Always look into the sun

For legendary All Black Sam Whitelock, leadership comes down to the details.

One of those details is that the coach or captain should always be facing into the sun.

“On a beautiful day like this in Christchurch, if I’m a player and I’m worried about the sun in my eyes, I'm probably not gonna pay as much attention to what the coach is saying. If I’m not looking into the sun, I can pay 100% attention to that coach and that one little bit of that message might be the difference between winning and losing the game."

“Sometimes it’s the score board too. So if the score board's over here behind us, and I'm a captain here talking, a lot of players will be watching the scoreboard or the big screen. So the easiest thing to do is just change where you are in the circle, so what's behind you isn’t something that's going to change people's attention.”

This scenario might not be relevant to every leadership context, but the underlying thinking absolutely is. What Sam is asking is, “What do my people need in order to be fully present and engaged?” And no detail is too small.

“The other thing that I like to do is change my eyeline height. So if we're here I want to get eyes and if I know the the players are not engaging as much as it should I'll just take a knee and straight away that changes the eye line so I can give that clear direct message.

“Maybe after a big moment, someone might have made a mistake and they're stuck in their own little personal loop. So in the circle I’ll ask them a question and use the name so it might be, ‘Scott, what do we need here?’ And hearing their name combined with a direct question makes sure that they're attention is where it needs to be.”

What do your people need in order to be fully present and engaged?