In August 1996 the author negotiated and was given total access to a professional football club to research ‘Leadership and Motivation’ throughout the coming season. At the end of that period, the contract was re-drawn to work with the manager in a role consultancy mode, and at a later date extended to work with individual players and the entire team, as was felt necessary. This paper is based on the experiences and findings of this ongoing consultancy intervention and is applied to that experience throughout.

In general terms, the paper seeks to offer an analysis of leadership in the highly demanding and anxiety provoking environment of professional football. More specifically, it looks at that aspect of leadership of the football manager that concerns the struggles associated with his process of managing the boundary between what is inside and what is outside. In particular, it explores the impact of creativity and violence from the perspectives of both the manager and the dynamics of the team as a whole. In doing so, it explores the complex interplay of individual and task boundaries and the effect on other team members of violence accompanying the creative drive of an authority figure.

The paper will start with a brief discussion of the theoretical concepts regarding ‘leadership’ and ‘creativity’ which underpin the views developed. I will then discuss something of the football environment before turning to the world of the manager and the various roles that he must take up as team manager. This will be followed with a more detailed application of the manager’s leadership role based on the consultancy experience.

Leadership

What do we mean by leadership? It seems that the essential point, for this discussion, is that leadership always involves attempts on the part of the leader (influencer) to affect (influence) the behaviour of a follower (see for example, Tannenbaum et. al., 1961). To do so, involves the use of power which is potential for influence. As Miller (1985) explained, ‘every act is a political act’ and every leadership act being an attempt to influence; be that by persuasion, manipulation, request or cajoling, requires the use of power. In addition, the concept of power frequently connotes a potential for coercion, based for example on physical force, informal social pressure, law, and authority. The case material will show that such coercion is very much a part of the management of footballers.

Seen in a different light, the very act of leadership may be thought of as managing a boundary between what is inside and what is outside. It requires the manager to re-examine the boundary between inside and outside and to take a different and riskier stance towards his environment. Creativity, innovation and change occur when the creative manager exercises leadership. As we shall see below, creativity - the creation of something new - may generally speaking result in satisfaction of the leader’s desires but it may at the same time deprive other people of satisfactions of theirs. They may suffer anxiety or pain from deprivation because of the leader’s actions. Satisfactions of the leader’s desires may be destructive to theirs, and vice versa. As Rice (1969), so astutely pointed out, ‘It is …unfortunately true that innovation and change seldom appear to result from democratic process’ (p.90). In a role which is legendary for its insecurity of tenure, it is perhaps not surprising that creativity is a very anxiety-provoking process for the football manager. It should, therefore, be no surprise that football managers frequently impose their images on their teams in the most violent manner

Creativity

To try to gain a deeper understanding of why this should be, it will be helpful to examine what we mean by creativity. Creativity has been defined by Storr (1972, p.11), as ‘the ability to bring something new into existence’. That something new, may take various forms. For example, it may be a new product, a new theory, a new work of art, a new paper, a new vision or a new strategy. The view taken here is that creativity is not limited to a special class of people - such as artists or writers - or to special products or to special circumstances, as some have argued, rather, that creativity is a drive possessed by all. In addition, it is suggested that such is the nature of the drive that we have a compulsion to create. Indeed, we might well ask that if that were not the case, why should I (and others) continue to write papers such as this?

Freud (1908) observed, that every child at play behaves like a creative writer. That is, he creates a world of his own by rearranging things in a new way which links things of the real world in a way that pleases him. This linking, said Freud, is all that differentiates the child’s play from ‘phantasying’. Furthermore, this linking is taking place in what Winnicott (1971) has referred to as the transitional space - the potential space between the individual and the environment. As Winnicott explained, the special feature of the potential space is that it depends for its existence on living experiences, not on inherited tendencies. Following Freud, Winnicott also explained that creative apperception depends upon linking subjective and objective, upon colouring the external world with the warm hues of the imagination.

Seen in the light of the manager, by anticipating future environmental changes, he can develop adaptive, innovative systems to meet contingencies. He can design creative strategies to deal with external affairs. By adopting a creative approach which involves linking the external reality with the warm hues of his imagination he is able to create a new response, a new vision, or a new strategy to meet environmental demands. In doing so, he will make the team congruent with its current and future environment. However, this process is not without its difficulties as will be explained below.

I have described elsewhere (Stapley: 1996, pp. 122 - 140) that ‘while we create in the imaginary world of the primary process we exist and bring our creations into being in the world of reality which is governed by the secondary process, a world that includes the super-ego. Our conscience which is directed by the super-ego and instructing us what we may do or not do is developed from the world of our reality. Consequently, to develop something radically new will almost certainly result in conflict with our conscience which will be instructing us how we ought to behave. In going beyond the limits set by the world of reality the ego reacts with guilt. Guilt is experienced with regard to those others that he opposes through his discovery, new paradigm, or whatever we choose to call it. Guilt is also experienced in regard to himself for daring to ‘step out of line’.

Thus to be creative requires a good deal of courage, the sort of courage necessary to overcome the inevitable guilt that will be associated with the process. I do not believe that many creative products are formed without the feeling: ‘I am alone’; ‘no one has done this before’; ‘that I have ventured into new territory’; or, ‘perhaps I am foolish or wrong’. A highly appropriate example is that concerning Bion which concerned his taking very considerable risks with regard to his professional reputation. Trist (1985) describes how ‘Bion asked if he was a bit mad to be giving serious consideration to such ideas?’ Trist replied that ‘he had to have the courage of his own logic’. ‘Freud’ he went on to say, ‘must have given himself some bad frights when he found the key concepts of psychoanalysis arising in his head for the first time’ (p.33).

Although both Freud (1908) and Winnicott (1971) advanced the notion that creativity involves playing, this must not be taken to mean that creative activity is carefree. On the contrary, creative or innovative activity of any kind is invariably associated with considerable violence and frequently arouses intense experiences of anguish and guilt as has been described above. A further important aspect of creativity has been described by MacDougall (1995), as follows: ‘We might envisage the internal world of the creative person as something like a volcano. Within its depths, the volcano conceals ever-present heat and churning energy, sending out sparks, rocks, and flames at appropriate moments. If prolonged blockage were to occur, however, an explosion would soon follow’. An aspect of this relentless drive in the creator’s inner world is explored in Kavaler-Adler’s (1993) work, ‘The Compulsion to Create’.

The view taken here is that violence is an essential element in all creative acts. Such is the intensity of the creative urge that those concerned (here the football manager) impose their images on the outside world. Creativity is, as MacDougall describes, like a volcano that is churning with energy. It screams for release. But if there is no release for that creative drive there will be a tremendous explosion. The leader, for all sorts of reasons, many of which will be discussed below, in seeking to bring his new creation into being will use coercion and violence to achieve his ends. Experience of working in this setting has provided ample support for this view and sheds light on an aspect of ‘bullying’ which has not previously been given enough attention.

As will be described, professional football is a physically and emotionally painful experience. Here, creative activity is open and public and subject to the most serious and powerful criticism which serves to increase the anguish and anxiety. Through the process of creativity, the manager is giving up an external definition of ‘reality’ and substituting his own, he is therefore giving up elements of certainty and security and substituting uncertainty and insecurity. It is argued that this is one of the necessary risks and costs that the football manager faces in managing the team and creating change. Social change inescapably starts with the manager himself.

The Environment of the Football Manager

One of my earliest reflections from my field notes is that professional football is both a physically and emotionally painful game. This is most apparent in the period just before taking the field when on a regular basis one player will forcibly vomit, one will twice evacuate his bowels, others will take pain killers, others will have massages, and yet others will go through all sorts of regular routines. An extreme example of the emotional problems experienced by players is that of Peter, a highly competent player, who at one point was suffering so badly that he literally could not get out on the pitch. As he described it, ‘My legs just will not operate, they go to jelly, my head has gone’. In a situation where the manager is a clear authority figure, there is also the opportunity for transference activity. Thus, another player that I worked with on a one-to-one basis did not respond simply to the realities of what the manager said and did, but also to a long persisting internal representation of authority, which he saw as punitive and unreliable.

One of the ways that football players handle the pain and anxiety of their profession is by adopting exceedingly macho attitudes and behaviour. The language is strong and coarse, the subject matter is highly sexist and frequently relating to sexual conquests. Hard drinking bouts are boasted about and seen as part of the ‘normal’ relaxation. It is as if the macho activities are necessary to support them in their need to face up to the demands of the role. A further interesting feature is the fact that footballers wives are, in the main, pretty, well dressed, attractive and highly feminine. Again, it seems that this is necessary to perpetuate the image of their macho male husbands.

Largely based on the glory and excitement of watching football, and indeed the pleasure of playing, it may be many a young child’s dream to be a professional footballer; however, at this level this is not a game but a highly competitive business. Success and failure are never far apart and the latter will frequently result in the manager being fired. As such, it is a role which is legendary for its insecurity of tenure. Frequently, the manager is replaced by his deputy or another member of staff and this was the way that Fred (as I will call him here), came to be the manager of this particular team.

At the point where the team are actually working, when they are playing matches, all this is taking place in the presence of a large crowd. As Freud (1921) pointed out, the essence of conscience is ‘social anxiety’ the fear of public opinion. However, when we find ourselves in a crowd the voice of the individual conscience may be silenced. Hence all that has been repressed, all that violates the standards of conscience can now uninhibitedly appear in behaviour. An amusing reflection concerns the club doctor whom I frequently sit with during games. At one particular match I suddenly became aware that sitting beside me was not the gentile, polite and urbane man that I knew so well but someone who was swearing and shouting. I smiled as I thought to myself, ‘Freud was right’. I also have to confess that despite many and frequent attempts to stay focused on my task I have at times found myself caught up and overwhelmed by the crowd, unable to be receptive to the phenomena I must work with. If this is so for me, I have no doubt that it must also be the case for the manager.

The Role of the Football Manager

As manager, Fred has several roles, some are administrative or personnel functions such as determining players salaries, or the recruitment and release of players. Others, such as training, and coaching are more closely related to the playing process. Some of these roles are shared or delegated to the assistant manager, coaches, trainers or scouts. As with any manager, these roles are all intertwined and interdependent and each is important. However, those referred to are mainly what I shall refer to as managerial which I want to distinguish from his leadership role.

The concern here is not about Fred’s managerial roles but about how he takes up his leadership role. A leadership role which is concerned with the manager providing the vision and strategy for the future of the team. It is about Fred taking up a leadership role which is essentially concerned with the management of change, both internal and external to the organisation. Of these influences, some internal changes especially those of a financial nature are important, but most change seems to be driven by changes in the environment as it impinges on the workplace. Fred’s leadership role, is to provide a creative response to these environmental changes.

The strategic management perspective means that Fred is a central figure in organisational change. As the principle decision maker, he has a decisive role in shaping the destiny of his team. He can and needs to take a proactive stance, anticipate future environmental changes, and develop adaptive, innovative systems to meet contingencies. A proactive strategy requires a view to the future rather than reflection on the past.

The challenge for Fred is not simply internal operations; it is designing strategies to deal with external affairs. In the world of football, the strategic decision making process of adjusting to environmental uncertainty and change and aligning the organisation to these external forces is very complex. There are many variables that may have an impact on the strategy such as the state of the playing surface, injuries to own or other team’s players, loss of form, and suspensions through ill-discipline, all of which are tested out in direct competition with the opposition. Making the organisation congruent with its current and future environment requires a highly creative approach on the part of the manager. As can be imagined, with so many variables, this cannot be a perfect art, and plenty of opportunity exists for uncertainty. This calls for leadership of the highest calibre.

Leadership in Action

Away from the football scene Fred is a pleasant, polite and fair-minded individual who is a good and loving father to his 13 year old son and 16 year old daughter. I am best able to gauge his relationship with his son as he is at most matches and find that it is based on mutual respect.

He is deeply committed to the Club and thinks and breathes football. Just like the artist, writer or chef, Fred is a highly creative individual. He does not adopt a ‘professional’ win-at-all-costs approach and recruits players who will play skilfully and within the rules of the game (clean players). His vision, then, is not to win but to play well which to him means attractive, attacking football. It is more important to him to receive compliments from fellow professionals about the way the (his) team play than about results. This involves a constant process of creativity as he explained when he said, ‘As soon as the (current) match is over, I am thinking about the next game, thinking about how we are going to play’.

When I first started working with him, Fred would be deeply emotionally involved during games, almost as if he were personally kicking every ball. It was as though he knew the way he wanted his side to play and was willing them, cajoling them, and coercing them to do so. When things went wrong, as they inevitably did, this resulted in severe criticism for the team in general and possibly for individual players. We have worked on this aspect over a long period of time and, among other things, explored how his assistant manager might help him more. In addressing this issue it soon became clear that Fred had little or no respect for his assistant in terms of professional or technical skills, but the one quality he did appreciate was his loyalty.

From my observations and from talking with the assistant manager I was aware of deep dissatisfaction on his part but this was never voiced. He simply went along with things rather like a faithful poodle. When I discussed his role with him he said, ‘There really isn’t anything for me to say. Fred always covers it all’. But at other times he would clearly show his dissatisfaction for what was basically a non-role. For example, before one match he was in the dressing room writing on the white board when he referred to the assistant manager of a team they had recently played. He said, ‘Did you read what the assistant manager of ‘x’ team said about us. Bloody fool! Anyway, what’s the assistant manager doing saying anything’. He was writing and stabbed the pen into the white board as he said, ‘The assistant manager said "blank"!’

At one level, Fred was aware that he needed an assistant manager who could help him as part of a team. Clearly, there was a difficulty for him in dispensing with an old loyal friend of many years standing. However, it seemed that the biggest problem was that of insecurity. As stated earlier, Fred was promoted to his role as manager from assistant manager when the previous manager was fired. Consequently, and perhaps not unreasonably in the circumstances, the perception is that the assistant manager can pose a considerable threat if he is a capable practitioner. The problem of insecurity also impinged on my role. For example, at the start of a season I was working with him, planning some work with the whole playing staff. At one point he said, with a laugh, ‘And then you’ll take over my job’. I am pleased to say that Fred has since felt secure enough to appoint a new assistant manager. Nevertheless, insecurity is a constant problem and one which needs to be borne in mind when considering Fred’s leadership role.

In recent times, there have been several fly-on-the-wall television documentaries about the role of football manager, which have all shown a brutal, aggressive, bullying style of management which is communicated to the players by a string of expletives. Doubtless, many readers will also have seen television programmes or read about ‘bullying’ by chefs and other groups of workers. This style of management is the norm throughout football, and I have witnessed such behaviour by Fred at first hand on several occasions.

To achieve his vision Fred needs and has the power to bring his creation into being. He has almost total power and no one is in a position to challenge him, even to the extent that he is able to ruin a player if he chooses to do so. Indeed, during the time I have been working with him, various players have been scapegoated in the most brutal of manners and one player was dropped from the team and then subsequently totally ignored for many weeks until he was free to leave at the end of the season. When I first started working with Fred it was nothing for players to be collectively or individually, totally and utterly humiliated at both half time and full time. Seldom was praise given for good performances.

The usual explanation for this sort of behaviour is that individuals become bullies as a result of identification with an aggressor. For example, Crawford (in Adams,1994), explains that, ‘It was Freud who first traced the way in which a child can take on the characteristics of an adult who is aggressive towards them. He explored the process by which a child identifies with an aggressor - who is often, but not necessarily, a parent - and takes inside themselves the behaviour and attitudes to which they themselves are subjected. In their turn, the child displays this behaviour in subsequent relationships. Freud describes this process as identification with the aggressor’ (p. 69).

This is also true of football where there is no formal system of management development, the recruitment system for managers being from the ranks of former players. Most players commence their professional careers at about the age of fourteen when they sign ‘schoolboy forms’ with a professional club. They are, therefore, considerably influenced in their formative years by football coaches and managers. In a system where (in the author’s view) nearly all - if not all - managers are bullies, their is ample evidence of ‘abused players becoming abusing managers’. And, while I would not wish to ignore this type of explanation, I want to discuss a possible further explanation that may help us obtain a deeper understanding of organisational processes: that concerning ‘creativity and violence’, which is an aspect of ‘bullying’ which has not previously been given enough attention.

Let me first give you some data as an example. As mentioned earlier Fred is highly creative and full of vision. Like all creative people he totally envelopes himself in his work. At the team talk before an important FA Cup game he introduced his ‘creation’, his plan of how the team would organise and win. To put it into context, the team talk takes place about an hour or more before the game starts. Prior to this, he had not discussed the plan with any of the players. When the plan was presented the players questioned one or two aspects but it largely went unchallenged. During the game, players were constantly struggling to carry out the plan - to bring his creation into being - with the result that Fred became highly emotional, at times, almost to the point of being manic.

Perhaps it would not be unreasonable to ask: Why did he adopt this approach? Why did he not introduce his ‘creation’ to the players at an earlier time? I feel certain that the answer lies in the nature of the creative act. Being creative Fred is giving up an external definition of ‘reality’ and substituting his own, he is therefore giving up elements of certainty and security and substituting uncertainty and insecurity. Faced with the anxiety of his creative activity allied to the uncertainty and insecurity Fred feared that his plan might be rejected. By leaving it to the last possible moment before he communicated it to his players, he ensured that it could not be rejected.

To be creative requires bravery on the part of the leader; a resilient pioneering courage and single-mindedness are necessary if new ideas are to be spread - the sort of courage that is able to override the conscience, one which is able to handle the feelings of guilt. In order to have this courage we need to be secure. As in the circumstances described above, where the leader’s experience is one of insecurity, he may feel the need to force his creation on his followers with no respect or concern for their wishes or feelings. This adds weight to the assertion by Ken Rice that ‘It is …unfortunately true that innovation and change seldom appear to result from democratic process (Rice 1970, p.90). Needless to say, there is a strong likelihood that this approach may soon result in failure because the players will not accept Fred’s changes and will not follow. Nevertheless, the view taken here is that violence is an essential element in all creative acts; and, such is the intensity of the creative urge that those concerned (here the football manager) will impose their images on the outside world.

Of course, Fred also has power derived from inner resources such as understanding and flexibility. At one level, he clearly understands the need for a collaborative or participative approach with the members of the team so that they are able to share his creativity and be committed to his vision. However, as has been described, there is much which mitigates against him taking such an approach: the mental pain attached to creativity; Fred’s fear that others may reject his creation; insecurity arising out of the frequent dismissals and short tenures of office of football managers; all create anxiety and mitigate against sharing. The outcome is a situation where so much anxiety is aroused that Fred often adopts a coercive approach which he perceives as being the most appropriate in the circumstances.

It can be argued that this is one of the necessary risks and costs of creating change. Innovation and change occur when creative men and women exercise leadership. It requires Fred to re-examine the boundary between inside and outside and to take a different and riskier stance towards his environment. However, if he is to be successful, the way he introduces his creation needs to be based on a process of participation, consultation and involvement if there is to be true and active followership. Fred is not a fool, he knows that he has to take his players - the followers - with him, but he also has to satisfy his own creative desire, and that involves all the doubts, anguish and guilt that goes with creativity. As in the situation described above, this leads to Fred imposing his creation on the players. The knock-on effect is that this has an adverse affect on the players, and causes them to suffer humiliation.

MacDougall reminds us that the resistance to continuing to work is a common experience of the creative artist, and this resistance is often acutely experienced when they feel particularly inspired by a pristine vision, invention, or idea that is clamouring for expression. As has been discussed above, it is not surprising that a measure of anxiety and psychic conflict so often accompanies the act of creating. Especially when the manager’s vision is endangered or totally inhibited. MacDougall goes further than this when she puts the view that, ‘It is possible that the drive toward self-destruction is always in action during any creative process, and even becomes part of the movement that brings fragmentation and structure together. Feelings of depression, self-hatred, anger, and frustration, leading to a wish to destroy the work in progress, are often encountered.’

I am not convinced that MacDougall is wholly right in her tentative analysis, but would suggest that her linking of self-destruction to the creative process is helpful, and not to be totally dismissed. Destruction or destructiveness is not an absolute, but a relative thing. We cannot do anything at all without being destructive to somebody’s desires, no matter how slightly. What is more: we cannot even do anything destructive at all without being destructive to ourselves in some respects, no matter how minor they may be.

The satisfactions of all our desires depend on other people’s desires, and wherever that is so, there is room for conflict. In some instances the players will agree with the changes proposed (or imposed) by Fred and in some instances they will not. And what determines that? Their desires. They happen to have desires just as Fred does, and if they can help it, they would rather give up the satisfaction of none, again, just as Fred would. Yet the ‘objective’ world and ‘objective’ people are such that both players and Fred must all give in somewhere. From birth on, and even before, we are all hopelessly dependent on other people even for our mere survival. We truly cannot do anything destructive at all without being destructive to some extent to our selves too. If Fred, destroys one of his players by scapegoating him, not only does he satisfy his desires to control him, but he also deprives himself of having that player available to play for him thereafter. Or, at least, to play for him in a creative manner.

Not surprisingly, Fred’s behaviour has a considerable effect on the players. Faced with an authoritarian leader, they cannot afford to display hostility towards their own immediate management, because this is the manager that looks after their every need and can hire and fire without further referral. One outlet for their aggression and hostility is towards other authority figures such as referees and linesmen and perhaps to other players. Any of these is a less risky outlet for aggression that cannot be expressed in the subordinate-superior relationship. A further outlet for the players aggression is inanimate objects such as the dressing room door which, during the time I have been working with Fred, has been kicked in more than once by players from both sides.

When players believe that their roles and skills help them to create value for others, they feel more secure in acting aggressively to accomplish their work. Because roles and skills help players to feel they are good, they become confident that they can contain and direct their aggression. Players who fear risk and their own aggression retreat from the task boundary. When the burdens of anxiety become too great, players frequently abdicate the work of being aggressive to the leader. Dependency serves a function of keeping at bay emotions of anger and aggression: instead of being directed outwards against the manager or opposition, these emotions are turned inwards in destruction of the self. By retreating from the boundary and enacting a psychological fantasy they wind up chronically discounting and hurting one another. They replace the focused and task appropriate mobilisation of aggression with the diffuse and displaced expression of hostility and discontent.

Such a situation became evident half way through the recent season. The team were not achieving the results that were anticipated and there were signs of growing conflict within the team. At my suggestion, I ran a workshop for all non-playing staff with the aim of ‘reviewing where the team was at that time’. The workshop commenced by asking the members to address the following two questions: ‘What are the words and phrases that you (or others) would use to describe the team at the moment?’; and, ‘What are the words and phrases that you (or others) would not use to describe the team at the moment?’ The key findings were that:

The players were confident, but perhaps it was a false confidence.

They were young and new players, and while they have unlimited potential they are under-performing at this time.

There was a lack of commitment, communication, loss of direction, and frustration. - the players want to change.

There was too much style, they overplay, and are an unbalanced team

There is no desire to win, no bravery, no aggression, there is no professionalism and no leadership on the field.

The findings of the workshop show how anxiety, here the anxiety of losing, can both highlight the risks players face in trying to accomplish the task and, can stimulate the feared consequences of one’s own aggression or aggression from others. In each case there is a strong tendency to retreat from the boundary and deny its reality. In the first instant players may retreat from the boundary by creating an unconscious fantasy in which roles on the two sides of the boundary are reversed: what is inside appears outside, and what is outside appears to be inside. In other words, instead of being concerned about losses the players adopt a false confidence - a phantasy - that they are really doing very well.

In the second case, the players, facing a realistic boundary may prove unable to mobilise the aggression required to transact their business across the boundary. Fearing the consequences of their own aggression, uncertain about their entitlements, and worried about the anger and aggression of others, they may, retreat from the boundary and look for protectors who will meet their needs, and chronically discount some members. I believe that the findings of the workshop clearly indicate such behaviour, especially the findings that there is ‘no aggression’, ‘no bravery’, ‘ a lack of commitment’ and ‘no leadership on the field’.

Despite the described behaviour, the players like Fred and have generally played well and with good results during the time I have worked with them. This may seem surprising in view of the humiliating experiences they often have to suffer. In the early stages of the consultancy, I often wondered why they still followed. Basically, I believe it is because they have different experiences of him, during training and on other occasions, when he is seen as a ‘good authority’. He is respected by all as a decent man and a competent coach, who has their interests at heart. In other words, the players experience Fred as someone who believes that his roles and skills help him to create value for others. This, in turn, helps the players to feel they are good and they become more secure in acting aggressively to accomplish their work.

Consulting in the Football Arena

One of the ways to view the role of consultant is to take a systems perspective. Seeing the consultant and the client system as two systems with a boundary between the two. In a sense, this is why it is accurate to talk about consulting as interventions because we are really talking about ‘interventions’ into an ongoing system. In this instant the boundary is at the point where the boundaries of the consultant and the football system meet. The boundary is at the location of the relationship between myself and the football system, and this is where the relationship both separates and connects. Put in more contemporary terms, the boundary is at the interface. The contact point at the boundary is where awareness arises.

If we see the real work of any change effort as being ‘at the boundary’, it follows that the role of the consultant is to be seen as a boundary role. To be an effective consultant, I need to work at the boundary - not inside and not outside. The most useful stance implies a balance; one affiliates with the system yet is clearly autonomous and apart. It is a matter of the extent to which the consultant becomes enmeshed in the client organisation or remains detached. If, on the one hand, I become too far enmeshed in the football system I will become overwhelmed by the emotion and not be able to operate effectively. If, on the other hand, I am too detached I will not be aware of the emotion.

Following Menzies Lyth (1988), I take the view that the consultants responsibility lies in helping insights to develop, freeing thinking about problems, helping the client to get away from unhelpful methods of thinking and behaving, facilitating the evolution of ideas for change, and then helping him or her to bear the anxiety and uncertainty of change. In any consultancy intervention it is a major task to keep oneself in a state where I can be receptive to the phenomena I must work with. This requires a ‘cultivated ignorance’ or ‘evenly suspended attention’ or to blind oneself from the obvious and to think again. The rationale being to free my mind to be receptive to the here and now and in this way to allow the evolution of understanding.

This may be the necessary ideal, but in practice, interventions such as that described in this paper, make it extremely difficult to continuously achieve. I have already commented on the difficulty of staying focused, of not being caught up in the emotion. Football is an emotional game, and that is what makes it is so attractive to millions of people. And, it takes place in the setting of a large crowd. Both factors can seriously affect the way I take up my role and I have to frequently work at this aspect. In addition, consultancy sessions can be over a long time period. For example, on a match day I take up my role at 1.30pm when the players report for duty and do not leave until well after the end of the game possibly as late as 6.30pm. The environmental influences are such that ‘cultivated ignorance’ is not easy. However, I find that constant vigilance and reflection, especially at key points such as just before half time and just before the end of the game, means that I can ensure that, as far as possible, I am not taking my own thinking into the room.

I also need to constantly bear in mind that there are times when the manager is also caught up in the emotion of events. From his own point of view, if he is overwhelmed by the emotion, if he gets involved in heated disputes, or allows the anxiety concerned with losing to cloud his judgement, he will not be able to help the players to function effectively. If the anxiety level is too high he will find it difficult to cope because all sorts of defences such as denial will come into play. However, from the consultancy point of view, it is also important to recognise when Fred is able to reflect and when he is unable to do so. If he is so deeply emotional it may not be possible, at that time, to free his thinking and it may be necessary to wait until a later time. At times this may be painfully obvious, for example, at the end of a losing game when Fred said, ‘I don’t want to talk about football at the moment. I’ll be OK in about an hour, but just want to forget it for now’. At other times, it may not be so clear.

I have also discovered that the process of helping Fred to develop insights and to facilitate the evolution of ideas for change can, in itself, be painful and difficult. At one particular stage of the intervention, when Fred was experiencing a string of defeats, he was aware that if he continued with his usual ‘bullying’ approach he was in danger of losing the support of his players - the followers. Indeed, while we were working at the issue, he acknowledged this understanding when he said, ‘I nearly lost them, didn’t I?’ At another time, I felt that he had given up the struggle and that he would simply be content to continue in his old ways. For about two weeks, he was unavailable for consultation, however, when I eventually saw him he pleasantly surprised me by showing that he had been coming to terms with the necessary changes and that this had been a vital part of the evolution of his new ideas. Clearly, he had needed that time for the process of ‘working through’.

Viewing my role from a systems perspective; one where I am ‘intervening’ into the football system helps me to judge when to intervene and when not to. Some of the situations where such decisions have to be made have been referred to above. In addition, in consulting to Fred, I am in the rather unique position of observing him while he is working. On many occasions it can be very disappointing to see him continue to adopt unhelpful behaviour, which, in our working together he has expressed an understanding of the need to get away from. This, though, is clearly not the time to ‘intervene’: Fred must be allowed to get on with his job. Where possible, at a later stage, when we are specifically met to work at his role, we can use the data, if appropriate.

Conclusions

The aim of this paper has been to concentrate on the leader’s creative activity and to show that the compulsion to create can be so strong that leaders will go to almost any lengths to bring their creation into being. As has been described, this includes the use of violence: in Fred’s case the violence is of a verbal and psychological nature. But in other football clubs, as has been shown on television, it can extend to violence of a physical nature such as assault. Seen in the light of values espoused by many who are concerned with the fair and considerate treatment of workers, this is appalling behaviour - by any standards.

However, there is another perspective that we need to consider. What has not been specifically referred to are the defence mechanisms such as ‘denial’ and ‘rationalisation’ that enter into situations of organisational change, especially at times when the manager is experiencing anxiety. When the truth is too anxiety-provoking this may deter the leader from bringing about change. No change means no uncomfortable adjustments to be made and the players’ morale may remain good. This may result in flight from acting upon and implementing necessary organisational change, particularly where Fred finds it painful and potentially disruptive. Where, for example, he has to sack, or leave out, a player or players. In addition, there will naturally be resistance to change. Any change requires the giving up of something, be it a way of working or a state of self-perception, for both Fred and the players. There are, then, constant pressures for Fred to maintain the status quo.

Should Fred succumb to such pressures there is a danger that he may become omnipotent, out of touch, and resistant or defended against feedback, consultation and differing views. For example, Fred might like to think that the team were ‘unlucky’ or to think that if one or other player had been available the result would have been different; he might also like to turn a blind eye to their lowly position in the League table. This is always to be seen as an easy way out and the temptation to act in this way will always exist. Much, then, mitigates against the creative desires of the leader.

However, change is an essential feature of our lives and of organisations and there is a need on the part of the leader to be aware of and take action regarding changed external reality. Without adapting to environmental changes it seems almost inevitable that the football team would become bogged down; irrelevant; and eventually, conceptually and financially bankrupt.

Leadership is about the management of change, be these modifications or sweeping changes. Most change is driven by changes in the environment, over which Fred has little, if any, control. Such changes cannot be ‘wished away’; equally, they cannot be ‘denied’. Given such circumstances, it seems vital that we all have this ‘compulsion to create’ and that we will go to almost any lengths to bring our creation into being, even to the extent of using violence. It can be argued that this is one of the necessary risks and costs of creating change. Innovation and change occur when creative men and women exercise leadership. Leadership sometimes requires the single mindedness and courage displayed by Fred.

The best way to construct the future is to invent it. This is what leadership requires, and this is what Fred continues to do in spite of the anxiety and pain that this causes - for him and for others.

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