On Sunday afternoon I was in the stands at the BUKO Stadion in Velsen-Zuid. Telstar were hosting FC Utrecht, and on either side of the pitch stood a coach who knows the club from the inside: Henk Brugge, Telstar’s head coach since this summer, and Anthony Correia, who held that same job last season and now leads the visitors. Telstar won 4-2.
I have followed Telstar as a supporter for a long time. Since this season, Fornell Human Capital has also been a partner of the club for three years, and that sharpens the view. What I see from the stands is familiar from my own work — the question of which leader fits which phase of an organisation.
Two ways of leading, both with results
Correia grew up at Telstar. He rose from the fourth tier of Dutch amateur football to the Eredivisie and was known as a coach who connects, energises and is clear. Players went the extra mile for him precisely because of that direct bond with the group. Telstar stayed in the Eredivisie in the 2025-26 season, and in May 2026 Correia was named VI Coach of the Year. A month earlier it had already been announced that he would move to FC Utrecht.
Brugge comes from a different background. He worked as a youth coach and head of the academy, and Telstar is his first club as head coach. He won the club over with a carefully worked-out plan. He wants to know the person behind the player, makes clear what he expects and, on the touchline, calmly picks his moments.
Put the two side by side and it is tempting to look for a winner. I think that is the wrong question.
The phase determines which leader works
Under Correia a close-knit group formed and stayed together. Brugge started this summer with a heavily rebuilt squad; the club’s management speaks of 25 changes on the technical side. A group that still has to form needs different things from one that already knows each other: structure, clear expectations and someone who takes the time to get to know people.
Off the pitch, too, the club has entered a new phase. On 31 October Telstar presented its 2025/2026 annual figures. Revenue excluding transfer income rose from €5.4 million to €11.7 million, and the season closed with a net result of €2.0 million. An organisation growing this fast needs leaders at every level who can carry that growth.
What I found most instructive was how the board responded to the club’s exit from the KNVB Cup a week earlier. Managing director Leon Annokkée asked supporters to stand behind the coach and the squad precisely now, because so many changes need time to come together. At its core, that is a governance decision: whoever appoints a leader for a building phase also has to organise the patience that phase requires.
What this means for an appointment
Organisations are no different. Long-running US research into workplace engagement attributes at least 70 percent of the variance between teams to the manager. Whoever decides who leads a team largely decides how that team performs.
Yet executive and board profiles are still often written around the role, or around the previous incumbent. In succession processes I regularly see the urge to find someone who resembles the successful predecessor. Understandable, but the task for the coming years is rarely the same as the one for the years behind us. An organisation that needs to consolidate requires something different from one in the middle of an acquisition, a reorganisation or a period of rapid growth.
That is why our assignments do not start with the job profile. In the intake we ask the client what change is under way, what phase the organisation is in and how the executive team or the board steers. Only then do we turn to the profile. For a supervisory board this is not an HR detail. It goes to the heart of its responsibility for appointments.
From the other side of the table
For candidates the same applies, only in reverse. Whether you thrive depends less on the job title than on the phase you step into and on how you are steered from above. Someone who flourishes in a stable organisation can get stuck in a turnaround, and vice versa.
My advice is therefore to ask at least as many questions in a selection process as you are asked. Where does the organisation want to be in three years, what did not go well for your predecessor, and how does the board deal with setbacks in the first year? Brugge won the club over, in his first job as head coach, with a plan for what Telstar needed at that moment. For an executive, too, that is the strongest position: showing that you understand the phase.
In closing
A good coach or executive does not exist in general. They exist for a particular group, at a particular moment. On Sunday in Velsen-Zuid I saw two good examples of that, on opposite sides of the same pitch.
Is your organisation facing an appointment, and would you like to get clear first on the phase and the leadership it calls for? I am happy to think it through with you.
Navigating Talent, Empowering Futures