Leeds United returned to the Premier league after 16 years and they have one man to thank: Marcelo Bielsa. But how did he do it?
This article dissects Marcelo’s methods through the lens of sport psychology; exploring how he was able to transform the club by creating a high-performance environment through effective leadership and changing the team’s culture and what coaches and leaders can learn from this.
“Bielsa has rebuilt the mentality and culture at Leeds brick by brick, fixating on numerous small details to create the optimum environment” [1]
Leeds United have seen more than their fair share of upset over the years, becoming painfully familiar with defeat and disappointment. Prior to Bielsa’s arrival, Leeds finished a mere 13th in the championship but went on to make the play offs in his first year as manager, narrowly missing out on promotion. Despite obvious disappointment the team rallied around their enigmatic leader. They followed up with a record 2019/20 season, emphatically winning the championship and returning to the premier league after 16 years. The once infamous ‘Leeds, Leeds are falling apart again...’ taunt is now a mark of pride for the club with fans having defiantly taken over the words, a sign of cultural change at the club, which is testament to Bielsa’s impact. Bielsa’s reputation extends far beyond Leeds, hailed as a footballing genius by some of the sport’s most highly regarded managers and as a madman by others for his unconventional approaches. But despite being infamously known as ‘El Loco’, there is certainly more method than madness to Marcelo Bielsa.
Although revered for his encyclopaedic knowledge of football, where Bielsa gets less credit is for how he's designed an environment at Leeds that's geared towards creating and sustaining high performance. He understands that players do not perform in a vacuum and that consistent high performance requires coordination at all levels of an organisation. Psychological research supports this, highlighting the fundamental importance of organisational and environmental factors in how a team performs [2]. Interestingly, Bielsa was once asked if he had considered employing a team psychologist, he replied there was no need as he was their psychologist; reading psychology weekly and implementing what he learns [1]. As you will see, this is clear from the way he has optimised the team’s environment. Knowingly or not, he has applied many of the principles of the most influential model of high-performance environments (HPE).
The high-performance environment model:
Jones, Gittens & Hardy (2009) outlined the psychosocial factors of a performance environment which an organisation can optimise to produce high performance [3]:
These are Leadership, performance enablers, people and culture
A Performance environment is the conditions in which performers operate
How the performance environment balances four key values; achievement, well-being, innovation and internal processes, affects performance outcomes.
This is illustrated below in an adapted figure of the model for Bielsa’s Leeds. The model has been applied to many different sectors including elite sport, confirming the importance of optimising the performance environment in order to create sustainable high performance [4]. Next, we will explore each part of the model in more detail, presenting the theory and examples of how Bielsa optimised each of them at Leeds and what we can learn from this.
1) Leadership
Central to any high-performance environment is leadership, specifically a transformational leader, who inspires followers to work beyond their own self-interest for the collective good of the team [5]. They do this by providing high levels of vision, challenge and support.
Bielsa is a transformational leader, he has a clear vision for Leeds that the players buy into and he challenges them to reach new levels of performance whilst providing them the support to do this. For example:
Vision: When Bielsa was hired, Leeds were clear it was for one purpose, one which he bought into and has guided the club since his arrival;
“The directive from Leeds was clear: end a decade-and-a-half of wallowing below the top tier” [6]
Challenge: Bielsa no doubt challenges his players to be out of their comfort zone, putting them through gruelling pre-season work to adapt to his high-paced style of play, for example using his notorious training game murder ball.
Support: Bielsa knows the way to lead is not as an authoritarian dictator but instead through genuine investment and caring for the players:
"Whoever is loved will always feel safer and have that sensation of strength that will put him in a superior position to confront the battle […] I am quite clear in my mind that one has to feel sincere love for those he leads” [7]
Key message: A leader must have a strong vision that the team buy into, challenge them to perform beyond their own expectations and provide the support for them to do this.
2) Performance enablers
A leader must provide environmental supports to help the team perform, termed performance enablers. Bielsa has a keen eye for detail and has carefully designed the environment at Leeds to ensure the players can perform to the best of their abilities through the three types of performance enablers: informational, instruments and incentives.
Informational: the information needed for team members to perform, such as clear goals and role responsibilities, developmental feedback and social support. Bielsa ensures the players know their roles clearly, through individual meetings the night before each game. He provides developmental feedback by sending each of the players videos via WhatsApp to study their opposite number and their own performance.
Instruments: the things that help the team complete their roles, which can be Physical (tools, equipment and technology), Knowledge-based (training and development) or Structural (communication networks and team structure). Bielsa embraces modern tools and technology by using in-game GPS monitoring systems, allowing him to give more tailored training and development for the players.
Incentives: incentives help motivate the team to perform at their best, Bielsa has done this by creating an environment that satisfies three basic psychological needs [8]; his players have been instilled with confidence that they can complete tasks (competence), are given the freedom to choose how they do it (autonomy) and he ensures they feel connected for example by installing a communal fireplace in the team’s clubhouse where all team members can socialise (relatedness).
Key message: a leader should use performance enablers to design the environment in a way that allows the team to perform at their best.
3) People
Transformational leadership and effective use of performance enablers will result in positive outcomes for the people in an environment. To produce a high-performance environment, people’s attitudes, behaviours and capacity must be optimised. To Bielsa, it’s all about the players, he knows that for the team to reach its potential the players need to buy in and commit to the collective vision.
Attitudes: Leeds players trust Bielsa and his methods implicitly, leading to a common phrase amongst players and fans; In Bielsa, we trust. This trust in a leader increases organisational commitment and job satisfaction, which it turn leads to increased performance [9,10]. Transformational leadership has also been linked to high collective efficacy (the shared beliefs of the team), which results in greater effort and persistence in the face of adversity [11]. This was shown by Leeds’ resilience this year, bouncing back after narrowly missing out on promotion.
Behaviours: Bielsa’s transformational leadership has inspired the team to do things beyond what is expected from their role for the collective good of the team.
Capacity: The people in a team must be able to complete their roles effectively. This is why a team must engage in talent assessment and management, to ensure they recruit the right individuals. Bielsa’s approach to talent management is unique, he focuses more on developing talent by maintaining a small squad and replacing any injuries with players from the under-23s, which has no doubt further increased the team’s cohesiveness and trust in their leader.
Key message: The people in a team are key, they must trust in their leader and their own abilities, which will result in them going above and beyond for the team.
4) Organisational Culture
Another crucial aspect to a performance environment is the ‘organisational climate’ or culture. This is the perception that team members have of the organisation and having a strong team culture is essential for high performance [12]. There are four key aspects of a culture: achievement, wellbeing, innovation and internal processes. How effectively the performance environment balances these will determine team performance.
Bielsa is achievement and goal focused and he wears this passion on his sleeve, just look pitch-side next time Leeds play. Yet he is less well-known for his genuine caring and concern for his players’ wellbeing, as we covered earlier. Bielsa is world renowned for his creativity and innovative tactics such as his 3-3-1-3 formation and Leeds’ fast-style of play, now referred to as Biesla ball. What’s more, he is borderline obsessed with controlling the internal processes of the club; redesigning the flow of the car park, choosing specific reading lights and ensuring sockets are aligned. Beyond the physical, Bielsa has inspired a change in the culture that permeates throughout the club and fans. It is fair to say the culture at Leeds before Bielsa was bleak, plagued by years of disappointment, yet he inspired the club and city to believe again. This is palpable at the club and is having a real impact:
“It's all about setting high standards that will stay with the club long after he has gone. He has changed the culture of Leeds for good.” [7]
Key message: Optimising the physical environment can only take you so far, true leadership must inspire followers to believe they can perform and achieve, creating a strong culture.
It is worth noting that all this is not possible without support and buy in from those higher up in an organisation [2]. To create a true HPE, all levels of an organisation must buy into the collective vision and support the common goal. This is certainly true of Bielsa and Leeds who have received unwavering support from owner Andrea Radrizzani, football director Victor Orta and managing director Angus Kinnear, as captain Liam Cooper explains:
“Along with Andrea, Victor and Angus he is helping to create a new culture at Leeds […] working hard to achieve our ultimate goal together” [13].
Summary
The Marcelo Method: 5 musts to create a high-performance environment
A leader must provide high levels of vision, challenge and support
A leader must design the environment using performance enablers to allow the team to perform
The people in a team must trust in their leader and their own abilities
Effective leadership must inspire followers to believe they can achieve, creating a strong culture
A leader must have organisational support for a high-performance environment.
It’s no wonder coaches and leaders come from far and wide to study the Marcelo method. Indeed, there is a lot that football coaches and leaders can learn from Bielsa and the HPE model that extends beyond football; about how to lead a team, change a culture and produce sustainable high performance. Since promotion, Leeds have been met with new challenges and sit in 14th heading into Christmas. Only time will tell whether their new high-performance environment and winning culture will allow them to bounce back and thrive at the highest level. It will certainly be no easy task but…
…in Bielsa, we trust.
The main messages of this blog are summarised in the infographic below.
Reference List
1. Hytner, D. (2020, September 12). Paint, pools and parking: inside the maverick mind of Marcelo Bielsa. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/sep/11/marcelo-bielsa-leeds-inside-maverick-mind
2. Fletcher, D., & Wagstaff, C. R. D. (2009). Organizational psychology in elite sport: Its emergence, application and future. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10(4), 427–434. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2009.03.009
3. Jones, J. G., Gittins, M. J., & Hardy, L. (2009). Creating an environment where high performance is inevitable and sustainable: The high performance environment model. Annual Review of High Performance Coaching and Consulting, 1, 139–149.
4. Fletcher, D., & Streeter, A. (2016). A case study analysis of a high performance environment in elite swimming. Journal of change management, 16(2), 123-141.
5. Bass, B. (1985). Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. The Free Press, New York
6. Hay, P. (2020, July 18). A year with Marcelo Bielsa: the inside story of Leeds United’s revival. Fourfourtwo.Com. https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/marcelo-bielsa-leeds-united-first-season-201819-year-inside-story-phil-hay
7. Balague, G. (2019). Inside Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds: ‘He has changed the culture of the club for good’. BBC Sport. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47380612
8. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.
9. Dirks, K. T., & Ferrin, D. L. (2002). Trust in leadership: Meta-analytic findings and implications for research and practice. Journal of applied psychology, 87(4), 611.
10. Judge, T. A., Thoresen, C. J., Bono, J. E., & Patton, G. K. (2001). The job satisfaction–job performance relationship: A qualitative and quantitative review. Psychological bulletin, 127(3), 376.
11. Bandura, A. (2000). Exercise of human agency through collective efficacy. Current directions in psychological science, 9(3), 75-78.
12. Denison, D. R. (1990). Corporate culture and organizational effectiveness. John Wiley & Sons.
13. Sweeney, J. (2020, September 7). How Marcelo Bielsa reinvented Leeds United, part two: the art of perseverance. These Football Times. https://thesefootballtimes.co/2020/09/07/how-marcelo-bielsa-reinvented-leeds-united-part-two-the-art-of-perseverance/
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