Yeti, I think your post on your own personal management style is instructive, and I understand a lot more about why you think Lyon is a terrible coach. When you say "the people I delegate tasks to are doing it the way I want it done and if they are not doing that then I'm bringing them into line until they are" that describes a perfectly reasonably way to manage certain teams, but it is not the only way, and depending on the circumstances not necessarily the best way.
Some managers prefer to give the leaders below them the freedom, responsibility and ownership to come up with their own solutions. This is especially the case when those below the ultimate boss have more specialist knowledge. That's not to say the top woman/man doesn't direct them, or work collaboratively with them, or take responsibility if it doesn't work out, but it means giving people freedom to try and fail.
Take a defensive problem. A head coach might say “we’re leaking goals, I want you to instruct the defenders to play 5m in front of their man, with a loose man 10m behind, and for Pearce to play on the deepest forward”. Another coach might say “we're leaking goals, let's talk about how you think we can improve that”. It might mean a different set-up or a different player mix. It might even be the positioning of the midfielders up the ground. Lyon would still be ultimately responsible and have the final say, but the two defensive coaches (Prior and Hayden), head coach and possibly some other line coaches might be involved. All the defensive coaches do all day, every day is look at their own set up, opponent forward lines, how other backlines are structured, run line training sessions and one-to-ones with the defenders to improve that part of the team. Lyon ‘telling them to do it his way’ would be folly because his attention is spread across the whole operation, and so he knows less about that particular component of the game and what is and isn’t working. He has to rely on the knowledge of his assistant coaches, and personally I reckon Roger Hayden would have at least as good a feel for how to defend as a team as Lyon. It would be wise for Lyon to listen to him.
Lyon even let the players have a crack at making some changes. That didn’t go so well, but although this is a bit of a generalisation, if you’ve dealt with highly-competitive millennials you’ll appreciate that you get better buy-in when they feel they are part of the process, not being told by an old fogey like Lyon ‘the way he wants it done’.
You self-describe as a ‘do it the way I want or I’ll bring you into line’ type of leader, and Lyon self-describes as a ‘let the cobblers do the cobbling’ type leader. Obviously no-one will change your mind on which approach is best, but you have to at least acknowledge that there is more than one way to effectively manage a team?
No-one is disagreeing that Lyon as the head coach carries the can, but to assume him to be a one-man band who makes every decision for a modern AFL club is a mode of thinking that’s about 20 years out of date.
