Employee Loyalty Blog: Leadership Lessons Learned from the Soccer Pitch

Leadership Lessons Learned from the Soccer Pitch

October 23, 2006
Greg Robinson, Employee Loyalty Blog

Over the Labor Day weekend, I attended a soccer tournament and witnessed the type of parental behavior that is often heard about on CNN. Usually the stories of overzealous parents have either a Woody Hayes or Bobby Knight quality to them. You know the story. Old guy loses control over bad play and attacks child from other team or berates his own player or attacks fan from other team. The stories are so numerous that they make the news for a day then fade into the background.

Two things make this story unique: (1) the blatant lack of concern that a parent showed for his child’s safety and (2) the lack of action taken by the soccer leagues for which this team plays. Here is the situation.

My son and I stopped to watch a match because his team was going to face the winner the following day. Early in the first half, a player took a hard shot directly to the face. He went down hard and began to cry. His father, who was about 10 yards away from me, began to yell at him to get back into the play. The child, crying loudly, struggled to his feet and began to run up the sideline.

Okay, I know what you are thinking. Either (A) it is none of my business how the child’s father treats him or (B) his dad just got caught up in the heat of the moment or (C) it was a one-time situation so cut the guy a break. I was thinking the same things until Monday’s game when we played this child’s team.

During our match, the same child was hurt again during a hard tackle by one of our defenders. He lay on the ground from a few minutes as his coaches tended to him. Eventually, his father left the sidelines, seemingly to check on his son, but made a detour toward the official and asked if the foul would result in a penalty kick. As a coach carried the player off the field, his father, now approaching the sidelines to confront a parent from our team, yelled at his son, “Are you going to let someone else take your penalty kick?”

To make matters worse, as the child’s father approached the referee he was walking directly toward the player who had committed the foul. This player later told his mother that he was, “Very scared when the man came onto the field yelling and walking quickly towards him. The guy looked at him so mean that he thought he was going to hit him.” As he relived he story to him mother, he began to cry. Two days later, his was still so upset about the incident that he was worried about what was going happen when the teams faced each other two weeks later.

When the local soccer organizations were informed about the incident, their leaders failed to act in any meaningful way. The President of the team did not respond to any emails about the incident. The VP refused to comment about the behavior of child’s father and chose to divert attention to the verbal exchange on the sideline that occurred between parents. The Treasurer of the league said that they acted swiftly on the issue and that the parent would not be on the sidelines for a while and he would be there to see to it. The Chairman of the league said nothing in response to emails. The Discipline Chairman said that he had received all communications regarding the matter, was collecting additional information, and to be patient. And during the rematch, the child’s father lurked on the sidelines during the first half of Saturday’s rematch, protected by his friends in an insular soccer club.

The actions of leaders of team and the league mirror what the cynical among us have come to expect from corporate and, dare I say, political leaders. When the going gets tough, leaders divert attention to other issues, blame others, say what they think people want to hear regardless of whether they mean it, or just hide and hope the problem goes away. And the result from this behavior is leaders that are not trusted. Their lack of action can be as damaging to customer and employee relationships as any mistake they make.

In our work lives, we know the impact that this type of leadership action has on morale and productivity and trust. It leads to increased employee cynicism, cries of favoritism and lunchroom chatter that encourages employees to look for other jobs. As damaging as this is to our work lives, imagine the implications for our children when this type of behavior goes unchecked in youth sports leagues.

So two children live in fear. One child looks over his shoulder waiting for an overzealous parent to take the field to challenge a call. The other child, with tears streaming down his face, cries out in pain as he struggles up the field to avoid the wrath of his father. Their fear is our failure. Somewhere Bobby Knight and Woody Hayes are smiling.