Rahul Dravid

New Delhi, Sept. 14: Rahul Dravid had to deliver as leader and star batsman unlike the corporate CEO whose job is only to lead, sports psychologists and leadership gurus say.

Dravid, whose Test average fell during his two years at the helm, may have realised that juggling two roles could hurt his performance in one of them, they said.

His resignation from captaincy, hours before the high-tension India-Pakistan World Twenty20 Championships game, could affect team morale and trigger tensions between potential successors, a psychologist who has worked with cricketers said.

“The timing couldn’t have been worse,” said Samiran Chakravarty, a psychologist at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Physical Education in New Delhi who has helped cricketers and coaches from state associations. “The uncertainty over the next captain is even more dangerous.”

A corporate CEO doesn’t have to worry about “anything” as long as his team performs well, said Leena Chatterjee, professor of behavioural sciences at IIM Calcutta. In contrast, Dravid’s predecessor, Sourav Ganguly, lost his place in the team because of plummeting batting performance.

Dravid’s Test batting average had dropped to 56 from almost 60 during his captaincy. Leaders tasked with dual roles often quit to try and bolster individual performance, management experts said.

After India’s disastrous 1999-2000 tour of Australia, Sachin Tendulkar had resigned the captaincy saying he preferred to focus on his batting.

B-school experts said not all top-notch professionals are as comfortable with leadership as with striving for individual excellence — even as team members.

“In specialist professions, there are two categories of people: technically-oriented and management-oriented,” said a faculty member at IIM Bangalore, who specialises in leadership and team building. Engineers assigned senior administrative or managerial duties, for instance, are not always happy.

“A captain’s success depends on how much he enjoys the role of a leader,” Chatterjee said.

The experts said a captain whose individual performance drops often struggles to command the team’s respect. “It can be embarrassing for a sports leader to demand performance from team members when his own performance is declining,” Chatterjee said.

Chakravarty said that in South Africa, where India played Pakistan tonight, “youngsters who believe their position in the team may be threatened by Dravid’s absence as captain are unlikely to perform at their peak levels.”

“And rivalries may erupt between players who regard themselves potential successors to Dravid.”

Any decline in performance would be small “but in a match of equals, even that can be crucial,” Chakravarty said.