What is leadership?
For me, leadership is basically understanding and seeing what needs to be done, what needs to be fixed, or what path you need to take, and actually doing it yourself whilst guiding and elevating others to do the same. That can apply to everything in life: to business; to sport; family. Identifying the situation and then actually having the skills to fix the problem or get done what needs to be done.
I like to think that I lead by example. Clearly within sport you need to be a consistent performer on the field. That's the leading-by-example part of it. Just as important is the way you apply yourself to your training and the way you prepare, which gives you the greatest opportunity to perform on game day.
A key to leadership is always striving for improvement in yourself whilst aiding those around you to develop themselves. I consider myself a really assertive person so I find I'm good at challenging my teammates, I'm good at challenging theories and practices, really trying to push people to perform at their peak. That would be my strongest suit as a leader.
I feel like from a young age leadership has always come naturally to me, and people know that I was Robina State Primary School vice-captain and UNICEF representative. (At least those people closest to me or those who've read my Wikipedia page.) But leadership isn't easy and I've definitely needed to refine my qualities along the way, especially since I was appointed St Kilda captain at age 22, by Grant Thomas in 2005.
There are still aspects going into my 11th season as captain that I need to improve. I'm well aware of those, and it's a constant evolution as you get older and more mature and your own personal situation changes. You become shaped differently and you adapt and you improve as a leader.
I still need to work on the patience side of things and display more empathy. At times I can be a little too rigid. If certain standards aren't being met I need to be better at understanding why, by asking myself the question "is it due to a lack of care or understanding?". Clearly one is more preferable and easier to address as a leader. My firmness has allowed me to be a strong leader but I understand that at times I can go too far and that is an aspect of my leadership that I am aiming to improve.
If that's my weakness, I think my strengths lie with the understanding that leadership is situational. My situation has changed as far as the team dynamics, where we sit within the AFL, and the path and the journey that we're on. But also I've changed. I've matured, my own personal situation has changed. You just evolve. Early in my career I found it very difficult to switch off and relax. Through the 2009-10 period where we were really challenging for the flag, it was a different sort of leadership. We had a really strong group of core players who all drove each other strongly, and we were incredibly demanding of each other. That's what worked at that point in time and it drove us to great heights; we won a minor premiership, reached back-to-back grand finals, and went agonisingly of winning back-to-back flags.
There was a real adjustment period after Ross Lyon left the club in 2011. There were a number of reasons for this. We had a new coach and a number of senior players either retired or moved to other clubs, which meant that our form wasn't as strong and we went down a clear path of rebuilding. On one hand you can see the vision and the build and the excitement around the future, but the present was not what you'd come to expect and grown used to so that had its challenges. And for me, there was definitely an adjustment period as a leader within that.
You have to temper your style and your expectations; I don't think you ever stray from the need to hold the group accountable and hold them to a really high standard but definite periods of frustration accompany any sort of adjustment.
Now, it's more a teaching environment. I think l I've learned to adjust my style, to soften at the right time, and teach at the right times, rather than just be demanding and driving standards higher all the time.
Saints coach Alan Richardson has suggested this might be my last year as captain, but that's been the situation the past two or three years. Whilst I'm captain I have a great opportunity to keep fostering someone from this group to really put their hand up and separate themselves from the pack and assume the role of captaincy and lead the Saints into the future.
There's a certain part of the process where someone needs to elevate themselves, and that's what we look for. You do the best you can to support everyone and give everyone the best chance to be as good a leader as they can possibly be, and from there you just hope and expect that someone elevates themselves.
The process in appointing the captain at St Kilda is really transparent and I would expect this is the same across all the AFL teams. My appointment as captain for the 11th year began with a pretty informal discussion with Richo. We spoke about where I sat emotionally. Where my hunger for the role was and where my hunger for the game is, particularly coming off a really difficult year personally last year with the death of my sister, Maddie, aged just 26.
I spoke about the fact that I think what I've experienced recently might help in some of those areas I've needed to improve in as a leader, the fact that I needed to work on my empathy and patience. I don't necessarily think my recent experiences and would detract from my ability to lead in any way.
Richo's philosophy on leadership is that he wants the best leaders to be leading. At St Kilda given our age demographic, there's a real need for us to promote leadership from within. We've got a really young group so the process of growing the next wave of leaders for our footy club needs to happen now. At the same time we need really strong leadership at the top.
We have a player vote based on our trademark behaviours and what being a St Kilda player is all about; based on those behaviours and how the players live the trademark the players vote on who they think should be in the leadership group. From there the captain was chosen by the leadership group. And so it was decided that I'd retain the role.
An effective leadership group is important to the success of the team and club. The landscape over the years has changed, and the responsibilities of the leadership group have increased. Where in the past players used to train and play, the leadership group is now across everything: on-field, off-field, selling the club, interacting with the community, driving standards at training ... and that job is too big for one man.
The leadership group is chosen by the players. The guys who are the incumbents clearly have the best chance because they've been in a position to exude leadership and show leadership. This year, we added an extra player to our leadership group.
"Does Jack Steven have the potential to be Saints' captain in the future? Given his level of influence on the group, absolutely."Nick Riewoldt
Jack Steven is that addition. Jack is a young guy who's really influential among our group; and given the need to promote leadership we thought it was really important to get him in the group. He's one of our best players, he's a significant character in the playing group, and he has a desire and a want to really improve his leadership qualities.
Does Jack have the potential to be Saints' captain in the future? Given his level of influence on the group, absolutely. He's a quiet guy, he's a little bit more reserved, and those are the challenges that he'll face as a young player, to be able to challenge within the group, to be able to hold others to the same standards that he's set, but it's great that he has the appetite. For the leadership group to be successful, it's important to have a mix of personalities. There are different strengths and weaknesses within the group; there's a different demographic within the playing group as far age goes, background, how players relate to other players, so it's important to have a really good cross-section.
You've got 45 players, it's too hard for one or two guys to be across the whole group and the various issues. I'm 33 and our youngest players are 18; I'm closer in age to their parents than I am to them so it's really important to have a good cross-section.
I take a lot of inspiration from other players in the league and from other sports as well: one in particular is star NFL quarterback Tom Brady. He is captain of his team, and he's still driving standards and performance at the age of 38.
At 33, in an up-and-coming group, I am driven with a real desire to play and to lead as long as possible, to be part of this group's success and to aid the transition and groom them for the next phase.
Am I a good leader? That's probably for others to judge, and certainly it's very tough to mark yourself or give yourself a rating out of 10. But I've always been very proud of my ability to perform consistently, and I think that sets the best example you can possibly set.
From there, I suppose the reflection on you as a leader is often the people around you. I'm really proud of what we've been able to achieve as a group when we've been contending right at the pointy end of the competition.
Equally I've been really proud of the improvement that a lot of our younger guys have shown and the people they're becoming while we've spent time rebuilding. To put a figure on that is really difficult. It just boils down to your sense of pride, and pride in what you and your team members are able to achieve when you invest so much towards a common goal.