A favourite at our luxury digital marketing agency, we explore how we can learn from the footballer who is considered to be the greatest of all time. Lionel Messi’s effective leadership has beenshow across many, many games and many scenarios. The PSG player not only captained hei boyhood club Barcelona but has slotted into the dressing room at the Parisian club and is a leader who plays all out. A master of operating pressure, the number 10 (or 30) consistently shows his inner strength and leadership qualities in ever more high pressured stakes, games and environments.
One-man show within a team
A hard working attacking player, Messi has been an instrumental figure in all of the teams he has played in - from youth level to professional, national team to club level., As a key asset for any team that he enriches, his ability to change the game, rouse his teammates and get the results is very rarely called into question. What makes Messi’s phenomenal achievements even more impressive is his industrious and team focused approach. Rarely taking credit for his own performances, the Argentine performs tirelessly, praising his teammates, to win trophies and set an example of effective leadership. Throughout his illustrious career, breaking both individual and team records, talisman forgo the limelight, left his performance aside, and continued motivating his team to do better.
What can we learn? To succeed in any aspect of life, we need to ensure that we perform to the best of our abilities and regularly. Not only that, we must also recognise the strengths and support that our team give us.
Give credit, not blame
There have been many occasions in which Lionel Messi has carried his teams. Even if the team were underperforming, he would give credit and praise the team for the victory. A criticism that has been levelled at the teams in which he has played in the past is their overreliance on him as a player. Time and time again, however, the magician has carried himself respectfully and gracefully without blaming his teammates. This attitude of not whining over the team’s poor performance and looking forward to the ways to improve showed Messi’s effective leadership throughout the years.
What can we learn? We can take responsibility for our actions and encourage our teammates. Blame leads us nowhere.
Focus on the team, not the individual
Passion, ability, determination. Just a few qualities that we associate with Lionel Messi. His desire, as he put it in an interview, is to push the team forward and not to focus on his own achievements saying, “When the year starts the objective is to win it all with the team, personal records are secondary.” Winning countless individual awards and universal praise he has never let personal preferences overshadow the goals of his teams.
What can we learn? Focusing on the outcome for all is key to producing the best performance and to further the bigger picture of the organisation. Whilst individual recognition is important, the outcome of the collective weighs more in terms of achieving greatness.
What can we learn from Lionel Messi’s leadership? Firstly, allow the strengths of each individual to shine through and contribute to the success of the team. Secondly, credit and togetherness will always lead to better results than blame. Finally, life and business are team games and working as a team leads to better successes than those of just individual accomplishments. To round off, we share this inspiring video before the Copa Final that rallied his team to beat historic rivals Brazil.
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