Despite the structural strength or extent of focus in a team, there is still a need for proper managerial support. According to Savu (2019), team success relies on its ability to embrace collaboration, able team leadership, and proper motivation. A study looked into the link between managerial support and work performance and found a close correlation (Wassem et al., 2019). They concluded that managerial support led to a notable increase in employee retention and productivity (Wassem et al., 2019). The paper will focus on a local soccer team and look into managerial communication and team leadership dynamics and their subsequent effects on the players’ success. The managerial support of Mr. Albert resulted in the success of the Eagles United Soccer Club through restructuring the team and focusing on the individual weaknesses and strengths of each player while offering guidance on improvement.
Eagles United Soccer Club is a soccer team and its primary purpose is to provide an avenue for nurturing and showcasing soccer talents through developing a competitive sports culture. The team’s ultimate goal is to be the leading and most successful men’s soccer team in Atlanta. The club was established on the 29th of January 2017 and has been operational for the past five years. The team comprises two boards of directors, three staff members (the club manager, the assistant club manager, and the club training manager), and twenty-five soccer players. Sports board members play a vital role in assessing the risk management processes, looking at the financial aspects, and in the appointment of the CEO and managers (Cheng et al., 2021).
In the Eagles club, the board members also offered a sense of overall direction and strategy. The team manager and assistant team manager provide the appropriate leadership, training, and motivation needed for the team’s success. The team also had a trainer and nutritionist whose jobs were to guide the players in improving their physical strength and agility. Musculoskeletal injuries and wounds are quite common among soccer players and result in a massive waste of time (Rollo et al., 2020). Therefore, the trainer and the nutritionist also helped players through injury rehabilitation and recovery.
During the first year, Mr. Jones, one of the two Directors, was the team manager. Mr. Jones assumed the role automatically to fill the void as an interim manager as the board looked for a permanent replacement. Interim management is a strategy often used for a temporary duration as the leadership deals with a technical, economical, or managerial difficulty (Kisi, 2020). Also, interim management is a highly flexible, radical, and adaptive leadership style (Kisi, 2020). Mr. Jones was charismatic, highly focused, result-oriented, conscientious, and assertive. His able leadership and effective communication laid an excellent foundation for the team. At the beginning of the second year, Mr. Albert was hired as the new club manager, with six-month probation. Later on, he was promoted to the position of permanent club manager following his success in the job. He highly valued autonomy and feedback in his communication style.
The first and foremost task of the team at the arrival of Mr. Albert as the club manager was to win a major trophy within two years with the available squad of twenty-five soccer players. The club manager started by reorganizing the team and having every team member set their personal goals. The club manager effectively resolved any conflicts between and among the team members. He mostly approached conflict with an active-constructive approach, where he emphasized a win-win outcome in every conflict. Gilbert & Kelloway (2018) noted that leaders who used the active-constructive approach reinforced better performance and sacrifices among the employees. In addition, the club manager was a great communicator, paying attention to detail in both verbal and non-verbal communication. Whenever anyone approached him with any issue, he would listen and keenly observe the body language while providing appropriate gestures, facial expressions, and feedback where necessary.
Furthermore, the team manager clearly defined and assigned roles to each team member, stating the expectations of each assigned task. He provided accurate and timely information to all the team members, and he valued immediate feedback. Moreover, he was very principled and firm in his decisions. For example, he suggested that one of the midfielders transition to a striker, having noted the individual’s finishing skills. At first, the player was against the transformation, but through effective communication involving immediate feedback, they arrived at a consensus. The team won two major trophies during the second and third seasons with Mr. Albert as the team manager, thus accomplishing our first objective as a team before he willingly exited the club at the end of the third season. Mr. Albert was an effective team manager who used his leadership and communication skills to deliver team success. He was the best individual for the team manager role.
Formed, managed, and appropriately facilitated, teams have the capacity of making an organization gain a competitive edge. Team success requires an effective leader characterized by: properly executed managerial communication; and attention to detail in both verbal and nonverbal communication combined with immediate feedback. A good team manager plays a central role in empowering, motivating, and directing team members toward achieving a common goal. Moreover, it is essential to note that team success also requires the collaboration of team members.
References
Cheng, J. Y. J., Groysberg, B., Healy, P., & Vijayaraghavan, R. (2021). Directors’ perceptions of board effectiveness and internal operations. Management Science, 67(10), 6399-6420.
Gilbert, S., & Kelloway, E. K. (2018). Self-determined leader motivation and follower perceptions of leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.
Kisi, N. (2020). Interim Management Strategy as a Way of Empowering Women Leadership. In Handbook of Research on New Dimensions of Gender Mainstreaming and Women Empowerment (pp. 328-345). IGI Global.
Rollo, I., Carter, J. M., Close, G. L., Yangüas, J., Gomez-Diaz, A., Medina Leal, D., Duda J. L., Holohan D., Erith S. J. & Podlog, L. (2021). Role of sports psychology and sports nutrition in return to play from musculoskeletal injuries in professional soccer: an interdisciplinary approach. European journal of sport science, 21(7), 1054-1063.
Savu, I. (2019). Amplifying performance in virtual teams optimizing communication strategies. Research. & Science. Today, 17, 112-120.
Wassem, M., Baig, S. A., Abrar, M., Hashim, M., Zia-Ur-Rehman, M., Awan, U., Amjad F. & Nawab, Y. (2019). Impact of capacity building and managerial support on employees’ performance: The moderating role of employees’ retention. Sage Open, 9(3), 2158244019859957.