Confidence and leadership

I have a confession, I support Carlisle Utd football team. I started going to watch them soon after I moved to Carlisle 7 years ago, and caught the "live sport" bug. Over the last few years they've being steadily improving, refinancing the club, bringing in new players etc, and they've done pretty well, moving up a couple of divisions, nearly making it into the championship.

But all of a sudden they're performance have fallen away dramatically, they've lost 10 put of the past 11 eleven matches, and are playing really poor football.

Why is this? The bulk of the team are still the same players, against opposition they have beaten. I think the answer is confidence and leadership, or should that be the other way around.

The team have lost all self confidence, unable to play to their potential. They aren't playing together. How much is leadership a part of this?

I'm starting to read Seth Godin's Tribes which talks about movements being led not managed, rallying around a cause rather clocking into work. Powerful stuff.

I thinking about how this affects my life, I'm going to send Greg Abbott, the new Carlisle Utd manager a copy, he needs to hear this!