Ganguly as a Leader @ CASE STUDY

CASE STUDY OF SOURAV GANGULY as a Leader

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ü Arijit Das

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Sourav Ganguly’s 12 (twelve) most important achievements as a captain of Indian cricket team è

ü When Ganguly became the captain the India team that time no one was ready to become the captain. The team was under the pressure of the match fixing. And then Sourav stood up as a leader and became the captain of the Indian cricket team.

ü February, 2000: Named captain for the five-ODI home series against South Africa after Tendulkar relinquished post and India own the trophy.

ü The best thing about Ganguly’s captaincy was him backing the talent like Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Yuvraj Singh or Mohammed Kaif. Ganguly prepared a whole new bunch of young cricketers who were ready to fight it out in the middle. And the world saw the new face of Indian cricket a young, aggressive and hungry for win team.

ü India became the joint winner of the ICC Champions trophy with Sri Lanka.

ü In the first test against Australia in 2003-2004, he made a brilliant 144 under pressure. India was 62/3

when he came in. Everyone was expecting him to fail miserably in the series and he ended up averaging 50.

ü He captained India when they beat England in the 2002 Natwest Finals chasing 325. He scored 60 off just 43 balls opening the batting.

ü The World Cup 2003 did not start on a happy note for India as they lost to Australia in just their second game of the tournament but then came the turn round and they reached to the final of that world cup.

ü India toured Australia where they were considered the underdogs; Sourav who was susceptible against

the bouncers took Aussies by surprise in the very first match by scoring a hundred. Though India took the lead in the second test but they could manage to draw the test series

ü Led India to 2-1 win against Australia at home in a historic Test series.

ü He became the most successful captain for India after India won the test series against Pakistan in 2004.

ü He gave to India 13 test victories,

ü His own batting averaged was 37.00 as captain. And it is the second best long run average as a captain.

most common traits of a successful manager like S. Gangully

A. Positive thought & positive talk: A successful manager must be positive in his attitude and always talk positive, because his attitude carries forward to his subordinates. He, himself should always think positive for any situation that he might face. Since a successful manager has to lead a successful team and that is why he should always speak positive to motivate his people otherwise if he lacks of positive power then his team also will suffer from the same disease.

B. Vision: A manager should always possess a long term vision through which he can specify his motive to his subordinates which in turn makes people to aware of his duty.

C. An eye for talent: A successful manager always should identify his potential subordinates and make them believe that they are the most suitable for the job they are chosen.

D. Nurturing talent: A successful manager should always nurture his talent pool and give them always moral and mental support along with their security support, so that they can trust him.

E. Indifference to criticism: A successful manager must be impartial when it comes out about feedback or appraisal. He should never show any partiality to any of his subordinates. His decision, comment about any of person should not be biased. So that everybody likes him and wish to do work for him. Even he should be open to listen any criticism about himself.

F. Competent: A successful manager should be competent in order to get the respect from his subordinates; he should be a good performer to make others to follow him, so that his team performance increases.

G. Intuitive decision maker: A successful manager should have the quality of analyzing pros and cons of every situation very quickly and should have the capability to take a calculated risk which helps his team to grow as far as possible. It is not necessarily that his decision always should be the correct one but he must have the guts to take the risk at right time.

H. Inspiring and motivator: A successful manager always should be a great motivator and always give fresh air to his subordinates to breathe so that their performance deliverance always increases and always give them the support that whatever happens the manager will be on their side. He must be very much inspiring to his teammates so that teammates should feel to work with enthusiasm.

I. Fighting spirit:

A successful manager should possess the quality of fighting spirit, he must not give up himself in any situation, and he must fight till the end as long as he feels that there is still few percentage of chance to do that work.

J. Honesty: A successful manager should be honest to his work and honest to his teammates because honesty brings the trust from people. Once the manager is honest, his team members feel comfortable to work with their boss which in turn builds a great team. Great teams with all committed people always deliver the best work. Six(6) important leadership traits of Sourav Ganguly. Give example of each of these traits from his professional career.

ü Meritocracy: - Meritocracy is appointment peoples on the basis of their talent and ability. So, if we

are talking about S. Gangully then we must say that he is very much concussing about Meritocracy. He took talent like Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Yuvraj Singh or Mohammed Kaif.

ü An eye for talent:- This is onr of the important trails for any successful manager like Gangully. As an

example , Javagal Srinath selected by Gangully before World Cup 2003 and he was the leading wicket taker of India teams.

ü Nurturing talent:- ourav did not stop with identifying the talent. He had a knack for removing the

fear of failure from the minds of these young players. When Sehwag was asked to open the innings in test matches, he was worried that failure would mean being dropped. Ganguly told him that failure as an opener would not see him dropped, but would only see him reverted to the middle order; his place in the team would be safe. There can be no doubt that the confidence arising from such an assurance played a part in Sehwag’s scores as an opener in the 2002-2005 periods.

ü Insistence on continued performance:-Sourav never seemed to have a problem with balancing the

need to encourage a talented youngster with the need to include a better performer or to demand better standards from the youngster. Ganguly backed Akash Chopra through the tour to Australia, but midway through the Pakistan tour that followed, he dropped him to accommodate Yuvraj Singh in the team. In the series that followed, Yuvraj in turn, was dropped owing to poor performances. The players who get into this can never let their standards drop as their performance is closely watched in every match to see whether they should remain in the fast track or not.

ü Indifference to criticism:-

It seems Sourav did not spend much time worrying about whether his actions and decisions met with general approval or not. He did what he thought was right for the team and lived with the consequences of that. Ganguly has spoken in an interview about how he had advised Rahul Dravid not to worry about what people wrote about him. Ganguly seemed to accept that criticism went with the job and never lost sleep over it.

Sourav thinks that leaders need to develop a thick skin. It is a lonely job and brickbats and bouquets have to be treated alike. The leader who seeks approval is unlikely to take the tough decisions that are sometimes necessary.

ü No personal insecurity and preference for match winners:- Ganguly was anywhere near being the best player in the team and he seemed even slightly bothered by this. He had such confidence in his standing as a `leader' that he could rejoice in his teammates ability to outshine them with the bat. At the same time, he was never exactly a passenger. Except towards the end of their tenures, he was clearly good enough to be in the team. Clearly, Sourav has been equally comfortable with two roles - as performer and as the enabler of others' performance. How obvious and yet how difficult! Sourav was very strident and unapologetic in his preference for potential match-winners over steady performers. The potential match winners Yuvraj, Harbhajan and Sehwag were preferred over their more staid counterparts like Mohammed Kaif, Sanjay Bangar and even Anil Kumble; Dravid was the sole exception.

Can Sourav Ganguly teach managers about leading from the front? What can the leaders in business can learn from his successes and failures?

Sourav Ganguly can obviously teach managers about leading from the front, because he was one who was best in the business in the Indian cricket team from the period from 2000 to 2005. 1. At first we have to talk about Ganguly’s vision as a leader. When he took over the captaincy on 2000,

Indian cricket was already in deep trouble due to match fixing scandal. Ganguly banged those and set a vision to win in his ‘Team India’, which resulted brilliantly as Indian cricket team started to win matches in India as well as foreign soil.

2. The next important thing which Ganguly can teach the business leaders about how to deal with people. Ganguly had managed himself brilliantly with the stars like Sachin, Dravid, Laxman, Kumble and the rising talents like Sehwag, Yuvraj, Dhoni, Harvajan, and Zaheer in the team.

3. Like a leader, Ganguly always had a positive spirit and a fire to perform.

4. During his 5 year period of captaincy Ganguly always looked for new talents like Harvajan, Zaheer,

Dhoni, Yuvraj and many more. “Every leader succeeds and fails depending on the situation he or she is working under”. Do you agree with this statement? Give reasons for your answer.

Yes, I agree with this famous statement of Harsha Bhogle,the famous television commentator and cricket columnist. He quoted this on 2006 about the legendary Indian cricket captain when Ganguly’s international cricket career was in great dilemma.

According to me, a leader should be the person, who has to lead from front and have to confront any tough situation to protect others. He is the person who has to make the decision and if that decision does not work out then he is the person who have to take the responsibility. We have seen many leaders who failed in some of their objectives but still world has never forgotten them. Because Whatever they have tried it was not only true but for the sake of a nation or people they have done beyond their limit. In doing so sometime they failed and sometime they succeeded. Who can forget the name of Cheguevera and our beloved Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose who may have failed in achieving their ultimate goal but surely had left a message which touches everybody’s heart. There are many such examples in history which shows a leadership does mean the leader have to win in the entire situation.

The same logic can be applied about Ganguly’s leadership. As a captain of the Indian cricket team, he always tried to upgrade the team’s performance in the home grounds as well as in foreign soils. In doing so, success and failure came to his career as the law of life. But the legacy which Ganguly has given to Indian cricket was phenomenal. He injected a motto to win in his team. He taught the fellow cricketers to look directly at the opponent’s eye, which created a lot of confidence in the team. Ganguly failed due to certain situations which he could not handle. At the end of the day people remembered him for his revolutionary success, not for his failure.

Do you agree with experts that all leaders have a ‘shelf life”?

Everybody will have a different shelf life. Ganguly wanted to continue with the job, but Ganguly had gone as far as he could as Indian captain. He wasn't going to be able to add anything more as Indian captain to the team, and as selector he would have been asked to step down much before when he actually did as the dynamic nature of the game which changes in a blink of an eye. At that point of time he was unable to contribute and he had one of the most dubious form of his life. Also team was not playing up to the mark and all added upto his problems. So a change was necessary to provide a change in the team’s build up. His shelf life was on the basis of his usefulness to the Indian team. Everybody has a shelf life , so also a leader has his own shelf life. It's a matter of whether they make the decision or the decision is made for them. A good leader always knows the best time when he/she has to step down.

Give three(3) quotes of Sourav Ganguly relevant to today’s management profession.

Ø Nobody is a born captain, Most of the times I have gone on instinct.

- When his captaincy was criticized. Ø He’s a champion at everything. I really admire him. I am very impressed with the way he approaches life.

-On Rahul Dravid.

Ø NO SOURAV......... NO CRICKET - From The Heart Of Million Fans