Jürgen Klopp is a football coach. That means there's a limit to how much you can teach corporate bosses about how to do their jobs. Corporate executives do not typically behave like surrogate parents in office; They don't give big bear hugs after a successful meeting or use the high-pressure technique against rivals. Despite all this, Klopp has revealed a crucial element of success in almost all areas of life, energy.
To everyone's surprise, Klopp announced on January 26 that he would leave his position as Liverpool manager at the end of the current season. The team leads the English Premier League, the most watched competition in the most popular sport in the world. His job was secured (the contract doesn't expire until 2026), and he claims he still loves it. Now, after eight years in office, and many more as a coach, he is running out of energy. His resources are finite, he explains. "I can't drive with three wheels... and I don't want to be a passenger either."
Klopp is not the first high-profile person to make this type of decision. Jacinda Ardern resigned as New Zealand's prime minister in January 2023, saying she no longer had a full tank and could not do the job. Jeff Kindler cited the extreme demands of his position when he stepped down as head of pharmaceutical company Pfizer in 2010 and added that he was looking forward to recharging his batteries. Despite this, such an admission is rare from someone at the top of an organization.
And energy is one of those factors that reliably differentiates the bosses from those below them. Skill, ambition and luck play an important role when it comes to climbing the cucaña. However, energy plays a key role. High performers have gotten the email and workout out of the way before the sun comes up. They don't cancel breakfasts because they feel a little tired; and, of course, they do not admit that they have done it. They are less likely to snooze in the middle of the afternoon. They get off the plane after a night flight and work a normal day.
And that's just on the way up. If we talk to people who have made the leap to become CEOs, they will often comment on how intense the work is, how difficult it is to disconnect. Most organizations are pyramids. As decisions become more difficult and important, they fall to an increasingly smaller number of individuals. And as these figures become more prestigious, the number of people who want to see them increases.
The boss has to regularly show his face to employees, and that face cannot be that of someone who looks like he hasn't slept in two weeks. They have to enthusiastically shake hands with the board, meet with investors, attend endless networking events, and make time for real work. Just looking at it is exhausting, let alone doing it.
The sheer physical demands of big jobs give certain types of people an advantage over others. Not having many other time-consuming occupations is a great help, which is often bad news for women, who shoulder more tasks and family responsibilities than men at home.
Extroversion offers an advantage when it comes to dynamism. According to a 2017 CEO time use survey by Oriana Bandiera of the London School of Economics and co-authors, CEOs spend 70% of their time interacting with colleagues, customers, and the like. If you are a person who draws energy from spending time with others, that is equivalent to having your phone charging all the time. If you are an introvert and find that others drain you, your battery will be close to 1% and it will only be a matter of time before you completely shut down.
Some lucky people have a higher capacity naturally. They are the mitochondrial CEOs who can get by on three hours of sleep and don't know what it's like to fumble for the snooze button. In any case, if we have not won the biological lottery, we can try to find out what reinvigorates and what weakens. That may mean exercising at dawn, taking a revitalizing nap in the afternoon, or simply protecting your calendar; When he ran Amazon, Jeff Bezos aimed to sleep eight hours every night and tried not to schedule meetings before 10 in the morning. That means prioritizing rest instead of making do with cutting back on it. In their book The Mind of a Leader, Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter wrote that top executives tended to sleep more than those in non-executive positions.
By admitting that his energy reserves are running low, Klopp has offered a rare reminder of how grueling leadership roles can be. His decision to say goodbye to the Liverpool bench brings to mind the aphorism of another great football manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. Hard work is a talent, Sir Alex used to say. The fact is that that, too, is hard.
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Translation: Juan Gabriel López Guix
