Management succession and success in a professional soccer team

Research into sports team performance has shown that across many sports and league competitions, teams that change their coaches after a decline in performance do rebound, but fare no better on average than teams that have not changed their coach in a similar situation. A similar lack of succession benefits has been reported in studies of manager and CEO succession: it has not been established that changing a team’s leader improves a declining team’s performance. We study the effect of a change of coach on the performance of a professional soccer team. Based on rarely obtained access to a whole season (one year) of daily close observation of the team and coaching staff in practice and matches, this study uses quantitative and qualitative data to go beyond the “average” pattern reported in the literature. We document in detail how, in a single team case study over an entire season, the processes in leadership behavior changed with a change of coach, the effect this had on the state of mind of the team, how the match behaviors of the players changed, and how these changes translated into improved performance. The process effects of a leadership change on the performance of a sports team may hold insights for leader succession in management: in addition to the aggregate organizational and experience fit of the new team leader, the specific leadership processes introduced by the new leader are critical for performance effects.