The Captain Class: The Hidden Force Behind the World’s Greatest Teams (Paperback)

A remarkable book, one that articulates much of what you feel about great teams but have perhaps been afraid to express… One of THE sports books that I think will soon be in every manager’s office. A fascinating new body of research about greatness in a sports team. In The Captain Class, Sam Walker gives us important and original insights into the mysterious ingredients of transformative leadership. A stunning mix of research and narrative. Wonderfully strange and absorbing… Informative, persuasive and great fun for anyone not only with a passing interest in sport but in mankind. Over the years, many books have promised to reveal the secret of building successful teams. But now Sam Walker has actually gone and done it. An idea-driven, myth-busting gem of a book. Sam Walker has unlocked one of sports’ greatest mysteries. The Captain Class is one of the most surprising, best-written—and fun—sports books published in recent years. The Captain Class is a brilliant hybrid: one part detective story and one part leadership book, dedicated to a fascinating mystery: What sets apart the greatest teams of all time? I couldn't put it down. Well-researched, wildly entertaining, and thought-provoking. In The Captain Class, Sam Walker presents compelling narratives about the secret ingredient to the greatest teams of all time – and quickly has the reader reexamining long-held beliefs about leadership and the glue that binds winning teams together. The examples in Walker's book are striking. There’s a temptation for captains to conform to the accepted stereotype of what a heroic leader should be. Walker’s book utterly—and rightly in my view—dispels that notion. The leaders he analyses were the opposite of what you might imagine a leader to be. The most fabulous book on freakish sporting success and leadership traits commonly shared across the greatest teams of all time. I thoroughly recommend it.