Nobbs dumps captain; plumps for leaders

V Narayan SwamyV Narayan Swamy

Indian hockey coach Michael Jack Nobbs during a training session at SAI centre in Bangalore. (PTI Photo)BANGALORE: Arjun Halappa will be India’s last hockey captain. At least for the next few years as the team management decided to implement the concept of leadership group which will take responsibility for what happens, make decisions and solve problems.

The concept of multiple leaders, pioneered by hockey legend Ric Charlesworth when he was coached the Australian women’s hockey team to Olympic gold in 1996 and 2000, has been progressively adopted by Australian men’s team and briefly experimented by cricket guru John Buchanan when he was with IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders.

“There will no be single captain. The idea is to have a group of 4-5 taking equal responsibility. The players take the ownership of the team and they help others. It helps in team building,” India’s chief coach Michael Jack Nobbs said at SAI, South Centre on Monday.

“Sometimes a captain or coach might not be accessible. The player might be scared to approach either one of them. However, if there is a leadership group, other players can walk up to these players and discuss things they are not comfortable discussing with me,” Nobbs, an Olympian and former Australian centre-half, said.

Nobbs has already spoken to a few players about this concept and said they were “okay with it.” He also pointed to the way Australian football teams have been successful in implementing it.

The leadership group will be named in a few days in an exercise that includes assessing the qualities of willing leaders and Nobbs own observation. “Every player will be asked to fill out forms comprising personal details. There will be questions as to what his goals are, what would he expect his role to be and the like. We will assess all the data before making announcing the names of the leaders.”

Nobbs’ predecessor Jose Brasa too had attempted something similar before the hockey World Cup, anointing Prabhjot Singh as captain and appointing four vice-captains — Arjun Halappa, Deepak Thakur, Rajpal Singh and Adrian D’Souza. But the plan fell through when Hockey India brought back Rajpal Singh as the skipper.

“I believe hierarchical leadership is an anachronism in this time. I do not think it gets the best results,” Charlesworth had told TOI. “In my opinion, the best teams have a critical mass of leaders who take responsibility for what happens, make decisions and solve problems. The more the better.”

The gist of the theory, which goes by the moniker of ‘flat leadership’ in management psychology, is that all athletes have to be part of the leadership process.

“Flat leadership helps and requires all athletes to be engaged in the process and so challenges them to help the team do well. Otherwise they become ‘social loafers’ waiting for others to do things,” said Charlesworth.

The Aussie veteran hasn’t merely expounded this theory in hockey alone. Having served as the high performance manager of New Zealand Cricket until 2007, Charlesworth tried to introduce the concept among the Stephen Fleming-led Kiwis but “for various reasons it did not go forward.”

Delegating responsibility leads to efficiency. Ric Charlesworth’s concept, which engages all the athletes in the process, was embraced by his country’s sportdom because it was pragmatic and created players who were responsible for their own actions and proactive. It also thrived on the doubt that sometimes one leader may not generate followers.

These factors apply to India very well. The bitter rivalry among skippers in the national hockey team, from the 1968 Olympics when India had two captains, to the 2010 incident when Rajpal Singh and Prabhjot Singh were locked in a power struggle, makes the leadership group concept an ideal alternative.

With these leaders turning into effective conduit between the coach and players, team spirit will follow naturally.