The coffee shop of a trendy boutique hotel in central London seems an appropriate place to meet Mike Carson, who has set up a business helping large corporations to catalyse change. You could say he is a modern day Nehemiah; a man that God has placed in some incredible places and who is constantly seeking to point to God and his purposes. Whenever I meet him I come away inspired to dream a little bigger and am challenged to rethink my understanding of leadership. Too often the church is disconnected from the world of business, so I wondered whether Mike's latest book on football and leadership might be an opportunity to bridge the divide.

What are your passions in life?

I have three: one is Christ and the others are leadership and football. I wanted to do a project that was an overlap of my passions for football and leadership. Football managers have come more and more into the spotlight – for example, when I go and see Manchester City versus Liverpool, the press bill it as Jurgen Klopp versus Manuel Pellegrini. There has been a real shift in public and industry perceptions of how much influence a manager has and what he does. We call them managers but they are actually leaders and what they do is incredibly high pressure. If you can lead in Premier League football then you can lead anywhere – whether a bank or a warship.

Who should be reading your book?

I have two big audiences. One is people in any form of leadership, whether that is in a school, a business, a family or a church. My wife has been at home with four children and that is a significant leadership role. The second is anyone who loves football, especially the Premier League. It's so much fun to get under the skin of the game. Managers normally only get two minutes in front of a camera and the questions are "What do you think of the ref? Was that a penalty? Should that have been a red card?" when actually they have so much more to say.

Who did you get to meet and what were they like?

I met all the people you would hope to meet. José Mourinho in his role at Real Madrid, Carlo Ancelotti at Paris Saint-Germain, Roberto Mancini at Manchester City, Sir Alex Ferguson at Mancheter United, Arsène Wenger at Arsenal and a host of others. Mick McCarthy, Harry Redknapp and Sam Allardyce. The only thing I was disappointed about was that Wenger brought with him a very fine press minder who after 23 minutes told me "last question Mr Carson". Otherwise I found Wenger to be exactly as you would expect – thoughtful, philosophical, wise... a fascinating man. Arsène works through values. My 11-year-old daughter is fascinated by the fact that his name is Arsène and he is at Arsenal. It's almost as if that name means he embodies the club's values and culture. He is 20 years there now and by a long way the longest standing manager in the Premier League. I think the next longest standing is three years... Manuel Pellegrini will soon be near the top of the list, which tells a story in itself.

How about the 'The Special One', Mourinho? Does he have a different persona when he is in front of the press? Did you manage to get behind that?

Yes he does and yes I did. I was blown away by José Mourinho. He is incredibly charismatic, very engaging, incredibly personable, empathetic and actually quite humble. So this whole persona in front of the camera of being spiky, difficult and challenging is for a reason. In his first period at Chelsea he created an 'us against the world' vibe –or at least he fanned it into flame. He stepped into the first of the wealthy megaclubs and there was a sense of everyone else in the country saying, "It's easy, you can buy success." So he arrived and said to his players, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Everyone hates us – fine. Let's turn that to our advantage. It's us against the world". He also tends to face controversy head on, and maybe even court it at a personal level to keep the heat away from his players. So you rarely hear now of a scandal in the Chelsea dressing room. You rarely hear of the press going after a Chelsea player and the reason is that Mourinho takes things on himself. At some level it is a serious act of leadership. He won me over in 60 minutes flat. I thought he was a sensational man.

We recognise the pressure that football managers are under. Do you think there are transferable concepts for Christian leaders as they seek to lead churches and organisations?

Yes, loads. One in particular stands out because of the value set that is embodied in our faith as Christians. We all stray from it at times, but in principle humility is an essential part of our leadership. What I notice in all the greats is humility. To be open to starting again at the bottom of the learning curve and spiral up again. I recognise this in another sports leader, Tiger Woods. When he won his first Open – I think he was 19, and the youngest player to win it – he went to his coach and said, "I've won an Open but I am not good enough yet. I want you to dismantle my swing into its 60 component parts and I want you to work on it and make it better". I notice that none of the managers I spoke to ever said "I know everything." It is true that some of them are established in their greatness, like Sir Alex Ferguson who openly described himself as "I am the club", and who could possibly argue? But even he was still prepared to start again and learn again. Interestingly, the massive investment from Abu Dhabi that allowed Manchester City to park their tanks on United's lawn caused him to start again in his thinking. For me, one of the greatest achievements in his career was coming back and wresting the Premier League from City in his final season. That was his crowning achievement.

Humility seems counterintuitive as the managers often have a smaller salary, are less famous, and have less technical ability than the players they are seeking to manage. Similarly, church leaders often have less leadership experience than individuals in the congregations they are seeking to lead. How does humility work when you have big egos in the dressing room and in the pew?

I think different managers do different things in this regard. So if Arsène Wenger was leading a church, I think he would say "I am going to reinforce our values. What is it we stand for? Let's remember our values and work out what this will mean on a day to day basis." For example, I've seen a church leader grab two members of their congregation and say: "You two need to talk. You need to pray and you need to be reconciled." That's one of the Pauline values of living in peace with one another. There's a courage needed in a leader to enforce and role model the values.

I also think we need to learn how to be open to receiving feedback. One person I would cite in this is Sam Allardyce. He is famous for creating a team within a team. He surrounds himself with non-playing lieutenants doing everything from scouting to operations and coaching. Sam takes feedback from these people. They tell him what's working and not working. I suspect that is why Allardyce is able to reinvent himself over and over. He has just moved from West Ham to Sunderland and some people were a little bit dubious, saying, "What's he going to bring to Sunderland? Didn't he fail at West Ham?". I'd say he didn't fail at all at West Ham – he got them promoted and he got them stable and now they are in the upper reaches of the Premier League. But now he faces a different challenge, a relegation battle. And I don't think they could have found a better man to lead them through that.

One thing I notice about football managers is the degree of criticism they experience. I think church leaders face something similar as everyone and their dog has a view on how church should be led. I wonder if there's anything church leaders can learn from football managers about how to deal with criticism?

Roy Hodgson is a master at this. I interviewed him for the chapter on managing stakeholders and their expectations. What I gleaned from him is that the art of this in the football world is to give your all to every stakeholder engagement. So if I am in front of the cameras, I am present for the press and the watching public. If I am in my dressing room, I am present for my team. If I am with the CEO, I am present for him or her. Harry Redknapp would add, if I am with my family then I am present for them and he recognised that he wasn't so good at that. Your family are stakeholders, by the way, because leadership is the full you. If I am a great leader, I bring all of myself to work. That doesn't mean I leave none of myself for my family, it just means in every interaction I bring all of myself.

There is an empathy point here too. In one-on-one leadership we are to bring empathy and steel to our interactions. Carlo Ancelotti is the master of empathy and how to become present with one person. When Ancelotti was in Milan he had a player, a South American striker, who had a loss in form. Ancelotti raised it and the player replied, "Sorry boss I will get it right." But Carlo said, "No, tell me what's up." And the player replied, "Sorry boss I will fix it." Ancelotti realised he wasn't getting anywhere so they went for a walk together and sat down on a park bench. The manager asked him what was really going on. The player explained that he was getting married. Ancelotti congratulated him but the player explained it was not a cause for celebration – it was a little like an arranged marriage and neither of them were up for it. Carlo literally coached him about what he wanted to do. At the end of the conversation the player decided to stand up to his parents and tell them they were not marrying because they were not right for each other. The player went back, broke off the marriage and when he returned to the pitch he started scoring goals again. So for the church leader where there are eight different opinions on every decision, I would say be present, listen, be open and humble, but then apply the steel; of which Alex Ferguson is the master. You need to be able to say, "Now I am making a decision and now I walk in it."

You can read all of Mike Carson's interviews with Premiership managers and his reflections on leadership in The Manager: Inside the Minds of Football's Leaders published by Bloomsbury.