I met World Cup-winning Indian cricketer Krishnamachari Srikkanth over the weekend…
For those of us who watched Indian cricket in the 1980s, Cheeka was impossible to miss. He opened the batting in an era when opening batsmen were generally expected to settle in, see off the new ball and build an innings. Srikkanth had a very different idea… he went after the bowlers.
He attacked from the start. Pulled. Hooked. Drove. Took on some of the fastest bowlers in the world. It wasn’t always pretty… and it wasn’t always safe… but it was unmistakably Srikkanth.
And he did it at a time when that approach wasn’t the norm. He was an outlier!
There’s something about outliers that I find fascinating. They don’t necessarily set out to be different. They just see the game differently… and have the courage to play it their way.
Srikkanth’s approach had its risks. He got out early plenty of times. But the people who backed him saw something in that unusual style and gave him the space to play his natural game.
That’s got a lot to do with leadership too.
Most organisations have an idea of what a “good leader” looks like… how they should communicate, how they should behave, how they should make decisions.
But some of the people who make the biggest difference don’t fit that picture.
They may be unconventional. They may ask questions nobody else is asking. They may challenge practices everyone has accepted for years. And they may occasionally get it wrong.
That’s part of being an outlier.
What matters is knowing when to trust your own way of doing things… and when to step back and listen. You bring your own strengths and perspective to the table, while still having enough self-awareness to know when to adapt and change.
Srikkanth didn’t become memorable by trying to bat like everyone else.
He became Srikkanth by being Srikkanth.
And that’s the lesson I take away from this meeting… sometimes, it’s the individuality that we bring to our leadership that makes the difference.
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