Quote Originally Posted by cher1 View Post
Come on then...

Asking people in the know about recruits' personal traits in an attempt to exclude anyone difficult to work with, drinkers, lazy managers, bullies- we've probably been down all those routes before? And hopefully to find a manager who is good at ...well... managing people.

Previous record?

Interview performance? What questions would you ask?

And what %age importance would you give to each criteria? Am fascinated as I've done a lot of recruitment in the past, but recruiting someone to manage a football team is like no other.
Interesting question. So I would look for any 2 of the following 3 key skills:

Tactical nouse
Spotting (whatever this involves) & developing players
Highly developed man management & motivational skills

In addition he would need to be able to listen & delegate.

I think the motivational aspect of football management is misunderstood. It ain't hard to motivate people in the short term but doing it week in week out, and through adversity, is different gravy. When you hear "he's lost the dressing room" I believe what they often mean is the manager has lost the ability to motivate the team.

Therefore, if motivating effectively in the long term is difficult, then most managers have a somewhat limited shelf life. Some managers may succeed enough to earn the right to "re-engerise" the squad but most will fail when the inevitable slump hits. Just has Nolan has.

A long term manager will by default be excellent man manager in my opinion so that's they key trait.