Sir Alex Ferguson’s 8 Rules of Leadership

Sir Alex Ferguson is a legendary soccer coach and manager. Until stepping down this spring after 26 seasons as top man at famed Manchester United, Ferguson was generally respected around the world as the sport’s top leader.

Entrusted to his care and custodianship was a franchise worth (at his departure) $3.2 billion. Ferguson owned his team’s success with an intensity few rival. In addition to chasing trophies, he protected the brand; and was custodian protectorate of hundreds of millions of fans worldwide.

Sir Alex was a strong leader, a man who never left doubt about who was in charge. In a recent interview with Harvard Business Review, he discussed his eight rules of building a strong organization from the ground up. Here they are:

1. Sacrifice short-term pain for long-term gain. Ferguson believed in building from the bottom up, which he says produces a stronger bond than the ones found in organizations comprised of patchwork acquisitions.“Building a club brings stability and consistency,” he said. “You don’t ever want to take your eyes off the first team, but our youth development efforts ended up leading to our many successes in the 1990s and early 2000s.” Ferguson was a pipeline guy. He wanted a full, escalating pipeline of options to strengthen and restrengthen the club.
2. Don’t be afraid to rebuild. Success drove Sir Alex’s personnel decisions. He believed in retooling his team every three or four years but would keep veterans as long as they were producing at a sustained, predictable level. Once they slipped—even a bit—they were gone. Loyalty took second place to performance. Conversely, while hundreds came and went, Ryan Giggs played for Sir Alex for 24 seasons.
3. Set the bar high. Like many, Ferguson came to work early and left late. His discipline was a strength in execution: He did the little things well and the big things well. Ferguson despises halfhearted effort. His practices were focused, intense, concentrated, and executed with speed — relentless in their pursuit of high-performance.
4. Let them know who’s boss. Ferguson treated his stars the same as his newcomers: No one skated. He got rid of some of the sport’s biggest stars in their primes as soon as they demonstrated a sense of self above Sir Alex or the team. Among them was David Beckham, whose private life and brand-name hunger made him a bad fit for the club’s culture .
5. Keep them guessing. Ferguson came at his players from various unpredictable angles. He’d coach them post-game—not the next day—and when the time came to release a player he’d be subtle and encouraging. He was very good about protecting his players’ confidence; but how he went about doing so varied in timing and technique.
6. Take risks. Part of the Ferguson legacy was his team’s uncanny knack for winning games late. He attributed this to practice—the team worked through different scenarios emulating tied and trailing scenarios—and when the situation arose on the pitch (field of play), the team executed what they’d rehearsed a thousand times.Sir Alex was also a bit of a gambler. If Manchester United were down a goal, he had no hesitation making strategy changes or substitutions. Losing by two was no worse than losing by one, but catching back up was worth everything.
7. Take a step back. Early in his management career, Sir Alex was a hovering micromanager. But soon he grew out of it. He learned to trust his people and give them space, so he could concentrate on the big picture.Distance gave him perspective, which he came to value immensely because it enabled him to see more. In his words, perspective and expanded vision enabled him to be “less of a football manager” and more of a “man manager.”

   Many would say this vital change in how he managed was instrumental in making Sir Alex the extraordinary leader he became.

8. Don’t be scared of change. To look at the old Scot now would never tip a hint that Sir Alex Ferguson was a tinkering innovator who was always looking for and trying new ideas. For example, he brought yoga to the team back in the 1980s—way before it was fashionable—and installed vitamin D booths in the dressing rooms to try and minimize the effects of the persistently cloudy Manchester weather. Ferguson also insisted on heavy investment in training facilities, all the while relentlessly seeking and evaluating new ideas.To Sir Alex, a lot of little things added up to the one big difference — the winning edge.

 

In business, the right man or woman in the right place at the right time can get lucky, but only those better than most sustain at the highest level for decades like Sir Alex Ferguson.

He was firm and strong, compassionate yet aloof, old school and new school, visionary yet decisive.

While the art of modern leadership sometimes hinges on an inclusionary approach, there are times and businesses that require a strong, unquestioned leader at the top.

In Manchester United’s case, that man was Sir Alex Ferguson. And from his work comes much to learn about the road to follow to lasting success.