Messi's masterclass: Shut up and lead

Minutes before the 2022 World Cup final — the most-watched sporting event on the planet, a nation's 36-year itch on the line — Lionel Messi, who has now bowed out of international football, prompting the predictable avalanche of leadership listicles, gathered his teammates into a huddle. Here, surely, was the moment for the full Al Pacino: veins bulging, fists pounding lockers, inches gained. Instead, the greatest footballer alive told his men, in effect: calm down and forget everything. Block out the noise. Stick to the plan. Then they went out and won. I thought of a town hall in which a chief executive announced 800 job cuts and, in the same breath, urged survivors to 'bring their whole selves to work' — a request several had presumably just fulfilled by carrying their whole selves out in a cardboard box. The contrast was instructive. Messi, facing actual world-historical pressure, dialled it down. Our corporate leaders, facing bad news, reach for the motivational poster. ALSO READ Investment gridlock This is the first thing the workplace could learn from Messi: leadership is not volume. For years he was written off as too quiet to captain anyone — the football equivalent of being told in your appraisal that you 'need to be more visible'. He never became louder. He simply became so trustworthy that when he did speak, people leaned in. Meanwhile, offices everywhere continue to promote the person who talks most in meetings, on the theory that airtime equals authority. The reality, however, is it doesn't. The second lesson is about what he actually says. Before the Copa América, Messi's team talk contained no strategy at all. He thanked his players for 45 days without complaint about hotels and food, and — remarkably — named the teammates who had become fathers during the tournament bubble and hadn't yet held their babies. He acknowledged, publicly, what the job had cost them. Compare this with the standard corporate recognition programme, in which sacrifice is rewarded with a digital badge and an email that begins 'Team', and you begin to see why Argentina would run through walls for him and your team won't answer Slack after six. Then there is the protecting-your-people business. When Papu Gómez dyed his hair blonde and became the squad's punchline, Messi quietly told everyone to knock it off. No HR ticket raised, no all-hands on psychological safety, no workshop with breakout rooms. Just a leader noticing that a joke had curdled and ending it. Most managers, in my experience, handle such moments by developing a profound fascination with their phones, and later wonder aloud why the annual engagement survey scores are down again. ALSO READ The law and politics of climate reparations At Inter Miami, the man with eight Ballons d'Or spent his time pulling aside teenagers mid-match to show them where to run, and his weekends watching academy kids from the sidelines like any other football dad with a thermos. The corporate translation of this — senior people actually mentoring juniors rather than merely listing 'mentorship' under Interests on LinkedIn — remains, I'm told, in pilot phase at most organisations. And finally, the hardest lesson of all. When Messi announced his retirement from international football, he didn't cling on, restructure the team around himself, or move upstairs as Executive Chairman of Goals. He said a brilliant younger generation deserved its chance, and left. I have worked in offices for long enough to know how rare this is. The average corporate leader treats succession the way a toddler treats bedtime: as a conspiracy to be resisted with everything they have. So here is the Messi leadership method: speak less, mean it more; thank people by name for things that actually cost them; shut down the office bully; teach the youngsters; and leave before they wish you would. None of it requires a headset microphone. All of it requires something in shorter supply than talent — which, as Messi's career suggests, was never really the point.