Leadership Lessons from Strauss

I was fortunate to listen to Andrew Strauss on Leadership this week … some great stories and he drew out some lessons from his time as England Cricket Captain. His legacy is a high performance culture and a team, like Team GB in the Olympics, that professionalised the approach to sport. He talked about three key themes:

1. Using first impressions – chance to make impression and set out the objectives in the early days when people want to listen to you – whether good and bad, share the story. He discussed the need to get all the issues on the teable and, if necessary, clear the baggage as you cannot achieve cultural change without the right people that understand the charter and know the boundaries.
2. Prepare for decisions you may have to make; you cant prepare for them all but there are many you can predict. Delegate well, build consensus when you can but ultimately leaders have to be decisive. Make people responsible and give them latitude to work in there own way; not everyone has to do the same training routine but they must put the team first and not step over the line.
3. Don’t delegate tough decisions and show empathy.

None of this is new, but it’s a good story, well told, from someone who inherited an England team that was divided by the Stamford fiasco and the ill fated Pietersen captaincy that transformed into the worlds number one Test team under Strauss.