Your LinkedIn post is ready: 9 leadership skills Modi can learn from Dhoni
Joining the dots between India’s political captain and cricket’s prime skipper
***
LinkedIn is that paradisiacal place on your phone where a B-school dropout from Rohtak dishes out bulltish as wisdom with the same verve as an MBA from Wharton, and it’s difficult to know the difference.
Ditto and likewise, they might say of folks on Substack or Twitter. Fair enough.
Still.
Even the most mundane occurrence on the third dot from the sun, like say Meenakshi Lekhi’s dash from the cameras☝🏿, can result in a hot take on LinkedIn titled, “Why Amar Colony’s chole bhature can never top South Ex (Part-II).”
If that can fetch likes, thumbs-ups and reposts from TDCs (Typical Delhi Cutie-pies), what’s the likelihood that some LinkedIn lowdu (LiL) will let pass the chance to compare the kaptaani of two very visible captains to impress future bosses?
Zero, zilch, nada. Shoonya.
You might ask: why, bro, what’s the point?
You might point out that cricket and politics are not the same. Duh.
You might say being captain of a franchise and a desh are two different things.
Well, yes, of course, but when the cough did such things stop a LinkedIn lowdu?
So.
Like, sure, there are some obvious parallels between field marshal Mahendra Singh Dhoni and pradhan sevak Narendra Damoderdas Modi.
➡️ One started as a train ticket collector; the other says he sold chai at a still-to-be-opened train station at an unadjusted-for-inflation price of Rs 5.
➡️ Both hit some big ones, or as Google Translate puts it in Hindi with poetic precision: बड़ी दूर फेंकते हैं. (Bhojpuri’s even better: बहुते दूरी फेंकत बाड़े.)
➡️ And, both are employees of giant corporations. Dhoni is on the payroll of India Cements. While Modi, of course, is, never mind.
The week gone past, the 23rd of 2023, which saw MSD lead CSK to its fifth IPL title triumph, and NDM complete nine years at PMO, provides a chance to offer some cheap gyaan on what ‘Kaka’, 73, can pick up from ‘Thala’, 42.
✂️
For starters, look at this picture in Ahmedabad Mirror a bit more closely☝🏿.
Notice the Lt Colonel, who has led a Territorial Army called Chennai Super Kings to a creditable win, stepping aside and letting his teammates bask in the glory of the moment.
Think that photo is morphed?
Look at a front-on frame in the cricket magazine Cricket Today and spot the winning captain (second from left)👇🏿.
And wonder again.
When last did you see the other captain doing that with his team?
Or, when first?
OK, maybe, just that once—at the opening of the India-Australia Test match in March, at the modestly named Narendra Modi stadium. Blink and you will miss him at extreme right (naturally).☝🏿
Fun question: How many members does Narendra Modi have in his “team”?
Wrong answers only.
✂️
Then there is this week’s milestone itself.
The non-playing captain has to constantly issue expensive advertisements using tax-payers’ money to remind tax payers (and himself) what a fab job he—and he alone—has done in these 9 years👇🏿.
Not the first ad in nine years, mind you. Nor the last. Not just in newspapers. Not just in one language.
Quite in contrast, Dhoni doesn’t have to advertise his feats. It’s there for all to see. He doesn’t have to crow about them. Everyone can feel; many can understand; a few can even remember.
And when Dhoni does have to make a noise, it is not about what he has achieved; it’s usually somebody else trying to shine in his reflected glory👇🏿.
Not quite the same thing as that Paytm ad the morning after the stupidest decision in India’s economic history. Or that Mukesh Ambani ad launching Reliance Jio.
Fun fact: RTI activist Anil Galgali found that the BJP government had spent Rs 4,300 crore on publicity from 2014-18.
It is now five years since, 2023.
Do the math—and add 2AB.
✂️
The sportswriter Simon Barnes says the key difference between sport and any other human activity is that sportspersons perform their miracles stark naked.
In every other sphere of life—politics, business, cinema, journalism—we lie, we hide, we pretend, we put a spin, we put on a mask—we are what we are not.
“Politicians cover up; athletes expose themselves,” writes Barnes.
That’s useful to understand Dhoni’s demeanour, both as batter and leader.
When he strides out to bat, he is all alone. When the helicopter lands in the stands, it is all realtime. When he makes a bowling change or a field placement, it is all live, between his ears, in your face.
There are no rehearsals, no camera angles to be adjusted so that the captain can look good, no teleprompters.
What you see is what you get.
In 50 of the 535 games in which Dhoni was unbeaten, India lost just three: 47/50.
Match that.
On the other hand, after 9 years, down in democracy. Down in freedoms. Down in growth. Down in human development. Down in rule of law.
Up in poverty. Up in hunger. Up, unquestionably, in bullshit.
That’s a “finisher”.
✂️
And of the two, who’s the real Vishwaguru, really?
Somebody who declares himself a Vishwaguru; struts around like a Vishwaguru; employs an army of coolies to remind the world he is Vishwaguru; has chamchas and cheerleaders banging their thalis and writing cringe-worthy op-eds that he is Vishwaguru👇🏿?
Or, is it somebody who has actually—quietly—conquered the tiny “vishwa” he inhabits?
Under Dhoni’s leadership, “Team India” has actually been a world-beater in all three formats: T20 champion on his captaincy debut, World Cup champion in 50-over one-day internationals, and the top Test team for 18 months in a row.
Yes, the cricket “world” is just about a dozen countries but Dhoni isn’t responsible for that.
On the other hand, has anybody in the world acknowledged India as a Vishwaguru but krafty Indians☝🏿?
In what specific area, aside from bragging, has India topped the world lately?
✂️
But the key differentiator between their leadership skills has to be their attitude to their peers and rivals.
Unlike the non-playing captain, who carts away elders and potential claimants, to the Gulag Archipelago called margdarshak mandal, Dhoni is perfectly happy to have “seniors” in his side.
There must have been frictions aplenty, but images of Dhoni happily playing alongside Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid are as fresh as Dhoni with Virat Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin.
And he is happy to hand-hold the young.👇🏿
And, as opposed to the xenophobia that marks India’s political leadership—think China, think Amnesty, think BBC—Dhoni is OK with a Shane Watson, Dwayne Bravo, Sam Curran or a Mooen Ali.
Yes, that’s how IPL is structured, with space for foreigners, but who can argue that Chennai Super Kings has suffered with the international exposure?
Dhoni doesn’t stuff his team only with smaller yes-men who will do what he says, or who will only sing in his praise. And he sticks by them, come hell or high water.
When Virat Kohli was down in the dumps, the only cricketer who called him, he says, was ‘Mahi’.
When Ambati Rayudu was stopped from bringing home-made biryani into the team’s hotel in Hyderabad, Dhoni shifted the team to another hotel.
On the other hand, has anybody even seen Modi have a meal with his colleagues and compatriots, like say Jawaharlal Nehru👇🏿?
✂️
And finally, Dhoni groomed a more skillful, a more talented Virat Kohli as his successor and left “India” in stronger hands. Can anybody ever accuse Narendra Modi of that?
Screenshots: courtesy Cricket Today, The Indian Express, The Times of India, The Tribune, Financial Express, Orissa Post, Gulf News