How this has become a mystery is beyond me. It's very simple: having a top player in your team, be it a star striker, a powerful midfielder, a great defender or keeper, inspires the whole side. That player might not actually have any leadership qualities but will nonetheless drive the others on by example. Was Torres made a captain so young because he was great at organising the team, talking to under-confident teammates, sorting out internal problems and dealing with the ref? No. He scored loads of goals and was the star of the team. Gerrard falls well bellow the standards of top captains because, more often than not, he'll withdraw into himself when things go wrong, scowl at teammates making mistakes, sulk at managerial decisions, etc etc. When he could overcome the failings of others (eg, Traore) by taking the ball off them and playing as a one man band, he did so; now, with his personal powers diminished, he can't do that, so he just glowers a lot and looks depressed, angry and/or despondent. No captaincy skills at all. Just a great individual player who can't inspire by example like he used to do.
Sorry but I'm gonna have to disagree with you on that.
Leadership for me, is someone who's able to inspire others to want to follow him. After all, a leader leads. Leads who ? Followers. How he does it is an entirely different discussion. The fact remains that there are people who want to follow him. So for me, that's a leader.
There's thousands of books written on leadership but one of the basic tenets of leadership will talk about this and i'm sure a learned person like yourself would have probably come across it before. The types of authority.
1) Positional Authority - a leader who is appointed by an organizational hierarchy. His authority may exists and be enforced regardless of the character/quality of the leader filling the position. In the world, much of life moves under this form of authority. It's also the weakest form of authority. Think David Moores, Roy Hodgson, etc.
2) Expert authority - a leader who is appointed because he has proven capable or knowledgeable in a particular area. The authority given in this case is usually limited to the area of expertise. This authority is stronger than positional but still very limited and often narrow in its insight.
3) Relational authority - leadership based on a relationship shared by followers and leaders. It is extended because those who follow, value the leader knowing first-hand his commitment, as well as the leader's personality, knowledge, character or skill.
Now, the way I see it - is that majority of this forum are undecided which category Stevie falls into, hence the continuous debate. The Stevie superfans (e.g. myself) would put Stevie under Category 3, while the rest think Stevie's more of an 'expert authority'. A maestro in the area of expertise (his playing abilities) but limited in his leadership qualities.
Personally, I don't think there's any right or wrong answer. I'd like to think Stevie is a mixture of a Cat3 and Cat2 type of leader. From my experience, it's one thing being a leader but to inspire others to want to follow you, that's a whole new level by itself. I guess what I want to say is that to inspire others to follow you willingly is bloody hard because it reveals the type of character you really are. Look at Roy Keane. Everywhere he goes, nobody likes him. Nobody wants to play for him. Yeah, sure he'll probably lead like a warrior from the beginning and everyone thinks he's great initially, but when he gets found out eventually, they'll realize he's a nasty piece of work. They may follow him but only out of fear. He's a Cat1 type of leader. Great player, but great leader ? Not a chance.
So for someone who's just an average leader, i struggle to wonder how can he inspire many ? Inspire few, yes. But many ? Hmm...
It's like saying William Wallace was a great warrior but bang average at leadership, yet managed to inspire many cos he had great fighting skills.
The thing is we tend to see players as some puppet running around the pitch but we sometimes forget they are humans too. And humans have feelings, and feelings are affected by various factors around its surroundings.
Like I said before, we've got a different understanding of what leadership means so we're gonna have to agree to disagree.
