A management professor explains what makes Jürgen Klopp so successful – he should be a role model for all managers

• Management professor Ralf Lanwehr uses examples from professional soccer to illustrate his lectures.
• He cites Jürgen Klopp as an important role model in terms of leadership.
• The Liverpool coach unites players behind him through his charisma, confidence, and rhetorical techniques.
• Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

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Onstage at the event center in Montabaur Castle, Ralf Lanwehr stands in front of executives and HR professionals. He is a speaker at the Xing New Work Sessions and explains to the audience that the days when you could simply tell employees what to do are over.

“In the past, you could justify an instruction simply by being the boss,” he says. “Employees were also ‘motivated’ by rewards or punishments. But techniques based on hierarchy alone are no longer accepted.”

Charisma is the new form of power

Today, you have to convince people, carry them away. And to do that, he says, it’s necessary to be charismatic. “Basically, charisma is nothing more than a gentler way of exercising power,” Lanwehr explains.

It pays off for both sides, he adds: Employees who are convinced of their task thanks to a charismatic manager feel satisfied, enjoy their work, perform better as a result, are sick less often, and quit less frequently.

Ralf Lanwehr studied psychology and mathematics, earned his doctorate in business administration, and is now a professor of management. On the side, he advises Bundesliga clubs like TSG Hoffenheim and executives at DAX companies like BMW.

He often illustrates his lectures and talks with examples from professional soccer. One particularly positive example: Jürgen Klopp.

Lanwehr explains to the executives present in Montabaur the techniques Klopp owes his special charisma to and what they can learn from the exceptional Swabian coach.

“In business, many managers say that their employees are their greatest asset, but they don’t always act accordingly,” he says. “If you look at employee surveys, few employees really feel valued.”

Jürgen Klopp is a master of appreciation

Liverpool manager Klopp’s players are a different story, he says. “Jürgen Klopp combines many qualities of a good manager. He is insanely charismatic, but doesn’t take himself too seriously, puts his players in the foreground and makes them better as a result,” says Ralf Lanwehr in an interview with Business Insider after the lecture.

The most important thing, however, is that he trusts them. In this way, he succeeds in making his players really aware of his appreciation. As a result, he says, they are motivated and self-confident, and the trainer can also give them a piece of his mind in difficult situations without it immediately coming to blows.

As an example, Ralf Lanwehr cites Neven Subotic, whom Klopp coached at Borussia Dortmund: “Subotic once said, ‘Klopp sometimes yells at me that I could blow-dry my hair.’ But I still always know that he appreciates me as a person and a player.'”

Another example of the effect Klopp’s confidence has on his team, according to Lanwehr, is the play of BVB midfielder Oliver Kirch against Real Madrid, whom Klopp surprisingly brought on in 2014. At the time, Kirch had impressed many critics with his first-class performance.

Players grow beyond themselves thanks to Klopp

That was largely thanks to Klopp’s motivational technique, Lanwehr explains. Klopp’s honest appreciation had built Kirch up mentally so that he delivered “the game of his life.”

“When I know that the coach is behind me and supports me unconditionally, when I know that I can also allow myself to make mistakes, then I am no longer inhibited and can throw everything I have at my disposal into the balance,” he says.

Klopp leads with heart, hand and brain

Jürgen Klopp is also a master at rallying the players behind him and turning them into a team, he says. “Klopp leads with heart, hand, and brain,” Lanwehr says.

That means, he says, that Klopp is good at communicating to the players what his plans are (brain), that he is tactically top-notch (hand), but more importantly, that he appeals to the players’ hearts.

“There’s always an ideological component to it, too,” says Ralf Lanwehr. “Klopp picks clubs that suit him, i.e. clubs from working-class cities like Dortmund or Liverpool. In his motivational speeches to the team, he likes to spur the players on with messages like ‘We’ll show the fine gentlemen from Munich’.” That, he says, is a key element of his strategy.

The famous motivational speeches of the exceptional coach

Klopp also used the story of Oliver Kirch in 2019 to motivate his Liverpool team for the Champions League second leg against FC Barcelona.

“Everyone was thinking at the time: who is this guy?” said Klopp. And what kind of game he played was absolutely crazy. Here, Klopp used the contrast between expectation and reality to make it clear to his team that anything is possible. It worked: Liverpool won 4:0.

Klopp also shows his special appreciation for his players by deliberately putting himself in front of them in public, says Lanwehr. For example, he reacted very calmly when members of the press asked him whether the defeat, his first loss after 18 victories, worried him.

Klopp takes his players in defense

“It was clear that we would lose a game at some point and today it happened,” he said. He sees it as more of a positive, as the team can now focus on the game itself again rather than a record-breaking winning streak (with 19 consecutive victories, Liverpool would have overtaken previous record-holder Arsenal). “Klopp senses moods and speaks them,” Lanwehr says. “By doing that, he takes the pressure off his players.”

Ralf Lanwehr concludes by advising the managers in the audience to consciously and individually show their appreciation to all employees.

“Ask yourself – what has this person done well, what can I praise him or her for?” he says. “This is especially important in areas like IT, HR, controlling or accounting, where only mistakes stand out, not good performances.”

Managers should systematically focus on what’s going well with their employees, for example, keeping lists of only positive examples and checking themselves to make sure they’ve given that praise. It can also be helpful to introduce small rituals to build team cohesion.

This article appeared on Business Insider back in March 2020, and has now been reviewed and updated.

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