If you watched England's World Cup group match against Croatia on Wednesday evening, you'll know it was very much a game of two halves.

Despite finding the net twice in the first half, England's performance was somewhat underwhelming. The pace was pedestrian, the intensity appeared lacking and Croatia were able to respond with two goals of their own, leaving the match finely balanced at 2-2 at half time.

The second half, however, was a completely different story.

England emerged from the dressing room looking energised, focused and determined. Within minutes of the restart, they had regained the lead and ultimately ran out comfortable 4-2 winners.

In a post-match interview, captain Harry Kane revealed that manager Thomas Tuchel had addressed the team with a “speech” during the interval. Television pundits analysing the game suggested that the players may have been on the receiving end of some fairly direct and uncompromising feedback.

Exactly what was said behind closed doors may never be fully revealed, but it is probably safe to assume that the message was carefully chosen to suit the audience.

After all, these are elite international footballers. They understand their profession, possess exceptional technical ability and are paid handsomely for performing at the highest level. It is unlikely that Tuchel felt the need to explain the fundamentals of football or provide detailed instruction on how to play the game. Instead, his intervention was probably designed to challenge, motivate and refocus a group of highly capable professionals who were simply not performing to their potential.

There is an important lesson that can be learned here for leaders and managers in every workplace.

It’s a common mistake for managers to treat everyone the same. Whilst fairness and consistency are important, leadership is not a one-size-fits-all activity. Different people require different levels of support, direction, coaching and challenge depending on their experience, competence and confidence.

This principle sits at the heart of the SLII® leadership model developed by Ken Blanchard, a programme that HR Champions is accredited to deliver. The model teaches us that individuals move through four stages of development.

The first stage is often described as enthusiastic beginner or unconscious inability. At this point, an individual is new to a task and may not yet appreciate the full extent of what they need to learn.

The second stage is conscious inability. Here, people recognise the gaps in their knowledge and ability and can sometimes experience frustration or reduced confidence.

The third stage is conscious ability. Individuals are capable of performing the task successfully but still need to concentrate and think carefully about what they are doing.

Finally, there is unconscious ability. This is where competence becomes second nature. Skills are embedded, experience has been gained and performance can be delivered consistently without conscious effort.

As leaders and managers, we want our people operating at this fourth stage as much as possible. Knowing that our employees are capable of doing their job without intervention and having the confidence in them to do so has got to be a good place to be. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that employees need support to progress through the earlier stages.

It would be unreasonable to place someone in a new role and simply tell them to "get on with it" without providing training, guidance, supervision or mentoring. Equally, it would be inappropriate to micromanage experienced employees who have already demonstrated their capability and judgement.

The key is matching your leadership style to the needs of the individual.

When someone is inexperienced, they may need clear direction and close support. As their competence grows, your role shifts towards coaching, encouragement and collaboration. Eventually, highly capable individuals may simply require trust, autonomy and the occasional intervention when standards begin to slip.

Returning to Wednesday night's football match, we might reasonably expect England's players to operate at the highest level of unconscious ability. Yet the first-half performance suggested something different. Whether through complacency, lack of focus or reduced intensity, performance levels had dipped.

Recognising this, Thomas Tuchel clearly intervened at the half time break. No doubt, he identified what his players needed in that moment and adjusted his approach accordingly. The result was immediate and as we witnessed, highly effective.

Great leadership is about recognising what individuals need from you at a particular point in time and responding appropriately. This is what gets results.

At HR Champions, we help organisations develop leaders who can do exactly that. Through our range of leadership and management development programmes, including SLII®, ILM qualifications and bespoke management training, we help managers build highly effective teams that consistently deliver measurable results. Just as we witnessed on Wednesday evening, the right intervention, delivered at the right time and in the right way, can transform performance.

If you would like to discuss the most appropriate leadership development programme for your organisation, contact HR Champions today. Call us on 01452 331331, or complete the contact form.