Paul O'Connell admits that he has learned lots about leadership under Andy Farrell - despite being a Munster, Ireland and Lions skipper in his own right.
O'Connell was renowned as an inspirational leader during his own playing days, and he told the Captains with Sam Warburton podcast that Mick Galwey, his first captain at Munster, was a massive influence on how he went about things when he grew into the role himself with the province.
Currently in Portugal with Farrell as his forwards coach, the Limerick man has made a real difference to the Ireland set-up since coming on board in January 2021 with the side reaching number one in the world rankings ahead of the start of the Six Nations on Saturday.
"The biggest learning for me since I've gone into Irish camp, Andy Farrell talks about leadership all the time and the first thing he says is it's about how you make people feel," said O'Connell, who did some coaching work with Munster's academy before a stint with Stade Francais in 2018.
"So we think of leadership as driving standards, but if you're driving standards by embarrassing people or humiliating them or making them feel bad about themselves, it's not leadership.
"The quiet guy who is a really diligent trainer, that's a great example for other people to copy.
"He's out early and finishes late, he's really organised, he does his recovery, that's leadership, he makes people feel good, they trust him when they walk onto the field with him. Players can copy what he's doing and be curious about what his process is. That's leadership.
"That's been the biggest learning for me since I've come out of the game.
"It's being yourself. You won't cover everything but there are plenty of other guys, if you're unsure on something you have to be able to hand them over and be really good at the things that put you into position to be captain in the first place."
O'Connell added: "My biggest strength was that I was very competitive, and always have been from a very young age, I always wanted to win and struggled with losing.
"The reason I stayed playing for so long, and was a captain for so long, was that competitive nature that I had that is probably still part of me but has probably mellowed and matured now.
"It's definitely something I didn't aspire to be, I always saw myself as an underdog trying to catch up on people."
"The main thing was copying from other people, and copying what I liked."
O'Connell also spoke about his time as British and Irish Lions captain under Warren Gatland in 2009, ahead of their reunion in Cardiff this weekend - following Gatland's surprise return as Wales boss in December.
The 43-year-old admits there was plenty of self-doubt in taking the role but said he decided his only course of action was to be himself. The Lions lost the tour 2-1.
"I definitely found it hard because when you're in Munster and Ireland, you know the lads, you know they trust you and you all believe in each other," O'Connell reflected.
"When you're on a Lions tour, I obviously have a thick Irish accent and we do it differently in Ireland, you're not sure what way anything is landing with people.
"But I definitely didn't try to be something I'm not, I tried to do what I did with Munster and on the handful of occasions up until then I captained Ireland.
"For the tour to be such a disaster, talking about scrapping the Lions on our watch, 2009 we did things differently.
"We actually became less professional and we socialised a lot. This big investment in becoming an old school team, a group of guys who wanted to spend time together.
"You're worried your version of captaincy is different to others. I would have been determined to be myself but sometimes doubting if that was what lads wanted, but I couldn't try to be something lose.
"I know when you go on Lions tours guys got p****d off because the Irish lads give out so much to each other, but that's what we believed in and it was the same in the other Irish provinces.
"We've tempered that since, we found a good balance with it but back then we didn't hold back on one another.
"I wasn't very good at getting away from it, and it was worse when I was captain. Having a family gave me a proper bit of perspective."
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