Anil Kumble Reviving Ravichandran Ashwin: The Leadership Lesson in Developing Others

    When Ravichandran Ashwin lost his rhythm, coach Anil Kumble chose belief over blame — and turned a struggling spinner back into a match-winner. Here's what that decision teaches every manager about developing others.

    Anil Kumble Reviving Ravichandran Ashwin: The Leadership Lesson in Developing Others

    Anil Kumble Reviving Ravichandran Ashwin: The Leadership Lesson in Developing Others

    In 2016, Ravichandran Ashwin was one of the best spinners in the world — and also one of the most inconsistent. His new head coach, Anil Kumble, had a choice: point out what was going wrong, or believe in what could still go right. Kumble chose belief, backed it with specific support, and watched a struggling bowler turn into a match-winner.

    In short

    Where this sits on your Winning Kite

    Developing Others is the fifteenth trait on the EQ — the left side — of your Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework). It belongs to the Empathy cluster, and that placement matters: you cannot develop someone you do not first understand. Kumble's genius with Ashwin wasn't tactical alone — it was emotional. He read a talented player who had started to doubt himself, and he responded not with judgment but with structured belief. EQ plus RQ plus PQ builds Success — and this story is EQ doing the heavy lifting that made everything else possible.

    The Story: A Coach, a Struggling Spinner, and a Choice

    Anil Kumble was appointed head coach of the Indian cricket team in 2016. It was a high-pressure appointment — Kumble himself was a legend of the game, India's highest wicket-taker in Test cricket, a man who had bowled through a broken jaw in Antigua. He knew what it meant to push through pain and doubt. Now his job was to get the best out of others, and one of his most important assignments was Ravichandran Ashwin.

    Ashwin was, on paper, one of the finest off-spinners world cricket had produced in years. But at that point he was going through a rough patch — his consistency was slipping, his accuracy wavering, and with it, visibly, his confidence. This is the moment that defines most managers. Do you point at the drop in numbers and demand better? Do you bench him and wait? Or do you lean in?

    Kumble leaned in. Instead of criticizing Ashwin for the dip in form, he decided to have positive expectations from him and back those expectations with real, hands-on support. He did not simply say encouraging words and hope for the best — he spent real time with Ashwin, sitting down and analysing his strengths and weaknesses in detail, identifying precisely where the game had drifted. He encouraged Ashwin to work on his variations — the subtle changes of pace, angle and spin that make a bowler unpredictable — and, critically, he worked on rebuilding Ashwin's confidence, not just his technique.

    The payoff came in a pressure match against England. Ashwin was struggling in the middle of play, the kind of moment where a bowler can spiral if left alone with his doubts. Kumble walked up to him — not with a lecture, but with a short, calm instruction: stay calm, focus on your strengths. That was it. No twenty-minute technical overhaul in the middle of an international match. Just a leader, present at the moment his player needed him most, reminding him of what he was actually good at.

    Ashwin followed that advice. In the very next match, he delivered a match-winning performance — six wickets, and a result that swung in India's favour because of it.

    Why This Isn't Just a Cricket Story

    It is tempting to read this and file it under "sports motivation." Don't. This is a precise case study in how leaders develop others in any high-performance environment — including yours.

    Notice what Kumble did NOT do. He didn't criticise Ashwin publicly or privately for the loss of form. He didn't compare him to a younger, hungrier bowler to "motivate" him through insecurity. He didn't wait for Ashwin to fix himself and prove his worth again before offering support. Support came first — not as a reward for improved numbers, but as the reason improved numbers became possible.

    What Kumble did do maps almost exactly onto how I coach leaders to develop their own people:

    1. Recognise Achievements First

    Kumble didn't approach a struggling Ashwin as a problem to be corrected. He approached him as a proven performer going through a phase — someone whose past excellence was real and worth reminding him of. The first step in developing anyone is to recognise what they have already achieved, no matter how far away that feels from their current form.

    2. Give Feedback That Builds, Not Breaks

    In today's business world, where one team plans and another executes, it is a leader's job to give feedback constantly — and how you give it matters more than what you give. Start with the strengths. Highlight the positive traits you see. Only then, gently and without judgment, name what needs to change. Kumble's whole approach to Ashwin was praise-first, correction-second — never the reverse.

    3. Identify the Specific Need for Growth

    Vague encouragement doesn't fix a wavering bowling arm. Kumble sat down and actually analysed Ashwin's game — where the accuracy was slipping, which variations needed sharpening. Developing others requires this precision. "You'll figure it out" is not support. A clear, specific diagnosis is.

    4. Challenge Them to Grow

    Kumble encouraged Ashwin to work on new variations — not just recover his old form, but stretch beyond it. Developing others isn't only about repair; it's about pushing someone toward a version of themselves they haven't reached yet.

    5. Be Present and Calm in the Critical Moment

    The mid-match intervention is the part I find most instructive. Kumble didn't wait for a post-match debrief to have that conversation. He read the moment Ashwin needed him and delivered a short, calm, focused message right then. As a leader, how you show up in your team's hardest five minutes says more than any quarterly review.

    The Pygmalion Effect: The Psychology Behind Kumble's Choice

    What Kumble demonstrated with Ashwin is a real, well-documented psychological phenomenon called the Pygmalion Effect — the finding that when leaders hold genuinely high expectations of the people they lead, those people are more likely to perform at a higher level. It isn't magic and it isn't flattery. It's the simple, repeatable truth that belief, communicated consistently and backed by real support, changes behaviour and output.

    This idea rhymes with what Daniel Goleman describes in his work on emotional intelligence — that a leader's emotional state and expectations ripple outward and shape the emotional climate, and therefore the performance, of an entire team. Kumble didn't need the research to know this instinctively. He simply chose belief over blame, and the numbers followed.

    I have seen the same pattern play out elsewhere in Indian cricket, and it is worth naming because it reinforces that this was not a one-off. Ravi Shastri, as India's head coach, took the same approach with a young, raw Jasprit Bumrah — choosing positive expectations and targeted support over criticism, helping him become one of India's leading fast bowlers. Shane Warne did something structurally similar as captain of Rajasthan Royals in the very first IPL season in 2008 — not through blind positivity, but through crystal-clear roles: he asked opener Swapnil Asnodkar to bat aggressively and anchor Graeme Smith to play the stabilising role, giving each player total clarity on what was expected of them. That clarity, combined with belief, took an unfancied side to the inaugural IPL title. Years later, M.S. Dhoni built the same kind of clarity and confidence into Chennai Super Kings' culture, visible in how players like Shivam Dube and Ajinkya Rahane thrived in tightly defined roles during IPL 2023.

    Why Developing Others Is an Empathy Skill, Not a Managerial Task

    It would be easy to reduce "developing others" to a checklist — give feedback, set goals, review progress. But notice that none of what Kumble did was procedural. It required him to actually see Ashwin — his talent, his doubt, his specific technical gaps, and the exact moment he needed a calm word instead of a technical lecture. That's empathy in action, not a performance-management template.

    This is precisely why Developing Others sits inside the Empathy cluster on the EQ side of the Winning Kite. Empathy is the foundation trait; Developing Others is what empathy looks like when it is put to work over weeks and months, not just in a single conversation. Without self-awareness and empathy, all the feedback frameworks in the world become hollow — you'll deliver the right words in the wrong tone, at the wrong moment, and it will land as criticism no matter how you phrase it. I have watched many leaders in my corporate training sessions struggle exactly here — some don't know how to give feedback at all, and others give it when they are in a poor emotional state themselves, which does more damage to the relationship than staying silent would have.

    A Personal Parallel: My Own "Kumble Moment"

    This story resonates with me personally because I lived a version of it. In my college years I was an average student with very little confidence in my own abilities. In 2013, I met my guru, Mr. Kaustubh, who saw something in me that I could not yet see in myself. He told me, in Hindi, "Kya personality hai tera, tu to kuch bhi kar sakta hai" — what a personality you have, you can achieve anything. That one line of encouragement reshaped how I saw myself. With his continued belief and guidance, I found the confidence to become an entrepreneur and a corporate trainer.

    I tell this story often in my sessions because it is the same mechanism as Kumble and Ashwin, just off the cricket field. A leader — or a mentor, or a guru — chooses to hold positive expectations of you before you have fully proven them right, and that belief becomes the ground you stand on while you close the gap yourself.

    How to Apply This at Work, Starting Monday

    You don't need a national cricket team to put this into practice. The next time someone on your team is going through a rough patch — missed a target, fumbled a client call, lost their usual sharpness — resist the instinct to lead with correction. Instead:

    Recognise what they have already achieved, out loud, specifically. Sit with them and diagnose the real, specific gap — not a vague "you need to do better," but the actual variation they need to work on. Challenge them toward a stretch goal, not just a return to baseline. And when you see them struggling in the moment — in a meeting, on a call, under a deadline — walk up, stay calm, and remind them what they're good at. That single line, delivered at the right moment, can be the difference between a spiral and a six-wicket haul.

    If you want to build this capability systematically across your leadership team — not just as inspiration, but as a trained, repeatable skill — this is exactly what I work on in Signature Corporate Training Programs and in our full library of corporate training topics. Explore how Developing Others connects to the other 24 traits of emotional and relationship intelligence on the Winning Kite framework page, and if you're building out your own leadership library from this book, don't miss the related story on how the Pygmalion Effect shaped my own journey in The Power of Positive Expectations: My Guru's One Line That Changed My Life.

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    Avinash Chate

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    Avinash has trained the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW Steel and 1000+ corporate leaders across India. His work focuses on leadership, emotional intelligence and behavioural training rooted in Indian values and modern business needs.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is the Anil Kumble and Ravichandran Ashwin story about?

    When Anil Kumble became India's head coach in 2016, Ravichandran Ashwin was going through an inconsistent patch. Instead of criticizing him, Kumble spent time analysing Ashwin's game, gave him positive expectations and specific support, and helped him regain form — including a match-winning six-wicket haul against England after Kumble told him to stay calm and trust his strengths.

    What is the Pygmalion Effect in leadership?

    The Pygmalion Effect is the finding that when leaders hold genuinely high expectations of their team members and communicate belief in them, those team members tend to perform at a higher level. It is one of the most practical psychological tools for developing others at work.

    How does Developing Others fit into the Winning Kite framework?

    Developing Others is Trait #15 on the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) side — the left side — of the Winning Kite. It sits within the Empathy cluster, because you cannot genuinely grow someone else's potential without first understanding where they actually are.

    How can a manager apply the Kumble-Ashwin lesson at work?

    Start by recognising achievements honestly, give regular feedback that leads with strengths, identify specific growth needs instead of vague criticism, challenge the person to stretch, and stay calm and specific in the moment they are struggling — the way Kumble did with Ashwin mid-match.

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