defense, introduced in Mainz by Wolfgang Frank, an idea that he developed into his signature style of fast-paced counter-attacking football and relentless pressing.

Jürgen Klopp is not just passionate, he is also obsessed with excellence, and while he leaves his players a lot of creative freedom, including the freedom to do a mistake occasionally, he is also relentless to get the best out of them.

What do you think? Where could you benefit from being more like Jürgen Klopp? Or what role model do you try to emulate? Leave a comment or send me a message.