O captain my captain!

"Our culture has been one where we have very, very talented people who have to subordinate a certain amount of their ego to become part of a team… People can be perfectly successful, but if they can’t do that, they won’t necessarily be successful at Goldman Sachs”
Lloyd Craig Blankfein, Chairman & CEO, Goldman Sachs, in Business Today dated December 2, 2007.

Thumbs up Adam Gilchrist, 37, Deccan Chargers M.S.Dhoni, 27, Chennai SuperKings Anil Kumble, 38, Royal Challengers Thumbs down Brendon McCullum, 27, Knight Riders Yuvraj Singh, 27, Kings XI Punjab

Wall Street banks and cricketing elevens are as likely to be spoken of in the same breath as Glass-Steagall and Duckworth & Lewis. But at the end of the day, it’s still about teams—and leading them. Or, as the eight teams in the Indian Premier League (IPL), 2009, demonstrated over 37 days of frenzied cricket, it’s about teams stacked with stars—and the enviable task of leading each of these motley crews, most boasting of at least a couple of superstars and former captains. The IPL was doubtless good entertainment, but it also threw up its fair share of lessons in leadership.

Lesson 1: All superstars don’t make good captains. Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh will agree. You may argue that three hours of adrenaline-charged play offers little room for planning, but dictating strategy in the midst of such furious action is precisely the challenge. Tendulkar failed, particularly when a reshuffle in the batting order in one game backfired badly. Singh couldn’t—to paraphrase Blankfein— subordinate much of his own ego to string together a well-knit team.

Lesson 2: Experience matters. They may not be poster-boys in pajamas any more, but the acumen built over the years stood them in good stead. Bangalore Royal Challengers’ fortunes turned around almost miraculously when its $1.55-million captain Kevin Pietersen returned home to don national colours, paving the way for Anil Kumble to take over. Another retired cricketer Adam Gilchrist did things the old-fashioned way for the Deccan Chargers by letting his bat do most of the talking.

Lesson 3: Promoters and captains need to be in sync. It’s a bit like the relationship between a company promoter and his CEO—the former needs to have faith in the latter’s abilities, and the latter needs to trust the former’s motives. Okay, cricket teams also have a coach—like a hands-off CEO—to complicate matters, but when an involved promoter leaves it to the hands-off CEO to decide who will be the hands-on CEO, it can hurt the team. Look no further than the Knight Riders.

Lesson 4: Communication is key. We’re back to our favourite man here (so what if he didn’t make it to the semis). When Rajasthan Royals captain Shane Warne was goading a raw pace bowler from Azamgarh to bowl what eventually proved a match-winning final over, even the most skilled lip readers in the world would have been hardpressed to figure out what he was saying. But Kamran Khan understood. A lot has been made about the problems in communication between foreigners and local guys—particularly those from “rural” areas. But on the field it’s more about body language, less about talk.

—Brian Carvalho