There was an interesting question I faced at a training program yesterday. My subject was leadership, and the question asked by one of the participants was "Why was Sachin Tendulkar unsuccessful as a captain of the cricket team?"
This made me think (on my feet), but the answer is that different skills are required when you have to get work done from a set of people, compared to doing the job yourself. It is easy for Tendulkar to set himself standards, and use rewards or punishment for himself and get runs, or field well, but getting ten others to do the same was not his forte.
In many cases, leaders take things too personally, and it may start affecting them. For instance, a batsman may stop batting well, or a bowler may not bowl well, because he is made captain. The same may happen in the corporate world, where a great salesman may make a lousy sales manager, and also stop selling, due to his administrative responsibilities.It is probably possible to orient a person taking up a leadership role about what it is that needs to be different.
The setting of priorities, and putting the right people (out of those available or recruitable) on the right job are two other things that a leader should be good at. A personal sense of mission is desirable in what a leader wants to achieve in a 2-3 year time-frame. You may want to call it a vision for people in the organisation, because that is what makes an organization go around. A clear vision and clarity on limitations of his role make a leader better.
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1 comment:
Brilliant question. Let me try and put my thoughts on this.
There is a famous Lao Tzu quote that comes to mind which goes: "A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."
As you said Sachin is too intense a cricketer with very high standards for himself. But to expect the same from everyone is always a difficult proposition because everyone finally figures out 'his' way of doing it. I get another famous quote to mind which goes something like (Henry Ford was it or General Macarthur?) - Tell a man what to do and not how to do it - and he will achieve miracles.
Most unevolved leaders (as you said in your salesmen example) try to tell the people to do it 'their' way, because it worked for them, else they will be disappointed. The team loses confidence in itself and instead of being the best they can be, does things to fit into this leaders way of doing things. Which is a recipe for disaster.
Which is what Sachin, at that stage in his life did, and got ordinary results.
But MSD does exactly what Lao Tzu says. He lets them be, he tells them what to do (and not how to do it - ref Joginder Sharma's last over in the T20 final) and leaves them to find our the way within their skill set. All he invests, and this is a big thing, is complete trust in the player as long as he is on the field. Trust that says that you are good enough
for me and I support you whatever happens. That is why Dhoni's player repeatedly pull miracles out of their hat!
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