Real Leader - Mahendra Singh Dhoni

MS Dhoni, Captain of the Indian Cricket team, has always been considered a good leader. Now that India has won the Cricket World Cup, he is being hailed as an all-time great leader and probably one of the best captains the game has ever seen worldwide. I believe that this victory is a manifestation of Dhoni's great leadership over the last several years. As many have indicated, this victory is the culmination of a number of years of great work in the back-end and building a team that is capable & confident and one, that can deliver the goods when it matters in crucial matches. India has always had a talented bunch of players, but invariably they have floundered as a team. Under Dhoni's leadership, they have won the World T20 Cup, are the No. 1 Test team in the world and now have won the ODI World Cup. No one will refute the fact that all this achievement has something more to do than just luck. I believe Dhoni's leadership has played a critical role in all this.

What are some of the key qualities he has consistently displayed over the last several years:

1) Humility - He is willing to accept this mistakes. Even in the recent post match interview of the semi-finals against Pakistan, he was quick to admit that he misread the pitch and played 3 seamers, instead of playing an extra spinner (Ashwin).

2) Staying Grounded and in touch with his Roots - I read an article in the Times of India, where there is a nice story about Dhoni desperately looking for a job when he was 20, and eventually getting a job in the Indian Railways in Kharagpur in the Sports quota. He made a few friends there and even now they claim that Dhoni always responds to their text messages and calls them. Apparently, whenever he visits Kharagpur, they get together and have a party in one of the empty rail coaches stationed at Kharagpur, like the old times.

3) Willingness to Trust his People - He seems to have this ability to identify players who in his assessment could be match winners and stay with them through difficult times. A classic example is Yuvraj Singh. When everyone (selectors, media, cricket experts) were pushing to remove Yuvraj Singh from the team due to lack of performance, Dhoni stuck his neck out and supported Yuvraj. For the trust Dhoni showed in him, Yuvraj returned several match winning performances during the world cup. This is also the reason India was able to pull off a victory yesterday against Sri Lanka, after the superstars (Sachin and Sehwag) failed to score - the youngsters (Gambhir & Virat) are the ones who did it for India in the finals.

4) Composure under Pressure - Nicknamed "Captain Cool", Dhoni has always carried himself in a very calm and composed manner on the field, even under high pressure situations in matches. His coolness shows his confidence in the team and their abilities and in several occasions, someone in the team has done something outstanding to turn the match around for India. e.g. Zaheer Khan taking Michael Hussey and Cameron White's wicket in the quarterfinals of the world cup.

5) Willingness to do what the team needs him to do - Dhoni has an outstanding record as a No.3 batsman, yet he has been playing at No. 6 and No. 7 in the last few years because he wanted to take the pressure on himself. In the World cup finals, Dhoni came in at No. 5, ahead of Yuvraj Singh who has been in great form, primarily to maintain a left-right combination at the crease and delivered a match winning performance with his bat, when Indian needed it.

It is obviously easy to do this analysis post mortem (after India won the world cup) - what if India had lost the match yesterday (Malinga taking a wicket or two in the middle overs would have rattled India)? Even then, I would argue that Dhoni has been a great leader. While a leader cannot always control the results, I believe that a great leader's true role is to create consistent and repeated opportunities for his team to win and invariably, just by the law of averages, they will end up winning a few. Dhoni has been able to do that for Team India.