Faf: Through Fire

by Faf Du Plessis

We were committed to being accountable for our actions, rather than finding excuses. We all make mistakes, and they cannot be undone. However, they can be learnt from: ownership meant reflecting on our mistakes and growing from them, and trying not to repeat them.

We all make mistakes, and they cannot be undone. However, they can be learnt from: ownership meant reflecting on our mistakes and growing from them, and trying not to repeat them.

Respect referred to the ways in which we treated each other. We agreed to be respectful of and speak respectfully to one another, with mutual respect also reinforcin...

When challenging players, I believed that, for the challenge to be effective, it must be rooted in a real relationship. This supposes a true sense of care for the player and seeing more potential in them than they might see in themselves.

As a leader, you cannot challenge someone if you’re not willing to go on that journey with them.

If someone doesn’t grow after they’ve been challenged, the challenge was of little value, if not counterproductive and destructive.

Whether you are challenging someone or being challenged, the how in the way the message is delivered is just as important as the what.

On that day, I learnt that words can unintentionally hurt people. I never lied to the media but, I had to realise that public platforms are not the place to be brutally honest about internal team matters.

I left England thinking that captaincy and parenthood were perhaps similar in some respects. However sincere our attempts to master them might be, there are certain skills that we only acquire by learning through failure.

As I became more attuned to players’ personal preferences and personalities, it made the captaincy feel less of a heavy burden and more of a responsibility, which I loved.

We concluded that growth comes through awareness, and awareness comes from listening; as a team, we would grow by individually looking at the world through other eyes than our own.

The defining feature of a healthy team culture is its ability to make people feel at home.

Then Owen told me that, in his experience, such a confrontational approach, however sincere, is not something people from collectivist cultures would adopt or value in the same way I did. He explained that collectivist cultures, such as indigenous African and Asian cultures, are very different from individualistic societies: ‘Collectivist cultures think about the group first, and they don’t like causing strife or tension. They are looking for harmony in the group. More individualistic people – such as many white people – were brought up in a different way, and they typically feel that they should be allowed to tell anyone when they’re not happy about something.

Constructive feedback will help you grow as a leader, but only if you have a teachable spirit. The more I grew into the role of captain, the more I realised that I needed feedback from players. I knew I didn’t have all the answers and that I was making mistakes as leader of the team.

I have tremendous sympathy for what he went through. This is what happens in a team when the culture of belonging is restricted to performance and when young players are made to believe that they need to prove themselves at any cost before they can feel accepted.

I chose how I would speak to myself: positive and optimistic, or negative and pessimistic. When I get out for a duck, I could sulk, or I could try again. I became aware of the two opposing voices in my head, which helped me deal with my anxiety.

But doing only what is required does not sit well with me. It’s in my nature to challenge the status quo and to go beyond the official call of duty. My approach to leadership is to improve whatever factors might impede or enable world-class performances, whether they are directly related to the team or not. I love involving myself in those details that could mean the difference between being average, good or consistently great. If something can be improved, I believe it should be improved.

Walking that extra mile beyond the pay cheque ultimately filters down to a team’s ability to deliver consistently high performances.

As a junior or academy player, remuneration is not one of your primary considerations. You want playing opportunities. But, as your career progresses and you have a growing family to care for, your bank balance does become a factor.

When team players buy into a collective goal and strategy, the captain’s job is made easy: you need only provide the players with clarity, and they will get the job done.

Guiding players rather than telling them what to do enhances the learning and growing experience.

In the lead-up to the 2019 World Cup, which I’ll discuss in the following chapters, it also became clear to me that, while young players want guidance, everyone, including senior players, needs clarity.

Supporting players in the pursuit of their ultimate gift is probably the one aspect of leadership that gives me the most fulfilment.

That’s just the way he is wired, and I’ll say this again: soft skills in leadership support hard skills. It’s not the other way around. Leading people is not just about spotting and recruiting talent. It’s about identifying an individual’s potential and supporting them on their journey towards greatness.

While I believe leadership requires that you lead from the heart, your decisions should still be informed by what is best for the team.

There is a sense of calmness about him, a quality I appreciate and enjoy in a coach. He would never cause unnecessary pressure to be piled on the team.

Communication was the key to getting everyone’s buy-in, and we were intentional about not letting an opportunity slide to discuss it.

The premise was that a large part of growing happens through failing. Feeling uncomfortable also meant that we were in fact operating outside of our comfort zone. Learning to interpret failure and discomfort as growth was part of the learning process. Our language didn’t revolve around failing, however, but rather around what we were working towards during the adjustment period … focusing on progress.

I could live with whatever the consequences were for me, knowing I had spoken up.

Yet, even if a deep relationship was never possible, there are three words one should never forget or underestimate: Everybody needs love. I didn’t get that from either Mark or Graeme. All I wanted was for them to have my back when I needed it most. That small gesture. That’s all.

Leadership is influence. The title of captain comes with many responsibilities and, by executing those responsibilities well, you exert influence on many spheres of team life. The title itself bestows influence on you the moment you assume the position, even before you’ve had the first opportunity to lead. That influence comes with the expectation that you will lead with conviction and confidence, knowing how to conduct yourself in this role without a day’s experience.

When I led the side, I never had to distinguish between who I am as a person and who I am as a leader. To me, they were the same thing.

So, even when I wasn’t captain any more, I still felt comfortable leading, knowing that players appreciated me for who I am, and that my effectiveness as a leader, with or without a title, flowed from who I am and not what I am.

Shane made the point that, when you’re batting, you can only focus on one thing at a time and, unless you’re intentional about directing your thinking, your brain will take over the initiative on your behalf, often favouring your negative voice: I’m going to nick off, I’m batting poorly, or I’m going to lose my wicket to the very next delivery. To prevent my mind from wandering in those situations, Shane suggested that I select a specific behaviour or sequence of actions to put all my focus into.

During lockdown, I also made the choice to prioritise optimism over pessimism and, during this time, Gerrie Swart gave me a powerful book called Relentless Optimism by Darrin Donnelly.

Choosing optimism over pessimism doesn’t mean you’re denying the existence of those negative factors. You are merely choosing to view, experience and live your life from a more constructive place, which helps override the very real negative settings.

Whenever I had to deal with anxiety – about the future, cricket, my career, a relationship and whatever else – I would remind myself to choose faith over fear. Fear infiltrated my thinking through my negative voice, and faith was what I believed I was destined for: that the best was yet to come and that God had a purpose for my life.

What started as a search for answers to my own questions, worries and anxieties culminated in me gaining a perspective that released me from myself. There was more to life than cricket. There was more to cricket than me.

From the way this conversation was unfolding, Mark deduced that there were too many chefs in the kitchen, rather than tactical conversations being had, which had led to confusion. I thought, fair enough, but the trick to leadership is not to suppress the sharing of ideas, but to weigh each idea on its merits before deciding on and communicating one clear instruction. Having ideas at one’s disposal is not the issue. It’s easy to fall victim to one’s own ideas and perceptions, and I had always valued having access to different people, opinions and perspectives to help me shape my own thinking.

I said to myself, ‘I know who I am when I’m at my best and most productive as a team player. That best version of me comes to the fore when I’m serving others, regardless of what other people might think of me for doing so.’ I recommitted myself to the challenge of transferring my knowledge and experience to a new generation of Proteas, and I was going to invest that time and energy in people who were open to learning.

An environment that prioritises soft skills makes players feel supported and loved, and that brings out the best in them.

From my discussions with Siya, it is evident that the senior leadership team of the Springboks have likewise recognised the importance of soft skills in recent years. It is no coincidence that this commitment has created a strong culture and winning environment.

I was reminded of Gary’s questions early on in my career when he asked the players in the team to figure out what kind of people we each were and not just what we had to offer as cricketers. This ties in with the idea of ubuntu: the measure of our lives is the impact we have on each other and others.

Gary Kirsten personified the transformative powers inherent in leading with strong people skills. From Stephen Fleming I picked up cues on man management. Graeme Smith showed me how to speak with authority. MS Dhoni demonstrated the value of trusting one’s instincts. AB de Villiers lifted his teammates by leading by example. Russell Domingo taught me that everybody needs love. Ottis Gibson introduced calmness to my own armoury. And Mark Boucher was set on getting one’s preparation and attention to detail right.

In leadership, there should be no greater calling than to make people feel valued and part of a collective cause and purpose. That’s how growth and performance are incubated. In cricket, I have experienced no evidence to the contrary.

Human software is so much more delicate and resilient, reluctant and responsive, free-willed, yet repressible. Breakable. Therein lies the romance and heartbreak of every human story. From this core, we breathe, we dream, we cry, we embrace, we bleed, we feel. We love. Everybody needs love.

You crave what others have and you can’t get. You’re trapped and feel as if you’re wasting your life doing nothing but wishing you were somewhere else.