Leadership lessons from Pietersen

I can't say that I'm upset by the news that Kevin Pietersen has been forced to step down as captain of England. My last post was in fact about why I felt KP was not the right person to captain the side and I think my view has now been verified. In the metro this morning David Lloyd is quoted as saying

"You have a star player in Kevin Peitersen [...] but do you have your best player as captain? I don't think so, Brian Lara, Ian Botham, Geoff Boycott - don't put them anywhere near the captaincy; keep them as your star player"

Totally right, I could add Freddie Flintoff to that mix too. Looking back at who the modern-era good captains are, the majority come from the Top 3 or 4 in the order: Vaughan, Atherton, Gooch, Gower, Hussain, Stewart, Gatting and now Strauss. All top order batsmen. The one long-serving captain that doesn't fit the mould is Brearley, but then he was a genius with a cricketing/psychology brain the size of a small planet so it didn't matter that he couldn't really bat or bowl. Why this trend? I think it's because of the type of person you need to be to succeed as a top order batsmen; it's not just brawn, it's brains tied with tactical and strategic thinking. These are also the skills required of the captain, so it's not really surprising that the such a trend exists.

However, I've titled this entry as "Leadership Lessons from Pietersen" because I think Pietersen underdid himself through naivety in his off-field management of his team and those above him and it's a lesson that all new managers should take to heart. KP failed because he failed to manage adequately both downwards and upwards relying on his ego and charisma instead. A quote from Nassar Hussain, again in today's Metro:

"Kevin should have gone about this in a much more professional way. You can't just sit on safari in South Africa and issue ultimatums."

I'm sure more detail will come out over time, but at the moment, it appears that KP didn't have the full support of his team for his actions and neither did he have the support of the ECB. Surely as a manager who wants to get things done, those are two things you need and to undertake a strategy that alienates both your workers and your bosses isn't desirable or sustainable. This is where KP could have done with external adivce and guidance from a personal coach where he could have shared concerns and issues in private before airing them in public and be helped with formulating an appropriate strategy. With back-room activities, discussing the issues with individual members of the ECB board and gradually gaining concensus for his opinions would have been far more likely to produce a positive outcome and had he pursued such a strategy he might well have still been holding the captaincy.

Having said all that, KP should never have been captain in the first place, Strauss was always the natural successor to Vaughan. I'm very pleased he's got the opportunity again, let's hope he can hang on to it this time.