Sir Steve Hansen, former All Blacks coach, explains how he built a winning culture in the team. He shares his approach to leadership and team management, drawing on his years coaching one of rugby's most successful programs.
What was personal development, professional development like for you? Well, lucky enough for me. I've always been reasonable, simple sort of bloke. And I find that the simpler you can give the message, the easier it is for people to hear it. And I think, you know, it's the things they want to know is, do you care about them, do you value them, can you help them and can they trust you? So if they know all those things that you'll do that, then they'll take the times when you have to be a disciplinarian. And sometimes we have to, because it's no different than our children. There's no consequences for bad behavior, then the bad behavior is just going to continue.
And so, you know, as I said, we don't have rules, but we have expectations. So when those expectations are broken, then there's a consequence. However, if, for example, you've got an athlete, and we had one through my time, he was hard work, but we loved him and he knew that we had his back and he allowed us to help him to change and become a better person. We had a theory, if you change the man or change the man, so if you can't change him, out you go. But he changed and we were prepared to give him the time to change. So I think that's something else too. That's your job as the leader, is to say, righto, have we given this person the best opportunity to be better or are we just saying, no, you're gone? And I guess sometimes there's the. There's times when, yeah, you're gone, but your job is to actually make them better. That's why you've been given the opportunity to lead, if that makes sense. Yeah, 100%. And the vulnerability, I think that's how you get the trust. I didn't ever feel. I probably did when I first started coaching. I felt I had to know everything.
But I didn't. I still don't. But what's better is if you get asked the question, how do I do this? Well, actually, I don't know, but I'll find someone that does and we'll get that sorted. Give me some time. And then it's okay for them to come back sometimes and say, well, yeah, I don't know. We'd often have, excuse me, discussions around role. Like the key thing for us to be able to perform well is everybody knew their role and did their role. So it's quite simple. However, sometimes guys didn't understand their role because we hadn't taught them well enough or they hadn't been brave enough to say, I don't understand. So if you've got people in your organisation who aren't brave enough to say, look, I don't understand what you're asking me, they just go, oh, yeah, yeah, right. Oh, and then they go away and they perform the task terribly. It's because there's a breakdown between you and them and the trust.
Now, if you get to the point where you spend quite a lot of time teaching that human being how to do the job and they still can't do it, well, it comes back to what I just said before. If you can't change the man, you change the man. He just may not be the right person for the job, but first and foremost, have a look at, okay, why isn't he or she feeling brave enough to say to me, I don't understand.
And when you get that relationship, then you hum it. Because no one's going to go out and make a mistake because they don't know their role.
Steve, who would you say sets the tone for the culture of the team or organization? Oh, the head man does the top down. Top down. And like your culture, everyone talks about culture and there's really, it's not that difficult culture. It's either good or it's bad.
So true. It's as simple as that. And when it's good, it's being lived from the top down. When it's bad, the top think the bottom should do it, but they don't care about it. So don't think that you're the boss and people don't see what you're doing. And one of my worst traits is I'm hopeless with timekeeping, absolutely hopeless. So I could arrive sometimes late, and I knew I'd been late to a couple of meetings and no one had said anything. And, you know, I'd come in and say, oh, sorry, you know, and it means nothing, you know, because you were late. And so I got Kevin Miyalamu, who was probably the most respected guy on our team, and I said, kevi.
Next meeting. Well, today's meeting, I'm going to come in a bit late and I want you to give me an absolute bollocking.
And he goes, oh, Steve, I don't think I can do that. And I said, yes, you can. You'll be right.
Anyway. So I come in, I'm about two minutes late. And he didn't hesitate.
But it was brilliant. Like, everybody in the room's asked me from the back of the chair to the front of their chair. And everyone's on real alert. Jesus, the boss is getting up. And then my reaction to getting it was, well, you're right, Kevic. I've got to sort my shit out. And as a result. Okay, well, we didn't have too many people late from then on, and I certainly wasn't.
