Michael Cheika’s leadership lessons from Stanford to help fix rugby’s image problem

MICHAEL Cheika hates the negativity swirling around rugby. But armed with lessons learned at a prestigious US leadership course, he aims to change perceptions come June.

MICHAEL Cheika was listening to the radio recently when a sports show turned to his game.

“The commentator guy, who I won’t name, said: ‘And in rugby … no one is interested but we’ll tell you what happened anyway’,” Cheika says. “I found that insulting.”

And fair enough, but perhaps a word of warning: now would not be a good time for the Wallabies coach to join Twitter. Or take a tour through the forums and comment sections.

It’s brutal out there for Australian rugby.

With win rates for the Aussie Super Rugby teams embarrassingly low and the ARU stumbling through the dark trying to cut a team, rugby fans are angrily brandishing pitchforks. Neutrals are doing ridicule, if they can be bothered.

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For six months Cheika has sat near the sidelines, waiting for his chance to get rugby fans smiling again.

Next week that will begin when Cheika names his squad for the June Test series, in which Australia host Fiji in Melbourne, Scotland in Sydney and Italy in Brisbane.

Winning all three and building momentum towards August’s Bledisloe Cup campaign will be the primary motivation but as far Cheika is concerned, June is also a chance to change the tune on rugby.

Or at least just get the insult-free news.

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“Listening to that on the radio I thought to myself: ‘You know what? Even if it is just that one guy, I want him to watch the games in June and change that (thinking)’,” Cheika said.

“I want him to think: ‘These guys are getting stuck in, they’re playing good footy and you can see how proud they are playing for Australia’.”

Cheika is not a blind optimist. He acknowledges rugby is struggling, and what’s more, senses people are now turning to him to steer Australian rugby back to smoother waters.

After a year like 2017 — so far — does Cheika feel responsibility lies with him to revive the game?

Michael Cheika is determined to fix rugby’s image.

“A little bit,” Cheika says.

“But I don’t feel it in a bad way, I actually like it. I sort of like it when the chips are down, you know? That’s how I feel I have always operated. I like the responsibility. That’s a challenge of leadership.”

Leadership is a topic Cheika has focused on considerably this year, and not just the Stephen Moore vs. Michael Hooper debate.

For the first time in his life Cheika this year went to university to study leadership, to help improve himself, his coaching and — therefore — the Wallabies.

In three-week stints in January and April, Cheika did an Executive Leadership Development Course at the prestigious Stanford Business School in the US.

This was no coach-overseas study tour, inspecting gyms and talking selection strategies.

Cheika found himself rubbing shoulders in Palo Alto with 39 CEOs, directors and other future titans of industry, learning how to lead and grow businesses on a global scale.

“They were all so diverse and yet leadership skills basically cut across all the industries. Because you are managing people at the end of the day,” Cheika said.

Incumbent captain Stephen Moore is set to retain the role. Picture: Mark Evans

“I have had a certain style that I suppose I will never give up, but I also want to be able to be adaptable to different situations. We are getting smashed by so much new stuff, analysis, data and all this stuff. Just to be able to pick what’s useful and what’s not. I don’t want to be clouded.

“I genuinely think there are too many (lessons) to pick one. Maybe just understanding people a little bit more. Some of the things about how we work intuitively … how you are instinctively going to act and how humans do that. Putting shape behind decisions.

“They’re things that were maybe going on in my head already but I had never done any tertiary education, so it was putting some structure to that. Already I have been able to use a lot of the stuff, back on the ground. That’s the key thing.”

It has to be asked: how on earth can Stanford classrooms translate to winning a Test on a wet night at Eden Park?

Cheika wants smiles on dials. Picture: Gregg Porteous

“If it makes me better, a better person and a better coach, smarter and more effective in getting the message across the players, then it can only help us,” Cheika said.

Learning from failure is a lesson all coaches know, and Cheika says he and Wallabies staff are better prepared for June and beyond than they were last year, when a 3-0 series loss to England was followed by two defeats to New Zealand.

“You have to take pain sometimes. But if you are not learning in that zone, you’ll never learn anywhere,” Cheika said.

This time last year, after the World Cup and before England’s tour, expectations were high for the Wallabies.

This year? Turn on the radio and wait for rugby news.

Cheika brushes a question of whether he prefers low expectations as a coach, and the opportunity to defy them?

“My expectations are always high,” he says. “And I want the public to have high expectations of us as well. Always.”

Originally published as Michael Cheika’s leadership lessons from Stanford to help fix rugby’s image problem