Man­age­ment at any lev­el is a skilled po­si­tion but there seems to be very lit­tle that can be com­pared to foot­ball man­age­ment.

It is said that to­day's game is typ­i­fied by man­agers who are nev­er more than 180 min­utes away from get­ting sacked, youth play­ers made to grow up far too quick­ly, play­ers in­tox­i­cat­ed by mon­ey over club and coun­try loy­al­ty, more is­sues than one plagu­ing a game turned bil­lion-dol­lar busi­ness.

But that aside there is a whole lot we can take from the game par­tic­u­lar­ly from some of the as­tute lead­ers we have been for­tu­nate to en­counter or at least learn from though ob­ser­va­tion.

In May 2000, I found my­self ex­treme­ly for­tu­nate to be in­ter­act­ing with Sir Bob­by Rob­son, the for­mer Eng­land boss who was on tour to Trinidad with New­cas­tle Unit­ed. I found him to be sim­ple and easy go­ing but very busi­ness-like. I re­call shar­ing a few rounds with him at the fa­mous Pel­i­can Inn the night fol­low­ing his club’s 1-0 win over a PFL All Star team at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um (Port-of-Spain). Many sto­ries were told and talks were un­der­way for him to take Den­nis Lawrence on tri­al at New­cas­tle. Sir Bob­by was a true gen­tle­man and al­ways up for a good chat.

That night at my age of 19, he taught me how and why some of the biggest deals are struck around a ta­ble of bev­er­ages. He as­sured us that Lawrence would get the op­por­tu­ni­ty and I was ex­cit­ed to be hear­ing that the T&T de­fend­er would be head­ing off. Lat­er that month, the ex-De­fence Force man did in fact make his way to the club for the tri­al, lat­er be­ing signed by Wrex­ham fol­low­ing work per­mit de­lays.

For­mer Eng­land play­er Paul Park­er ex­plained that there are sev­er­al qual­i­ties of a leader that Sir Bob­by pos­sessed that we could all learn from. Hu­man­i­ty – above all else Sir Bob­by was, in busi­ness speak, an au­then­tic leader. What you saw is what you got. He was not try­ing to be some­one he was not. He was well aware of his strengths and weak­ness­es. He had a high de­gree of emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence and hu­mil­i­ty.

These two el­e­ments are traits many peo­ple re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed and learned from. For Sir Bob­by it was a nat­ur­al, en­dear­ing part of what made him not just good but great. The oth­er qual­i­ties of the ex-Barcelona boss were a win­ning men­tal­i­ty, hon­esty, be­ing (qui­et­ly) com­mand­ing, loy­al­ty and love, not a word that is used in busi­ness or with­in foot­ball man­age­ment and dress­ing rooms but ex­treme­ly im­por­tant.

Park­er stressed, and I agree per­haps we should use the word more. It is about pas­sion, en­er­gy, pride, com­mit­ment and more. Per­fect for win­ning teams and a win­ning men­tal­i­ty, on the pitch and in the board­room.

These are some traits that we should all try to em­u­late or at least recog­nise in per­sons we come in­to in­ter­ac­tion with. I have wit­nessed it in many a man­ag­er or head coach on lo­cal soil. I re­call Bruce Aa­nensen, Neville Chance, when he re­turned for the 2002 qual­i­fiers as man­ag­er, George Joseph, I've heard sto­ries from past play­ers about Ol­lie (Oliv­er) Camps as a man­ag­er and Gal­ly Cum­mings, Christo­pher Gou­veia who man­aged the Un­der-17s to the 2007 youth FI­FA World Cup, Leo Been­hakker, Stephen Hart, An­ton Corneal, Bertille St Clair and the list goes on.

These qual­i­ties can be de­liv­ered to your lead­er­ship and man­age­ment teams, pulling on ex­pe­ri­ences and ap­ply­ing learn­ings di­rect­ly to your busi­ness con­text, en­abling self-re­flec­tion, pos­i­tive change and ac­tion.

It is said that Rob­son ap­proached the role of leader with a unique blend of jovial in­sight and an ex­tra­or­di­nary pas­sion to learn and win. The greats in the game teach lessons long af­ter they have gone. When he said: “Peo­ple want suc­cess. It’s like cof­fee, they want in­stant," it not on­ly cap­tured his wit and wis­dom, but spoke to the larg­er con­text of the world’s game. Rob­son’s tenure as Eng­land man­ag­er – his most fa­mous – was noth­ing short of a dai­ly strug­gle but he per­se­vered with fire and a smile. He lat­er said: “You know, no­body wins every­thing on his own."

It speaks vol­umes of the man when the likes of Jose Mour­in­ho, Sir Alex Fer­gu­son, Pep Guardi­o­la, Brazil's Ronal­do, and count­less oth­ers say Rob­son was one of the biggest in­spi­ra­tions in their ca­reers dur­ing the Net­flix doc­u­men­tary "More than a Man­ag­er". Our own Rus­sell Lat­apy played un­der him and Mour­in­ho at Por­to be­tween 94-96.

Rob­son fought can­cer five times over a 15-year span. In foot­balling terms, Bob­by Rob­son beat can­cer 4-1 be­fore his sea­son was over in Ju­ly 2009 due to lung can­cer at age 76

Like him, we all want good lead­er­ship from oth­ers or we, our­selves, want to be strong lead­ers and man­agers. Here's my tip. Be more than a man­ag­er!

Shaun Fuentes is the head of TTFA Me­dia. He is a for­mer FI­FA Me­dia Of­fi­cer at the 2010 FI­FA World Cup in South Africa and has served as a CON­CA­CAF Com­pe­ti­tions Me­dia Of­fi­cer for over ten years. The views ex­pressed are sole­ly his and not a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of any or­gan­i­sa­tion.