I've been watching the World Cup build-up closely, and not just for the football. Tony Popovic has the Socceroos at their sixth straight tournament. It's tempting to focus on his tactics. But the more useful lesson for anyone who leads a team has nothing to do with formations.
It's about how he builds a group people want to be part of, and want to play hard for.
The myth we keep hearing
We work with a lot of owners and managers, and one idea comes up again and again. “People-first” leadership sounds nice, but it's a bit soft. Empathy is fine until results are on the line. Then you need someone to crack the whip.
We'll be frank: that's a false choice, and it's costing teams.
The leaders who get the best out of people aren't choosing between being kind and being demanding. They're doing both, on purpose, at the same time.
What Popovic actually does
Popovic models his leadership on two of the calmest operators in world football, Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti. Not the loudest voice in the room. Not the spray in the change rooms. Steady, clear and consistent.
Football Australia credits him with building a culture of “accountability, professionalism and belief.”
Read that order again. Belief sits alongside accountability, not instead of it. He backs his players and he holds them to a standard. The two are not in tension. They're the same job.
Why this works: safety and standards
There's a term for the foundation underneath all of this. Psychological safety. It's the shared sense that you can speak up, ask a question, admit a mistake or try something new without being punished for it.
People hear “safety” and assume it means comfort, or lower standards. It doesn't. It means trust. And trust is exactly what lets you set high standards and have them stick.
Think of it as two dials. Turn up safety but drop the standards, and you get a comfortable team that quietly coasts. Turn up the standards but drop the safety, and you get a fearful team that hides its mistakes until they become expensive. Turn up both, and people take real risks, own what goes wrong and get better fast.
That last one is the team you want. It's also the hardest to build, because it asks more of the leader, not less.
What this means for your workplace
You don't need a World Cup squad to apply this. You need a few habits, held consistently.
• Be clear about what good looks like. People can't meet a standard they can't see. Vague expectations aren't kind; they're just confusing.
• Make it safe to get things wrong. How your managers react to the first mistake decides whether they ever hear about the second one.
• Separate the person from the performance. You can think the world of someone and still tell them the work missed the mark. Good people can take that, if they trust you.
• Invest in your managers' people skills. Emotional intelligence isn't a personality type. It's a set of skills, and it can be learned, measured and improved.
A quiet word on belonging
There's one more thing worth noting about this Socceroos side. It's one of the most diverse teams Australia has ever sent to a World Cup, and the players talk openly about that diversity being a strength.
For employers, belonging isn't a poster on the wall. It's a performance issue. People do their best work when they feel they belong and they know what's expected of them. Those two things, again, working together.
Where we come in
This is our patch. We help leaders build cultures where accountability and care live side by side, through leadership development, team development and emotional intelligence work that's practical rather than fluffy.
If your team has the standards but not the trust, or the trust but not the standards, we'd love to talk.
Because the lesson from the dugout is the same one we see in workplaces every week. Looking after your people and expecting the best from them was never a contradiction. Done well, it's the whole game.
For more information on Total HRM's signature leadership development training 'Leading Others' go to: https://totalhrm.odoo.com/event