Leadership and getting the best out of others
What is it that makes a truly great captain? And why
is it that so few of the top players in a sport make
the successful transition into management? As a
football fan, I shall be following the fortunes of
Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard with great
interest as they embark on new careers as managers
of Rangers and Derby County respectively. Can they
be as successful from the sidelines as they were on
the pitch? Often great players aren’t because, in the
words of Mike Brearly, ‘They haven’t been able to
understand the struggle. You have to have an
empathy for the other players.’ And it is hard to do
that if playing the game comes so easily.
Brearly was arguably England’s greatest cricket
captain, turning the fortunes of a confidence-sapped
group of players into an Ashes-winning and
legendary team. He was by no means a great player;
he was good of course but his average as a batsman
was, well, distinctly average. What he possessed
though, was ‘a degree in people’ and he was able to
get the best out of others. We have been talking
about leadership this week at school and one of the
common threads in great leadership is getting the
best out of others. Brearly was able to do that
through a combination of intuition, resourcefulness,
sympathy and clear-headedness in pressurised
moments. Brearly, like all the great leaders, knew that
he did not have all the answers, or indeed the skills,
to be a success on his own, but by being consistent
and true to his beliefs, he built trust with those
around him which was vital for the pressurised
moments. As a result, more often than not, everyone
prospered. He is certainly a leader that I admire.