The law of partial judgment

On March 10, 2010, in Leadership laws, by Neculai Fantanaru

When the team loses, the one who suffers is the leader, even if he's not always guilty.

In my opinion, the best Romanian football coach of all times is Victor Piturca. He trained two of the three biggest Romanian football teams, Steaua Bucharest and Universitatea Craiova. He trained the national team for 62 matches, scoring many victories. He succeeded in qualifying with the Romanian team at the European Championship in the years 2000 and 2008. He is, beyond doubt, a true role model for others, he is one of those coaches who know what button to push in order to become admired and praised.

But when it comes to leadership, nothing is certain. Last year, in 2009, the Executive Committee of FRF decided to cease the collaboration with coach Victor Piturca, the latter being removed because of the weak results the Romanian National Team scored at the World Cup, being replaced by Razvan Lucescu.

In a way, I was expecting for him to be removed and I can say I feel sorry for him. Beyond doubt, Piturca was and still is a great coach. But, unfortunately, the failure of the Romanian football team turned up to be a killer for him. He would have escaped all the accusations brought against him with great difficulty. Because when you start doing something, you must fulfill it earnestly and get exceptional results. You can't numb people with the hypnotic of promise, any explanation being utterly futile.

What credible advantages does your leadership present?

The fact is that people respect and admire you as long as you meet their expectations, you offer them your best, you make sure of their success or you bring forth enough advantages they could obtain having you as their leader. They support and love you because they think you have the courage and you are capable of coping with all challenges of your high position.

They all struggle abreast, hoping you'll gain solid results. But if they lose, in that moment of crisis, blind anger, they'll totally forget what you did for them, all the success they owe you, all your prior struggle for the commonwealth. And they don't give you another chance.

Did Piturca deserve his “punishment” for the failure of the national team? I don't think so, players share a great part of the guilt, as well. Actually, from the moment the match begins, the chance depends largely on the players' will and talent. And if, during a decisive match, one or another hits the post or has the bad luck to score an own goal, is the coach to blame? You always need a great amount of chance in football.

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

You must arm your heart to face the truth. In leadership, you are seldomly entitled to a rematch. You rarely enjoy the opportunity to prove your innocence and that you were overcharged. In leadership, you can be praised in a flash by those surrounding you, and the next thing you know, they are also those bringing you down till the deepest darkness.

It's no use to be ambitious, talented, motivated and having the energy to lead a team, if the team loses - its members being disappointed of their failure will blame you because you were the one leading them. And because you couldn't make the team win, although you possessed the authority to take decisions, to institute strategies, to make the needful changes, to criticize, organize, judge and decide body and soul, of your own, what's best for the team, you are the one who must pay.

Therefore, they will accumulate all the possible arguments in order to start the judgment - their judgment - whose aim is to quickly dethrone you from the leading of the team. And you can't object. Unfortunately, you can't fight the weakness of human nature, you can't convince people they are doing a huge mistake while you had absolute freedom in taking your own decisions, in choosing the players and in the way you trained them, and they followed and listened to you dutifully.

Are you prepared for the test that awaits you in case of failure?

Before becoming a leader, you must prepare yourself for the heat in case you lose. When the stakes are high, there are but winners and losers. If you don't want to be at feud with others, if you don't want to awaken a dire fury inside people, if you don't want to be removed, then you must display the energy indispensable to a leader, the stiffness and will to carry out his duties. Only if you insist on the results and you always score victories you can save your congeniality with people.

Your abilities don't turn you into a champion. You are a champion only when you gain the admiration and the respect of people for good. You can score a fulminate success, but at a certain point you can come to a standstill and fail. If you want to the utmost extent to maintain yourself in a high position, you must do your best not to fail. Because a high position involves a lot of responsibility and the moment you gain it you'll always be on the razor edge. It will all be wonderful till the first failure when, ten to one, your position will tumble down.

Conclusion: Mostly, people judge others according to the solid results of their work, largely involving a partial ingredient. On second thoughts, things may seem different. That's way a qualified and careful reassessment and even a check analysis are periodically suggested. It would be ideal for the leader himself to initiate this assessment and he should without fail make a self assessment, because as an anonymous poet said:

„You haven't been a God and you'll never be.
And don't you ever think that you are perfect,
Since God has not created duplicity.”