Dear England Lessons In Leadership – Gareth Southgate (1)

As an aside, I have observed non-conformists in my teams – both staff and players – who haven’t been the equivalent of world-class match- winners, but whose strong contributions have still been well worth the extra effort required in managing them. Some individuals have been quieter or more introverted, and might not always mix well with others in some social environments, but they might still be very prepared to strongly challenge others in a positive way for the team due to their own significant talent.

It is worth embracing these idiosyncrasies for high-performance. As a player, I witnessed the careers of a number of elite footballers who were very strong- willed and, at times, bold enough not to go with the crowd in terms of feeling the need to fit in socially. These characters were ‘different’ yet hugely valuable to their teams. But whether you are managing match-winners or more outspoken team members, how do you accommodate these personalities without it being perceived by the rest of the group as special treatment?

I know from conversations with business leaders that this is as much an issue in the wider world of work as it was for me at England. How do we maintain unity in the face of an individual’s potential challenge to it? During my eight years in charge, we were never handling what you might describe as a Gazza scenario – i.e. a situation in which our best player by a mile was also our most high-maintenance player by an equal distance.

But we certainly did have ‘high-maintenance players’, those individuals that consistently managed to get themselves into situations that required the possibility of disciplinary action, or at least a discussion as to whether they needed reining in. They became the most regular individuals discussed in staff meetings. They were the players I ended up having the most one-to- one meetings with.

It’s hard to know if they sought out this attention (I expect in some instances they did) or whether they were just rebels who lived life to the full, and had a different view of risk and ‘normal behaviour’ to most people.

Gareth Southgate holds the record as the man who has represented England in more games than anyone else, with 102 matches as men’s senior team manager and 57 as a player – a total of 159 caps. The only manager bar 1966 World Cup-winner Sir Alf Ramsey to lead the England men’s team into a major tournament final, finishing runners-up in Euro 2020 and 2024, he managed England at four major tournaments, also reaching the World Cup semi-finals in 2018 and quarter-finals in 2022.

In doing so he holds the record for winning more major tournament games than any other England manager in history. He is a former winning club captain with a distinguished playing career spanning over 500 games for Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough, where he was appointed manager in 2006, the youngest in the history of the Premier League at the time.

Gareth has won BBC Sports Personality Coach of the Year twice. His role with England inspired the award-winning and sell-out West End play Dear England, the title of which was taken from an open letter he wrote to England fans in The Players’ Tribune during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the 2024 New Year Honours List he was knighted for his services to football and his country. His 2025 BBC Richard Dimbleby Lecture on the challenges facing young people received critical acclaim and provoked a national debate.

While having supported numerous charity projects, he is proud to be focused on his work as a Goodwill Ambassador for The King’s Trust, Ambassador for Martin House Children’s Hospice and Patron of Help for Heroes. He has recently become a visiting lecturer at Harvard Business School, where his experiences have formed a case study on leadership.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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