Jürgen Klopp’s departure holds lessons for leaders everywhere

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In an era short on admired leaders, Jürgen Klopp has been a rare role model. The German football manager, who announced on Friday that he is resigning at the end of this season after nine years at Liverpool, offers numerous lessons for his counterparts in business and politics.

First, he turned himself into the embodiment of the institution he led. He always presented himself not as a mere technocrat but as somebody who loved Liverpool FC. Having joined the club as an outsider, he worked to understand what it meant to everyone involved in it. In his hugs and emotional sprints along the touchline (and sometimes into the field), the giant with football’s most joyous smile expressed the feelings of every Liverpool fan.

When the club won its first English league title in 30 years in 2020, he said, “I never could have thought it would feel like this, I had no idea,” and cried. He told Liverpool’s supporters: “It is a joy to do it for you.” He probably wasn’t faking it, giving that he has kept up the act practically daily since 2015. He understands that the whole point of professional football is shared communal emotion.

Second, he treated his players and staff as humans, not as mere instruments for his own success. When one staff member was unaware that full-back Andy Robertson would soon become a father for the first time, Klopp asked: “How can you not know that? That is the biggest thing in his life now.”

Klopp wanted to know everything about his players — “who they are, what they believe in, how they’ve reached this point, what drives them, what awaits them when they depart training.” And he meant it: “I don’t pretend I’m interested, I am interested.”

Klopp is often praised as a motivator, but in fact few top-class footballers need motivation. His man-management was more sophisticated than that. His…