Leadership - needs building relationships

Recently Pakistan cricket team captain Younis Khan opted out of the test tour of New Zealand. He had said that the reason for the same was the problem he was facing with some of his players.

No doubt Younis was a good team player. But on reading his sayings, I could smell some problem with his leadership ability.

Quote from Younis Khan's sayings:

I was already facing problems with some players... No one ever came to me directly and told me his grievances. Otherwise I would have tried to resolve the issues.

He knows there is some problem with the team players. He was expecting the individuals to come voluntarily to him to speak about the problem they are facing. Why did he wait for the players to initiate the talk? What was stopping him to initiate a talk with them for addressing their needs?

A good leader would know the ways to connect and form a strong social network of team players.

Yes, team players would come to you when they are facing problems. That happens only if you had earned the respect of them. To earn their respect, as a leader, you should know them, you should know their needs. And in fact, you should have win over their hearts and minds to build a rapport with them.

How could you know about them, their needs etc? Simple, just initiate a open dialogue with your team players. You show them that you have faith on them, you care for them, you need their cooperation, you respect and recognize their contribution.

Quote from Younis Khan's sayings:

My poor form didn't help as it is a fact that when the captain is not scoring runs it becomes difficult for him to turn things his way

Yes, this is obvious. He couldn't score well. This is the consequence of failing on what I said for his previous quote. Since Younis sensed that there was some problem with his players, he would have wasted a lot of his time on it without knowing how to deal with it. That would have resulted in loss of focus.