Eddie Jones, the coach of England’s rugby side, cited England’s lack of leaders as one of the biggest stumbling blocks to winning the 2019 Rugby World Cup. His captain was injured before the 2017 Six Nations campaign and he noted, when asked, that his options were not many but indicated that that actually was a great key for going forward for he saw it as an opportunity to “increase the leadership density of the team”. “It’s about developing players’ leadership skills. Being a leader means every day you rock up to training, rock up to a meeting, and you get on with the job. You do it to absolutely 100%. And if the guy next to you is not doing it properly, you tell him he’s not doing it properly. And you tell him how to do it. When we’ve got 10 players like that, then we’ll be in a position to win the World Cup. We’re not there at the moment, but we’ll get there.”
Developing every player’s leadership skills is in fact simply developing each player’s ability to take responsibility for what happens on the field. It is precisely what has been identified as one of the keys to the success of the New Zealand All Blacks rugby side. As Jim Kerr points out in his book ‘Legacy’, “A winning organization is an environment of personal and professional development, in which each individual takes responsibility and shares ownership.” Shared responsibility means shared ownership. It is a matter of collective responsibility, whereby everyone is responsible for the team’s performance, not simply the coach or the captain. Look at soccer teams, in particular, where players, when the team concedes a goal, all point at each other, the linesman or the referee, rather than accept responsibility for themselves and their team. As Brit Hume says: “Winners take responsibility. Losers blame others.” All the players are responsible for scoring and all are responsible for defending.
So, the coach’s responsibility is actually to develop and enable the players to be able to make decisions that are intuitive, instantaneous and intentional. Players must be able to make the decisions on the field of play. The coach is irresponsible if he does not pass on this responsibility to his players.
It is interesting that in our school system the position of a Prefect carries great responsibility yet we do not give such responsibility to Captains of our sports teams. The Prefect is responsible for a huge amount of the discipline in the school yet when it comes to matches our Captains have little say in what is happening. The Prefect system is not a perfect system though; instead of giving leadership opportunities to a small number of people we should give responsibility to all pupils and players. Every pupil and every player must take responsibility for what they do, as an individual and within the team, and every pupil and every player must take responsibility for their team-mates. It must not be left to the Prefect or the Captain to say if a player is not pulling their weight or is not operating within the game plan of the school or team; it is up to each member of the group to own the team’s ethic, goal and plan and to ensure all others are sticking to it as well.
We may not literally be our brother’s keeper but we are our keeper’s brother – and our striker’s and our defender’s! Each player must learn to take responsibility for each other. That is one of the greatest lessons that playing team sport gives to our children so coaches must ensure they teach it. In our school sport, we must focus far more on giving responsibility to all players rather than giving leadership to one or a few. Having a great player as captain is not the key; having a great leader as captain is not the key. We must devolve responsibility to all players.
Coaches must learn to give responsibility to the players, if the players are to learn; players must learn to take responsibility, if the coaches are to learn. After all, as Wendell Phillips puts it very simply, “Responsibility educates.” And that is why our pupils play sport – to be educated. Lisa Villa Prosen also puts it very concisely and clearly: “Out of responsibility comes possibility.” Parents and coaches must understand that in particular. Wise leaders do so. “Enlightened leaders deliberately hand over responsibility to create engaged team players,” says Jim Kerr. If it works for the All Blacks, it will work for our school teams and we would be foolish to ignore it. It is all down there in black (All Blacks) and white (England).
