The Leadership Coach's Blog
This leadership coach's blog comes as Queens Park Rangers, flirting with relegation from The Premier League, sack manager Neil Warnock.
Football Leadership : Neil Warnock - Sacked!
So Neil Warnock is sacked. With QPR hovering above the relegation zone, and on an alarming run of poor form, his position was clearly under-pressure. So the news of his departure, comes as no real surprise.
Neil Warnock's exudes a very strong sense of confidence and certainty. He almost always gives the impression that he is right in everything he says and does.
And that the world is conspiring against him and his team. Especially referees. This Us v Them strategy has served him especially well in the lower leagues. Where he is managing on limited budgets. Turning boys into men, as they take on the challenges Warnock contrives for them.
But what when players are on significant wages. Living a life of luxury. Who are the enemy then? Wealth doesn't promote underdog status or a sense of injustice. Warnock can try, but it's just not authentic, when his players are multi-millionaires.
Neil Warnock, it seems, is just not suited to being a Premier League manager. His best work is on developing players characters and physicality. But at a higher level players want more than that. They need stimulation and fresh ideas to help them develop their games.
It's not that Neil Warnock is a bad manager. His CV clearly tells us otherwise. It's just that he is a manager who excels with certain players and teams who need a fighter and motivator.
Warnock obviously couldn't resist the lure and temptation, of another crack at managing in the Premier League. But if truth be known, he would have been smarter to walk away when QPR got promoted. For he should have recognised that excellent achievement was the limit of his managerial ability.
But it's hard to face the truth about yourself when you have unfinished business to complete. For Sheffield United's unfortunate relegation a few years ago, was a wrong that Warnock was aching to right.
He would have thought that more money and better players would do the trick. But that would be to overlook his core strength. Neil Warnock was a champion of the underdog and a figher for justice. Qualites that QPR simply didn't need or respond to at this time.
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