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The Jurgen Klopp Way

How to lead like the amazing Jurgen Klopp came about after spending the past 5 years watching him take Liverpool from an average side living off the past to arguably the worlds best team. I hope you enjoy this post and anyone wanting to develop their leadership skills this is a must-read.

Background On His Coaching Style

I first came across Jurgen Klopp when he signed for Liverpool F.C in 2015. He had an amazing reputation back in his homeland of Germany as being a forward-thinking coach and famous for his all-out attack approach which they called the gegenpress. As a Liverpool fan, I was excited about what I’ve heard and what I saw in his first press conference. He came across as very charismatic but I never knew how outstanding of a leader he is until further into the future.

Liverpool was a team who was hugely successful in the 70s and 80s with the odd success along the way. When Klopp came to Liverpool the team was closer to a mid-table team than a title contender. Just under 5 years, he has taken an ordinary Liverpool team to become one of the most feared teams in the world of football. He has changed the mentality of Liverpool into a champion’s mindset not by fear but by inspiration. He knows how to get the very best out of players in a way where they still love him at the same time. After every game, if they have given everything they’ve got they even get the famous Klopp hug at the end of the game ( who doesn’t want a Klopp hug)

How To Lead Like The Amazing Jurgen Klopp

If you want to become a leader of people learning from Jurgen Klopp should be on top of your list. He turns ordinary into extraordinary. He turns excellent into world-class. Jurgen is someone you would follow into battle. He is the leader we all wish we had to guide us through life. I’ve reassessed a lot of my own leadership techniques based on his approach and it has helped me become a better person and leader and has helped people I teach to become better too.

Below are some of my favourite leadership qualities that he uses that you can use to lead your team to success.

What Makes Him A Great Leader?

Great Communicator

Communication in life is essential for getting you ahead but also getting the best out of people you lead. This is the difference between someone respecting you or thinking you’re full of shit. It’s the understanding and implementation of your words into action or just going through one ear and out the other. Words are powerful and how you broadcast your message defines you as a leader.

Jurgen Klopp is a master at this and he not only clearly does this with his team but also with journalist, pundits and even his fellow peers.

Learning and evolving your communication skills to get the best out of your team is crucial. You have to study amazing leaders like Klopp who communicate their message and read books like How To Win Friends And Influence people to really understand the importance of this skill which with practice we can all learn. Once learned you can then broadcast your message in your own unique way.

Demands The Best

When leading people it’s your job to find the best in them and then bring their best out through your leadership. As a team, you need to set your standards high where you believe your team can reach through their potential. You as a leader need to think big and demand excellence from your team. The mentality of your team comes from you and thats why Klopp is in the same leauge of all the great managers becasue he expects the best.

There’s a famous saying by Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield where he changes the famous saying Skys the limit to Sky is not the limit. This subtle change in words makes all the difference when demanding the best from your team or organisation.

This is what Jurgen Klopp does well. Thinking big. He expects his team to win trophies and he expects his team to give their all every game. His training is especially intense and new signings who were the best players in their respected teams, when they come to Liverpool it can take time to adapt but when they get it. They become even better players than they were before. This is what you have to do for your teams. When you get new people joining. Ask yourself can I make them better than when you found them?

Has Amazing Energy

People follow the energy. Leaders energy is the vibration that keeps everything together. How many times have we seen new coaches come into a team that was failing and then all of sudden the players are trying harder than they did before? I see this a lot. Now the difference between coaches that are successful and ones that quickly tail off is down to how consistent they can manage their own mindsets to produces consistent positive energy. The same is true when someone starts a new job or goes on a date.

The difference for you doing well at your job or having a long-lasting relationship is the energy levels you showed when you first started. That’s what got you your early success. The question is can you keep it up. For the likes of Klopp and Pep Guardiola, (another exceptional leader) their consistant energy level are their for the world to see and can be felt all over the clubs they manage.

Master Tactician

Being a leader you have to be a master tactician. Having a plan and knowing how to execute it is great but knowing when to adapt it is just as important if not more. Jurgen saw this within his first two seasons of English football. His side put in the most effort during every game than any other team around in Europe.

Then when it came to halfway through the season the player’s legs were tired that results started to not go in their favour. From this, he made an adjustment to the teams’ style and rotation and now the team fire on all cylinders for a whole season fighting for all major trophies. When leading people you have to stay adaptive to change.

Change will come, it always comes whether you like it or not. Don’t be the leader who gets left behind as you will be doing a disservice to the people you lead.

Has A Vision

Every successful leader has to have a vision of where they see the team or organisation headed. In Jurgen first press conference is stated that we will win the title within 4 years. It took them 5 in the end but the vision was there to be able to do it. John F Kennedy had a vision for Americans to be first humans to step onto the moon. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to see it but his vision was in place.

There are countless amounts of leaders who have a vision that’s so clearly defined that people believe it can be attained no matter the cost. How you paint that vision depends on your skill with the brush. How you communicate it and believe it to be true will define whether people will follow it. You have to show them the benefits of the vision but also make them feel it because when humans feel something strongly enough they take action. This is what the best leaders do. To unlock that feeling in others. What’s your vision going to be to better mankind?

Picks Character Over Talent

Being a successful leader is picking the right people to work with. Not everyone will be compatible with your personality, your vision or way of working. That’s OK. You have to choose people with the right characteristics not a talent for your team. It’s a lot easier to teach someone new tactics, strategies and skills than it is there character. Jurgen and his team have found players that were considered nobodies or failures. When they identified them and brought them to Liverpool, they have become world-class players in their positions.

Finding the right characters matter to a teams harmony level because one rotten egg can affect the whole batch if left long enough. He also had this experience when he first joined Liverpool from a player that went to far with his practical jokes. He left the club within a month. That’s how much Jurgen values the team of the right characters all going in the same direction. Look with your team now or in your hiring process. Is it set up to win or are there rotten eggs ruining all your hard work. In this area, you have to be ruthless or it will ruin you in the end.

Final thoughts

Jurgen Klopp is a true leader. Everyone should look to learn from him if you want to be a successful leader. He has mastered the art of dealing with people that whatever he touches will soon turn to gold. Leadership is an important part of life whether that be at work, coaching a sports team or being a parent at home.

The same skills all apply and your success and the people you lead success is entwined together with your leadership. It’s a hell of a responsibility but one of the most worthwhile things you can do as a human. Remember leader in Latin is to serve. So make sure you’re serving others with the best version of you or learn first from a leader you admire to gain those valuable skills.

If you like this post how to lead like the amazing Jurgen Klopp. Please share it to anyone you know who is working on leadership.

Thank you for reading, see you on the next post.

By Adam Smith

How To Execute Your Vision

8 guaranteed ways to execute your vision

Planning a vision is a fun and engaging task of the goals for the future. This is the easy part though. Executing a vision is by far the hardest part. What stops people from not executing their vision is a variety of different reasons. For example, procrastination, focusing on non-essential tasks and giving up because they didn’t get the results they wanted straight away.

Attaining the goal isn’t the problem, people are. We as humans are amazing at problem-solving and adapting to pretty much any situation. We are also our own worst enemy when it comes executing difficult outcomes. Not because we can’t do it. It’s how our irrational emotional part of our brain reacts to it which can be ever-changing.

For me to complete a vision I set out to achieve. I have to be laser focussed on what I have to do but open-minded to changing the plan to execute the vision in a better way. It’s having the willpower to not get distracted and dis-hearted by the challenges you face. However to remain optimistic and have the self-control to stick by it.

There have been many examples of people executing their vision from Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos, both self-made billionaires. They both set out with a clear vision directive of their goals and through all their setbacks they didn’t stop they just found better ways to complete their goals.

Achieve Your Vision

With that, I have put together some of the essential things you need to execute your vision. Hopefully, by now you know exactly what you want to achieve. It could be, to achieve a healthy body, open your own business or travel around the world. Whatever your vision is means something to you and with these exciting strategies I hope you can find answers to carry you on to your final destination for achieving your vision.

How To Execute Your Vision

Think About It Everyday

Your vision has to consume you and be part of your conscious and subconscious throughout your day. This is what separates people from executing their vision and not. Just look at athletes and teams in sports. For example, the Liverpool and Manchester City team are breaking record after record. These teams and players are in a culture where their vision is clear. They understand what they have to do and that’s all-out hard work and working smart to get to their destination. If this seems to difficult for you, achieving greatness will be a difficult challenge. Not because you can’t do it, it’s because you won’t do it.

Have It Somewhere You Can See

You can’t execute your vision if you can’t see it. That’s why it has to be in as many places a possible so it stays centred on your mind at all times. Have it in your bedroom, bathroom, office, car or on your phone. Your vision should excite you whatever it is and every time you see your vision it should keep you on track to execute the goal.

Believe It Will Happen

With your vision, you have to believe it’s going to happen and more importantly in the mind, it’s already happened. The way I’ve heard someone explain this is to look at your vision like a movie. You’ve planned and created it. Then you sit back and watch it. Just like your goals. Create it and you execute it by watching it unfold. I like this as it shows to me the vision has already been completed, it’s a done deal and all I have to do is walk the pathway towards it.

Speak It Into Existence

To execute your vision, you’re going to have speak it into existence by how you tell the story to yourself and others. Tell yourself every day it’s already happened and visualise it in your mind that’s it’s already done. Seeing yourself at the final step. Then tell as many people as you can about your vision. This will hold you accountable and make it feel real like it’s happening instead of something you wish will happen behind closed doors. These supporters of your vision will spur you on and any haters you can use that as fuel too.

Execute The Why

Make sure you know your WHY, like the back of your hand and so does everyone around you who’s helping you achieve your vision. This is the beating heart of your vision and without it, the target will be gone and the endpoint nowhere in sight. Write your why somewhere in your journal or phone and look at it twice daily so you know exactly why you’re working this hard.

Take Action Every Day Even When You Don’t Want To

Execution of your vision comes down to you taking action every day without fail. Hold yourself accountable and self control yourself to stay disciplined to the task. After continuous days of action, it becomes easier and easier to do. It’s the days you stop and start again that are the hardest. Some days you’re going to feel on fire. Body and mind working in harmony but some days your not and your body and mind will start giving you all the excuses in the book to do something more comfortable. You can’t listen to this, you have push on and keep taking action towards your vision.

Don’t Quit, Adjust To Your Surroundings

This is the most important for your vision to succeed. DON’T QUIT! If this happens it’s game over. Self-esteem and negative self-worth take centre stage. We have all quit at something and a terrible feeling it is. This is the easy way but it’s not the right way to go about life. Of course, things don’t work out but when you adjust your plan to a better one that’s when things can change. How many stories have you heard when someone has quit just before success. Too many to count.

Ronald Wayne is a name you probably never heard of but he was the co-founder of Apple in the 1970s. The vision of what Apple was going to be weakened in him because of a disagreement with the steves and he sold his shares for $800. Now they would be worth millions and be part of one of the biggest company’s in the world. The lesson learned here is don’t quit just adjust to your surroundings towards your vision. If your going to quit, quit after you have achieved your vision.

Plan Everything The Night Before

You can’t execute a plan if you don’t know where you’re headed. That’s why it’s important to evaluate the good and the bad every evening. This helps you have a clear plan of action of what you need to do next. Just plodding along expecting your vision to just come your way is not going to happen you have to run towards it dodging all the pitfalls along the way.

Final Thoughts

Now it’s time to execute your vision. However long it takes, you have to stick to it because the feeling you will get once it’s completed will be worth it.

Everyone one of you reading this can complete their vision you just have to believe and find the right path and right people to do it with. That’s how you can quickly navigate towards it. Remember there will be challenges and naysayers along the way. Just learn to enjoy it and treat it like a video game on hard mode and don’t take setbacks so seriously. It’s just the universe giving you feedback on where to aim next.

I hope this helps and would love to hear in the comments below what your vision is and how you are going to execute it.