Why we should be more Klopp

One of the key challenges in my teaching and research is finding case studies that successfully connect leadership, wellbeing, stress, identity and organisational culture in a meaningful and accessible way. English football has provided one. The most exceptional part of Jurgen Klopp's career (apart from beating Messi's Barcelona 4-0) is his exit. Without knowing it, Klopp has upstaged his time at Liverpool Football Club (LFC) via the manner in which he's departing it.

The unexpected news that Klopp will resign at the end of the 2024 season evoked reactions that ranged from shock to horror. Initially, speculations on his earlier departure included ill-health and moving to a better job. However, Klopp's decision in terms of its timing and process has some important lessons.

On his arrival at the club, Klopp famously declared that he wanted to turn 'doubters into believers' and he achieved this by knitting together the past, present and future through a process of sensemaking (Weick et al., 2005) that invited all the stakeholders (fans, employees, local community) to own LFC. This sensemaking was perfectly captured in the 'This means more' promotional video for LFC which crystallised why he and everybody connected with the organisation were merely servants to a greater idea – an idea that transcends buildings, money, cups and financial reports. The brilliance of the video is that idea is never directly named but implied – 'Other clubs have a stadium, we have home…they have a manager, we have a Guardian.'

Klopp, unlike so many other high-profile leaders in different industries, is walking away rather than being ousted or pushed. At a public level, he has avoided the circus and headlines that explode when high profile people get fired. Arguably, he has chosen to leave at the zenith of his managerial performance. Klopp's win percentage of 60.7 per cent across all competitions is the highest of any Liverpool manager with 50-plus games in charge of the club. It's an important reminder that choosing when to quit can be the key to maintaining autonomy (Wrosch et al., 2003).

Cynics might crow that well paid individuals have the luxury to leave a job early, but that misses the larger point that Klopp ranked his wellbeing and health far above job performance – something that is not typical of successful football managers who tend to outstay their welcome.

It's noteworthy that many ex-professional footballers and managers suggested that Klopp was suffering from burnout and that this was a call to have more support services for managers (e.g. Tottenham Hotspur's Ange Postecoglou). It's fascinating that Klopp taking an unexpected but sensible decision about his career ignited fires around the pressures of the job – rather than the reflection that Klopp has led simply done the sensible thing for him and his family. There is no doubt that the role of a Premiership manager can be a pressure cooker of intensity, anxiety and unrealistic expectations, but surely the most important lessons of Klopp's decision is that knowing our limits means that we can avoid an inevitable disintegration of our career. Autonomy plays a crucial role in our best researched theories about work stress (e.g., Job Characteristics Model of Hackman & Oldham, 1976; Job-Demands Control model of Karasek & Theorell, 1992).

Of course, we will never fully know what motivated Klopp to take the decision. However, the 25-minute video released by Klopp is intriguing and revealing. Many commentators in the media have chosen to focus solely on his 'My energy source is not endless' – which drives the narrative about burnout and the idea that Klopp has been squeezed dry by the job. A deeper analysis of the video reveals some interesting elements, which can be lost in a rush towards headlines about burnout.

Firstly, the start of the video demonstrates his authentic empathy for the people who will hear the news and be upset. Klopp provides interesting insights into the many facets of the job and the forward planning needed which influenced the timing of the decision.

"There are so many things that are influenced by it, especially personal situations. People from my staff need to know early, and especially needs to know early to plan."

"If you have to make a decision like that, it's better to do it slightly early than slightly late."

Both comments reveal a sensitivity to the large number of people who will be affected by his decision and the fact they may need to change job, location and relocate their families. This sensitivity towards the ripple effects of a leader's decision is refreshing and rare, and consistent with the evidence that leaders, by virtue of their position of power, influence performance and employee well-being within the organisation (Kelloway & Barling, 2010). Klopp's video also reminds us that organisations (i.e., LFC) are robust and exist beyond the person, a useful reflection for leaders clinging to the illusion that an organisation will fail without them.

"Because I have to say, when I made the decision, as hard as it is, it was a relief as well."

Additionally, Klopp shares the positive impact of taking ownership of a difficult decision. Failure to resolve uncertainty results in 'allostatic overload' (Peters et al., 2017). Near the end of the interview, Klopp talks about being a normal guy who wants to try living a normal life (for a while at least). Overall, the interview chimes with the three elements of self-determination theory concerning satisfying our basic needs (Deci et al, 2017). Klopp demonstrates the benefit of feeling in control (autonomy), leaving while still feeling competent and most importantly the importance of social relatedness in understanding that his decision will have an impact for the people around him. In this way, these three elements provide a good auditing tool for anybody faced with a difficult choice.

The Ralph Honigstein book on the early development of Klopp, Bring the Noise (Honigstein, 2018), is revealing in terms of Klopp's servant leadership approach  to management and colleagues (see Eva et al., 2019 on servant leadership). The book focused on his early managerial experiences and how it informed his tenure at Liverpool. It reveals that Klopp had an instinctual understanding of collective leadership and building a common identity with all the stakeholders in the club (Haslam et al., 2019). Again, this is reflected in his exit video where he continuously reminds viewers that they share ownership of the club and have developed a special relationship. In this sense, Klopp is the ultimate sensemaker and sensegiver as described in the work of Karl Weick (Weick, 2009).

Ultimately, the important lesson from Klopp is that we all have the potential to make the right decisions, at the right time and for the right reasons. This conclusion is not as headline grabbing or easy to chop into suitable 'media-bites', but harks back to an older wisdom concerning how we balance our duty to ourselves with our duty to those around us. Thus, Klopp is a modern Kantian. The Kantian Klopp – not a chant I'm expecting to hear on the Kop any day soon.

References

Deci, E. L., Olafsen, A. H., & Ryan, R. M. (2017). Self-determination theory in work organizations: The state of a science. Annual review of organizational psychology and organizational behavior, 4, 19-43.

Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendjaya, S., Van Dierendonck, D., & Liden, R. C. (2019). Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future research. The leadership quarterly, 30(1), 111-132.

Hackman, R., & Oldham, G. (1976). Motivation through the design of work: Test of a theory. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16, 250–279. doi: 10.1016/0030-5073(76)90016-7

Haslam, S. A., Steffens, N. K., & Peters, K. (2019). The importance of creating and harnessing a sense of 'us': social identity as the missing link between leadership and health. Social scaffolding: Applying the lessons of contemporary social science to health and healthcare, 302-311.

Honigstein, R. (2018). Bring the Noise: The Jürgen Klopp Story. Bold Type Books.

Karasek, R., & Theorell, T. (1992). Healthy work: Stress, productivity, and the reconstruction of working life. New York: Basic books.

Kelloway, E. K., & Barling, J. (2010). Leadership development as an intervention in occupational health psychology. Work & Stress, 24, 260–279. doi: 10.1080/02678373.2010.518441

Peters, A., McEwen, B. S., & Friston, K. (2017). Uncertainty and stress: Why it causes diseases and how it is mastered by the brain. Progress in neurobiology, 156, 164-188.

Weick, K. E. (2009). Making sense of the organization, Volume 2: The impermanent organization. John Wiley & Sons.

Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization science, 16(4), 409-421.

Wrosch, C., Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., & Schulz, R. (2003). The importance of goal disengagement in adaptive self-regulation: When giving up is beneficial. Self and identity, 2(1), 1–20.