Profile: Leadership Lessons From Jürgen Klopp, Liverpool FC's Beloved Coach

Key Takeaways from the Management Style of Jürgen Klopp

Widely regarded as one of the best managers in the world, Jürgen Norbert Klopp is a German professional football manager and former player who is the present manager of the Premier League club Liverpool in Liverpool, England.

In 2015, when 48-year-old Jürgen Klopp accepted the role of Manager for Liverpool Football Club, one of the most well known professional football clubs in England that competes in the top tier of English football (soccer in the United States), he immediately distanced himself from the prior macho rhetoric of other managers of his generation. Instead of emphasizing his own unique prowess like José Mourinho said in his now famous 'The Special One' statement in 2004, Jürgen said, “I’m the normal one.” Over the course of the next five years, Jürgen has transformed this team into a consistent, high performing team. Former coaches are astounded by his results. There are many lessons that you can learn from Jürgen’s management stye and approach to team building and performance.

There was a lot of pressure and attention placed on Jürgen immediately upon his arrival at Anfield. He emphasized that he was an ordinary guy from humble means but that he was determined to do a great job and how important playing “emotional football” was and that he wanted to restore that at Anfield.

“When I left Dortmund, my last sentence was it is not so important what people think when you come in, it is more important what they think when you leave. Please give us time to work on it. If you want, this could be a really special day.”

— Jürgen Klopp

Lesson 1: Recognizing We’re Emotional Beings First

Jürgen recognizes how his athletes are emotional beings first and players subsequently. He knows this first hand as former player himself. He connects with players emotionally by being himself and encouraging them to be so. This gives his players a sense of security and also a place to call home. It is both a sense of safety as much as it is a sense of being wanted and belonging. This feeling of family enables players to connect with each other and overcomes individual competition, as the players focus on working together to win together. It’s also an acceptance of different personalities, strengths and weaknesses. By creating an environment where the players feel comfortable being themselves and are accepted, Jürgen has created an environment of trust. This in turn, has unleashed high performance and positive energy from his team consistently. Trust is key to high performance.

“Jürgen creates a family. We always say 30 percent tactics, 70 percent team-building.”

— Liverpool’s assistant manager Pepijn Lijnders talking to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant

What does it mean to have an environment of trust? When you have trust in an organization, people feel at ease being themselves, sharing their vulnerabilities, discussing their values and concerns, and sharing their strengths and weaknesses. Acceptance enables vulnerability, which in turn, builds deep trust. A team with trust is unstoppable.

Lesson 2: Set Clear Expectations

Counterbalancing the emotional “heart,” Jürgen also has set a clear process and expectations for each player through the tactical side of playing the game applied through both “mind” and “body,” using his now famous system of Gegenpressing, where the team, after losing possession, immediately attempts to win back possession, rather than falling back to regroup. Jürgen has helped each individual player in the team perform at his best by recognizing and harnessing that player’s specific strengths and setting clear expectations for that player in different situations. Jürgen sets clear goals with his team so they are crystal clear about what they are pursuing and what they need to do to achieve these goals.

Lesson 3: Maintain Positivity

Success comes with setbacks. Jürgen recognizes this. He does not blame any individual when things do not work out as hoped for or intended. He takes the pressure away and helps the players focus on becoming better for the next game. Jürgen understands well that people always do better when they are in a positive mental and emotional state and also do not feel attacked, blamed, guilty, judged or ashamed. By avoiding such negative behavior common in high performance sports and business that typically antagonizes players and lowers morale, Jürgen has prevented problems from festering and freed up players to jump right back into playing. This release of positive energy and full acceptance of players has been tremendous for morale.

Lesson 4: Consistency and Control

To perform well again and again takes practice, control, focus and discipline. Jürgen has put consistency as a top priority for the team. Adding the goalkeeper Alisson and defensive player Virgil Van Dijk have helped take Liverpool FC into one win after the next this season. Part of Jürgen’s consistent approach is emphasizing the team over the individual and choosing players who will play well together and eagerly embrace their roles as part of a cohesive, caring and committed team. Having built a strong environment of trust and acceptance, Jürgen’s players are eager to collaborate together. Using a collaborative player evaluation framework adopted from the US, Jürgen has brought in players like Andy Robertson who are now performing brilliantly and helping Liverpool FC win again and again.

Lesson 5: Tell the Story

Jürgen understands intuitively how important story is to both the players and their fans. He connected the team’s present victories to the club’s former legends, Steven Gerrard and Sir Kenny Dalglish. This past summer, in an interview on Sky TV, Jürgen said to Kenny, “It was built on your soul Kenny and on the legs of Stevie,” with incredible humility and emotion.

When Jürgen signed on as manager in 2015, he shared his goal of winning a trophy within four years and helping the football team to advance to the next level.

Photo by Christopher Thomond for The Guardian

“I am a football romantic. I love the stories, the histories. It was my first time at Anfield and I thought about how it would be. I am a really lucky guy. I am looking forward to the first training with the players. I am relaxed. I had four months’ holiday and am in my best shape.

It is the intensity of the football, of how the people live football in Liverpool, all the Liverpool fans around the world. It is not a normal club, it is a special club. I had two very special clubs with Mainz and Dortmund. It is the perfect next step for me to be here and try and help.”

— Jürgen Klopp

In a fascinating interview with Western Union, Jürgen lays out the five essentials of his leadership style — confidence, simplicity, energy, relationships and leading by example.

With just five years under his belt at Liverpool, Jürgen has led his team to consistent win after win over an entire season that few football teams have ever done before in England. Despite such tremendous success, when it comes to Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool FC, you are left with this strong positive feeling that the best is yet to come.

Profile in Courage: Tammie Jo Shults, the Southwest Airline Pilot who Saved a Passenger-full Plane

“She has nerves of steel,” said a passenger aboard the plane about the pilot who remained remarkably calm and safely landed the plane even though it had a massive hole and lost one of its engines.

1992 photo of Tammie Jo Shults, SW pilot currently, Photo by Thomas P. Milne, U.S. Navy/Distributed by Reuters

On April 17, 2018, Southwest Airline flight 1380 heading out of New York City on route to Dallas, was forced to make an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport after an engine failed mid flight. Carrying 149 people on board, the plane had 21,000 pounds or roughly five hours of fuel to last when the pilot discovered the hole along the side of the plane.

The 737 plane had just reached a cruising altitude of 32,500 feet when an engine exploded. 56-year-old Captain Tammie Jo Shults, née Bonnell, remained calm under extreme pressure, safely landing the plane despite the ensuing chaos and protecting the lives of 144 passengers and five crew members. In six minutes, the plane dropped more than 20,000 feet in altitude.

Engine debris crashed into a plane window, breaking it and nearly sucked out a passenger, Jennifer Riordan, seated nearby. A Wells Fargo executive from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Riordan was saved by other passengers who held on to her and saved her from being sucked out of the plane. Riordan was still alive when the plane landed safely on the runway in Philadelphia. Nonetheless, Riordan still suffered intense blunt force trauma to the head, and passed away later that night despite efforts by medics to save her life. All other passengers arrived safely to the emergency destination of Philadelphia after the pilot deftly maneuvered the plane to the runway.

Remarkably calm and focused, Southwest Airline pilot, Captain Tammie Jo Shults, a former fighter pilot for the U.S. Navy, radioed into the air traffic controller. According to audio of the interaction, the conversation did not skip a beat.

“Southwest 1380, we’re single engine,” said Tammie Jo Shults. “We have part of the aircraft missing, so we’re going to need to slow down a bit.” She told the air traffic controller that they needed medical personnel to meet them on the runway. “We’ve got injured passengers.”

“Injured passengers, okay, and is your airplane physically on fire?” asked the air traffic controller.

“No, it’s not on fire, but part of it’s missing,” Shults said, pausing. “They said there’s a hole, and, uh, someone went out.”

In fact, an entire engine had exploded, spreading shrapnel back into the aircraft and destroying an entire window. The intense and powerful damage left one passenger, a woman, dead, and injured seven others.

While passengers screamed and panicked upon hearing the noisy explosion, Shults diverted the plane to an emergency landing in Philadelphia, guiding the plane smoothly onto the runway. She touched down at 190 mph and saved the lives of 148 people on board the sinking plane, thus averting an even bigger catastrophe.

Tammie Jo Shults today; photo of the broken engine of the Southwest Airline plane

Here are three powerful lessons we can learn from Tammie Jo Shults’ heroism.

Lesson 1. Leadership Under Pressure

Staying calm in an emergency is no easy feat, especially when you have a sinking plane, do not know if the plane will safely land and you are surrounded by screaming, terrified passengers. Tammie Jo Shults showed remarkable fortitude and remained calm under high pressure.

In fact, a passenger, 55-year-old Alfred Tumlinson who was traveling with his wife from George West, Texas, was amazed by Shults’ calmness.

“She has nerves of steel.”

— Alfred Tumlinson, passenger

Tumlinson and his wife Diana Self (who took the photo of Shults and passengers after safely landing), did not expect to make it home safely after hearing the loud engine explosion. In interviews later with news channels, Tumlinson shared how calm Shults was and how soothing her voice sounded over the plane intercom after the loud explosion. Shults told the passengers that they were descending and not going down and to stay calm and brace themselves. She told the passengers to keep their masks on.

The plane landed safely. The passengers were amazed to have landed safely to the ground. As medics filled the plane, Shults entered the cabin to talk to each of the passengers, shake their hands and comfort them.

Benjamin Goldstein, a New York resident who was traveling to Dallas for a conference, shared his experience. He told news sources the next day, “I asked her, ‘Do I get a hug too?’ and that she replied, ‘Of course. I wouldn't let you by without a hug.’”

“It was very touching. Here at the most crucial moment, she had the presence of mind and the courage to act with excellence as it was required. It's a beautiful quality, and we have our lives to thank for it."

Photo of Southwest Airlines pilot Tammie Jo Shults, right, speaking to passengers after Flight 1380‘s emergency landing in Philadelphia by Diana Self.

“She is a true American hero.”

— Diana Self, passenger

The National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators the next morning to determine the cause of engine failure. They found out that parts of the protective engine housing had broken off mid-flight and were recovered in Berks County, Pennsylvania, roughly 70 miles northwest of Philadelphia International Airport where the plane eventually landed.

Southwest Airlines issued a statement the day after the event, acknowledging the efforts of pilot Shults and first officer Darren Ellisor. Both Shults and Ellisor avoided media interviews at the time and gave a joint statement. They were empathetic to the Riordan family who had lost a family member aboard the flight, the one casualty of the engine explosion.

“As Captain and First Officer of the Crew of five who worked to serve our Customers aboard flight 1380 yesterday, we all feel we were simply doing our jobs,” the airline reported in the statement. “Our hearts are heavy. On behalf of the entire Crew, we appreciate the outpouring of support from the public and our coworkers as we all reflect on one family’s profound loss.”

Please see below a statement from the Captain and First Officer of Flight 1380. pic.twitter.com/RjoCpucGGS
— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) April 19, 2018

Lesson 2. Personal Drive

Tammie Jo Shults already had a list of remarkable achievements prior to her heroic act on the Southwest Airline flight. She was among the first female fighter pilots for the U.S. Navy, according to her alma mater, MidAmerica Nazarene University. After graduating college, Shults flew planes for the Navy and was one of the first women pilots to fly tactical aircraft. She finished her flight training in Pensacola, Florida and then became an instructor pilot on planes including the F/A-18 Hornet in Point Mugu, California.

A decorated pilot who won medals such as the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal and an expert pistol Marksmanship Medal, Shults pursued a career in aviation when it was extremely rare to see a woman pilot. In fact, in the book “Military Fly Moms,” by Linda Maloney, Shults shared how she attended an aviation lecture as a senior in high school in 1979 and a retired colonel started the class by asking her if she was lost. Tammie Jo Bonnell (her maiden name) was the only girl in attendance. Shults responded that she wanted to fly, and while the colonel let her stay, he told her that there were no professional women pilots.

Shults was determined to fly though. The Air Force did not show any interest in her, but the Navy allowed her application. Still there was not much of a demand for women pilots. It took her a year to get a recruiter to process her application, but Tammie Jo did not give up. She got into aviation school in Pensacola and then was assigned as an instructor pilot to a training squadron at Naval Air Station Chase Field in Beeville, Texas. Soon after, she met her best friend and future husband, a fellow naval aviator pilot, Dean Shults.

Tammie Jo Shults still could not fly in a combat squadron like her husband due to the combat exclusion law. She was allowed to provide electronic warfare training to Navy ships and aircraft. She persisted and eventually became one of the first women to fly the F/A-18 Hornet in a support role. After ten years, she achieved the rank of Navy lieutenant commander. In 1993, she retired from the Navy and along with her husband, began flying commercial airlines.

Her brother-in-law, Gary Shults, in an interview with the Associated Press, called Tammie a “formidable woman, as sharp as a tack. My brother says she’s the best pilot he knows. She’s a very caring, giving person who takes care of lots of people.”

Lesson 3. Grace and Humility

After the safe landing, both Shults and her co-pilot, Darren Ellisor, gave a joint statement to the public via their airline. They downplayed their heroism and focused on the passengers and community. Shults retained this composure, humility and high integrity in interviews finally granted with ABC and Time magazine.

Her quick thinking and grace under pressure will always be remembered by the passengers aboard that plane and their loved ones.

Profile: Jeff Bezos, The Remarkable Founder of Amazon, Blue Origin and More

Few entrepreneurs have had such an impact on the American landscape as entrepreneur Jeff Bezos. Known to many as the founder of Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce store, Bezos is also the founder of other enterprises such as Blue Origin, his space company. Here we take a closer look at lessons we can learn from this visionary and exceptional individual.

Have a Vision and Plan for the Long Term

While the founders of most tech startups were eager to rake in the dollars and establish their ‘credibility’ to investors through immediate profitability, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took a decidedly different path. He shared his innovative ideas and long-term vision early on in his letters to shareholders and his team, asking them to make up their own minds whether his venture was worth investing in or not. He was frank about it, sharing that most investors did not think so in his first 1998 Letter to Shareholders.

Despite the low expectations set by financial pundits, Amazon defied such dire predictions. Shockingly enough, the stock price went from $5 a share to over $1800. There were times in between as well where the stock dipped but unlike many others, Bezos did not see the value of the business defined by its share price alone. From day one, it was clear that Amazon had a long-term vision and intended to expand at scale, as fast as it could to meet that vision.

Amazon is truly a story of longevity and remarkable employment. In terms of business longevity, Amazon has outlasted many other competitors and players in the same field, while achieving a remarkable feat - employing over 500,000 people and thus becoming America’s second largest employer after Walmart.

Establish and Grow High Standards in Your Company Culture

In his annual letters to shareholders, Bezos is refreshingly honest and direct, while explaining his long-term vision for the company.

“How do you stay ahead of ever-rising customer expectations? There’s no single way to do it — it’s a combination of many things. But high standards (widely deployed and at all levels of detail) are certainly a big part of it. We’ve had some successes over the years in our quest to meet the high expectations of customers. We’ve also had billions of dollars’ worth of failures along the way. With those experiences as a backdrop, I’d like to share with you the essentials of what we’ve learned (so far) about high standards inside an organization.”

— Jeff Bezos, 2017 Shareholder Letter

Jeff Bezos’s 2017 Letter to Shareholders

Be customer-obsessed.

Bezos explains how it is much more important to focus on the customer instead of your competitors. You have to identify your customer.

“The No. 1 thing that has made us successful by far is obsessive compulsive focus on the customer as opposed to obsession over the competitor.”

— Jeff Bezos, Interview with the Economic Club

By focusing on what customers want or need, Amazon has won customer loyalty and thus high profitability. A great example of this is Amazon Prime which offers free, fast shipping to its customers. That thinking has paid off. Amazon Prime customers spend an average of $1,300 in a year, approximately twice that of non-members. Amazon has over 100 million Amazon prime customers.

“Who is your customer for the Washington Post? Readers. Full stop. Where do the advertisers want to be? Where the readers are.”

— Jeff Bezos, interview with the Economic Club

Invest in ideas with unlimited upside.

“A dreamy business product has at least four characteristics. Customers love it, it can grow to very large size, it has strong returns on capital, and it’s durable in time—with the potential to endure for decades. When you find one of these, don’t just swipe right, get married.”

— Jeff Bezos, 2014 Shareholder Letter

Jeff Bezos’s 2014 Letter to Shareholders

The 2 Pizza Rule: Get focused work done with small teams.

Bezos is famous for his “2 Pizza Rule” where he suggests that you work in smaller teams and never have meetings that require more than two pizzas to feed everyone present. This helps the group stay focused and nimble, and avoid long, unproductive meetings.

Every new idea has started out with a small group of people.

“I want it to always have the heart and soul of a small company.”

— Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO

Decentralize decision-making and delegate.

Bezos, like many successful CEOs and leaders of large organizations have said before, emphasizes the importance of delegating and decentralizing decision-making. This enables swifter, agile responses to any customer need and opens up the door to innovation and new ideas. Bezos recognizes the potential for invention and creativity here and takes it a step further.

“We have the good fortune of a large, inventive team and a patient, pioneering, customer-obsessed culture — great innovations, large and small, are happening everyday on behalf of customers, and at all levels throughout the company. This decentralized distribution of invention throughout the company — not limited to the company’s senior leaders — is the only way to get robust, high-throughput innovation.”

— Jeff Bezos, 2013 Shareholder Letter

Jeff Bezos’s 2013 Letter to Shareholders

Focus on inputs and the outputs will take care of themselves.

Unlike a majority of publicly traded companies that invest a lot of time and energy discussing actual financial results and debating projected financial outputs, Amazon puts its energy and time into improvement.

“To be clear, we take these financial outputs seriously, but we believe that focusing our energy on the controllable inputs to our business is the most effective way to maximize financial outputs over time. . . . Our goal-setting sessions are lengthy, spirited, and detail-oriented. We have a high bar for the experience our customers deserve and a sense of urgency to improve that experience.”

— Jeff Bezos, 2009 Shareholder Letter

Jeff Bezos’s 2009 Letter to Shareholders

Measure your company by free cash flow.

“Why focus on cash flows? Because a share of stock is a share of a company’s future cash flows, and, as a result, cash flows, more than any other single variable, seem to do the best job of explaining a company’s stock price over the long term.”

— Jeff Bezos, 2001 Shareholder Letter

Jeff Bezos’s 2001 Letter to Shareholders

Nurture your young ideas to grow into large enterprises.

Few companies or leaders are as patient as Amazon or CEO Jeff Bezos have been regarding the time it takes ideas to take root, grow and be financially viable and self-sustaining.

“In some large companies, it might be difficult to grow new businesses from tiny seeds because of the patience and nurturing required. In my view, Amazon’s culture is unusually supportive of small businesses with big potential, and I believe that’s a source of competitive advantage.”

— Jeff Bezos, 2006 Shareholder Letter

Jeff Bezos’s 2006 Letter to Shareholders

R&D is part of every department.

While Amazon is famous for its emphasis on a data-driven approach throughout its online and physical stores, Bezos also points out how essential research and development, achieved through experimentation, brainstorming and invention is to the company’s internal work processes.

“And while many of our systems are based on the latest in computer science research, this often hasn’t been sufficient: our architects and engineers have had to advance research in directions that no academic had yet taken. Many of the problems we face have no textbook solutions, and so we — happily — invent new approaches.”

— Jeff Bezos, 2010 Shareholder Letter

Jeff Bezos’s 2010 Letter to Shareholders

Build on Top of Existing Infrastructure, Embrace Change and Accelerate Growth

“The current online shopping experience is the worst it will ever be. It’s good enough today to attract 17 million customers, but it will get so much better. Increased bandwidth will result in faster page views and richer content. Further improvements will lead to ‘always-on access’ (which I expect will be a strong boost to online shopping at home, as opposed to the office) and we’ll see significant growth in non-PC devices and wireless access. Moreover, it’s great to be participating in what is a multi-trillion dollar global market, in which we are so very, very tiny. We are doubly-blessed. We have a market-size unconstrained opportunity in an area where the underlying foundational technology we employ improves every day. That is not normal.”

— Jeff Bezos, 1999 Shareholder Letter

Jeff Bezos’s 1999 Letter to Shareholders

Know Your Strengths and Work at Your Most Productive Times.

In an interview with David Rubenstein at the Economic Club of Washington D.C., Bezos explained that he aims to have his ‘high IQ’ meetings in the morning before lunch. He prioritizes sleep, exercise and time with his family.

“I like to read the newspaper, I like to have coffee, I like to have breakfast with my kids before they go to school. So, I have my puttering time—it’s very important to me.”

— Jeff Bezos, interview with the Economic Club

He spends time with his family in the morning, reads the newspaper, enjoys coffee and personal time before diving into work at Amazon and his other ventures.

“I like to do my high-IQ meetings before lunch. Anything that’s going to be really mentally challenging—that’s a 10 o’clock meeting. Because by 5 p.m., I’m like, ‘I can’t think about that today. Let’s try this again tomorrow at 10.”

— - Jeff Bezos, interview at the Economic Club