A take on Leadership.......

Why lead? A very simple question, but one many of us fail to ask when offered a leadership role.

When I put the phone down to Geoff Cooke, having been asked to captain England, at the age of 22, significantly less experienced than any of them, I asked myself this question incessantly for the next few days, alongside, why me?! (I never got an answer to the latter!!)

What follows is my very basic thinking on leadership, on what I tried to do, but don’t for a minute think that I achieved gold stars in any of the areas, far from it.

Once you have laboured over the question, why lead, and hopefully come up with an answer that does not focus on career, power, fame, money or ego, but rather the team and how you might set about helping it become as successful as possible, at least you start with the right foundation.

I thought long hand hard about how did I want people to feel, in and around the team, how did I want us to behave, what did I want us to believe in? For a start I wanted them to believe in themselves, and I worked very hard at building confidence in individuals, and in the team. We all perform better when confident, but so often we fail to realise how brittle or low the confidence is in our team members, hidden behind their assured fa?ade. I wanted and needed to get to know the man, not the rugby player, so that I knew as much about him and his life when he turned up to England training.

Communication is always a keyword thrown up in leadership talks, and I agree it is crucial, I probably just came at it from a different point of view. I vividly remember standing up for the first time in front of the England team, as captain, and surveying the faces of my heroes from school (not that they will thank me for saying it!) I was struck by the fact that all this experience and knowledge sat in the room, all looking back at me, and if I could just start to tap into both of those seams, then we would start to make progress. And I believe that goes for any team, so often leaders leave this huge well of knowledge untapped, through mistakenly thinking they must now have all the answers.

So listening was my starting point. Listening to individuals, listening to groups, listening to the team. I have no embarrassment to say that I am not sure if I came up with a single idea that was implemented in those early days, the team came up with all of them! But in so doing, belief, trust and change all sprouted.

I introduced upward appraisal, not anonymous but named – brutal, blunt and bloody hard to hear. But then isn’t that the job of a leader? We expect our team to take on board our views, in many cases – criticism – so why not show them first that you can accept it too?

It helps promote honesty, promote trust and most importantly shows that you are not just a ‘talker’ but that your behaviour aligns with the values you say you believe in and you want them to share.

Don’t put off the awkward conversations until another day- and then another day……. It is those awkward conversations, that are not had, that hinder a team from achieving it’s potential.

Marginal gains through brilliant preparation – of course, but just as important is ensuring your team understand their roles, so that they can perform those roles under pressure. Process v Outcome. So often the conversations are about what we need the outcome to be, rather than on explaining the roles and processes that will enable us to achieve those outcomes. And if we do not understand our roles, in fine detail, then we will not be able to replicate them time and time again – and that is the only way to achieve excellence. Psychological preparation, emotional management is also hugely important in being able to achieve excellence.

Investing the time into visualising every possible problem that we might encounter as a team is crucial as a leader. Understanding how you will feel, and hence thinking through how you will react and move on, what signals you will give your team in those crucial moments, what behaviour you will display is vital in sustaining confidence and belief. And how many of your team know what their best emotional state is to deliver their best performance? Crucially how many know how to get themselves to that pitch for every game? Investing the time and energy into our mental preparation pays greater returns than merely focusing on physical conditioning and data.

Having the courage to commit to winning, with all the pain that comes with falling short. So often teams shy away from committing to winning, because in doing so, you also must commit to constantly learning, improving and avoiding comfort zones. This can be achieved through team members all developing leadership, coaching ability and world-class skills. The best in the team can coach those needing improvement, for this there must be the humility to ask to be coached and the ability to coach, but once these values have been acquired, the team will grow massively. We need a team that is curious and eager to learn, because they enjoy the feeling of winning and fear the pain of defeat.

As I said very basic, but nonetheless authentic. Creating a sense of family, a sense of belonging for your team takes a huge emotional investment from the leader, and then the team members. I will never forget my Mother’s face when I told her that I had given up my job at Mobil Oil (these were the amateur days) to concentrate on my captaincy and take the time needed to do it properly. I recall her asking what I would do for money, and I had no answer! But I told her that I had been given this chance, and I wanted to give it everything I had, as who knew how long I would have it for.

Words are powerful, but also easily said. Behaviour is what people follow and believe in, words can back this up, but never replace it.