S t r a t e g y + M a r k e t i n g + A n a l y s i s + R e s o u r c e s + T e c h n o l o g y

Jul-Aug 11

VOL 10

ISSUE 4

prasenjit bhattacharya

harsha and anita bhogle

leadership coaches

paul & reck

lynda gratton
professor, London Business School

dr anil khandelwal
chintamani rao

former CMD, Bank of Baroda

k natarajan
CEO & MD, MindTree

kim seeling smith

ns raghavan
cofounder, Infosys

tv rao
jonathan winter
jul-aug 11
52

the father of Indian HRD

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reading room

R eading room

book extracts
the winning way

learnings from sport for managers

by anita bhogle & harsha bhogle

128 www.thesmartmanager.com

The Smart Manager

Jul-Aug 2011

reading room

the winning way

learnings from sport for managers
by anita bhogle & harsha bhogle
hank God that
Imran Khan did
not suffer from
insecurity, or else
the cricketing world would have
missed players like Wasim Akram
and WaqarYounis. Because Imran
always put Pakistan first, and was
very secure himself, he didnt mind
picking young players who, in a
few years, would actually become
better than him, for his skills
would decline with age. But he also
believed in leading from the front
and so, when his fast-bowling skills
had significantly declined during
the World Cup campaign of 1992,
he moved up to number three in
the batting order. The captain was
making a statement there.
What starts early in life with the
best student in class being made
the class monitor continues till
much later with the best salesman
being made sales manager or the
star batsman becoming captain.
The law of natural progression is
followed the world over, in spite
of it being proved wrong over
and over again. Star performers
are supreme individualists, totally
focused on themselves and their
craft. In a sense, their obsession
with themselves is what defines
their genius.

Anita Bhogle & Harsha Bhogle

Westland Limited
2011, 196 pgs, R200, paperback

132 www.thesmartmanager.com

A leader, on the other hand,

needs to think beyond himself and
ahead of everyone else. He needs to
relate to people whose talent does
not match his own, and needs to
spend time with players who are
not performing as well as him.
And in doing so, answer for
himself the question that every
leader must: Do I spend more time
with people who are in form and
delivering or do I spend more time
with under- performers who need
some hand-holding?
Indeed, one reason outstanding
talents dont always make the
best leaders is that they tend
to weigh everyone in the same
scales they weigh themselves in
and so, sometimes are unable to
understand the limited capability,
even the insecurity, of another
player. As one international player
said to us about his captain, Has
he ever known what it is to go to
bed wondering if he will make
the team the next day? In fact
SachinTendulkar admitted to us
in the interview we did with
him that his fast bowler Javagal
Srinath told him that he tended
to measure people in the way he
measured himself.
Understanding the person,
therefore, is critical because you

The Smart Manager

Jul-Aug 2011

reading room

The qualities that brought you so far are not the ones that will necessarily
take you forward.

still need him on the team and need

to get the best out of him.
Michael Holding, as we have
seen, said something similar when
we asked him about his captain
Clive Lloyd. There was a feeling
that you didnt really need to do
much with that great West Indies
side since everyone knew their role
and they were the most awesome
bunch of players to take the field.
(In years to come, New Zealander
Chris Cairns would say that his
mother could captain Australia!)
But as Holding said, Lloydy took
the trouble to understand that we
were all different and because he
respected us, we respected him.
The other reason the best
performer need not make the best
leader, therefore, is that leadership
requires a whole new set of
skills. An outstanding software
programmer, for example, caught
up in the daily affair with his
machine, might never learn to
handle people; a very good shop
floor manager might not possess
the communication skills to
lead a less homogeneous group.
Understanding that the qualities
that brought you so far are not the
ones that will necessarily take you
forward is an adjustment that many
fail to make. And so teams might

The Smart Manager

Jul-Aug 2011

be better off looking at less-gifted

individuals if indeed they possess
the ability to bring the best out of
the team.
The need to have both skills
being a performer and being
able to understand the capability of
others is therefore a combination
that few possess, for, as Madhabi
Puri-Buch told us, The leader
must also come with impeccable
credentials. Todays youngsters, in
particular, will not respect a leader if
he/she is not a performer in his/her
own right. Her philosophy is that a
leader can command respect only if
he is able to say, If you cant do it,
I will.
Genius also has a twin brother
in ego, and success only strengthens
the bond between the siblings.
Saugata Gupta feels that greed
and a lack of humility are the two
main reasons why leaders fall.
Sometimes, leaders get caught up
in pet projects. You should be able
to judge things from a distance.
Often, there arent people who will
tell the leader that he is wrong. It is
lonely at the top.

demanding, different kinds of

leaders. Wartime generals are
required for inspired action, for
taking the bull by the horns.
Peacetime managers are brought
in when you need to sustain a
campaign. Neither of those skills
is superior as seen by the case
of Winston Churchill who was
rejected by the British electorate
when the need to rebuild, after the
euphoria of the victory in the war,
became paramount.
Post the match-fixing issue
at the turn of the century, Indian
cricket needed a flamboyant,
inspirational leader, not just to carry
the team along but to convince the
fans that they were out there doing
their best. Sourav Ganguly was the
right man and he was wonderful
in transforming India from a
defensive, uncertain side, especially
overseas, into one that could win
anywhere. By doing that he brought
the people back into the game and
towards supporting the national
side. In fact, you could say cricket in
India recovered almost too quickly
from that match-fixing affair!

leaders come with a shelf-life

While discussing leadership issues
we often talk about different
situations needing, almost

Excerpted with permission from Westland Limited

from The Winning Way Learnings from sport for
managers by Anita Bhogle & Harsha Bhogle

www.thesmartmanager.com 133