It's time for New Zealand's cricket associations to grow up and to let their leaders emerge on and off the field for the greater good of the game overall.

Too little leadership is being exhibited by players.

They have tended to become subservient to coaches who have increased their influence at the cost of captaincy development.

New Zealand Cricket's operations manager John Reid wants to see players regain leadership skills, in the same manner as CLEAR Black Caps captain Stephen Fleming has taken a greater hand with the national side.

If mistakes are made by younger players as they grapple with the requirements of leadership, coaches should be helping educate those players so they learn from their captaincy mistakes.

Losing wasn't necessarily a bad thing if lessons were allowed to be learned.

Cricket suffers in the way of all sports in New Zealand because success or failure is judged by the rugby model.

It was not possible to apply rugby, soccer or league examples of leadership to cricket. While those sports could be dominated by a coach, cricket couldn't.

The game was played over seven hours, and in the case of Test matches over five days, and it was not possible for coaches to be directing things from the sideline for every minute of that time, he said.

But that is what some cricket coaches are attempting to do and Reid wants the practice to stop.

His thoughts have developed over five years as he has watched Fleming emerge as a captain from the raw 23-year-old who has now matured into a much more experienced player.

"He's now a mature cricketer and the respective roles of coach and captain have changed.

"Teams and leaders come at different times of development and a lot of countries are coming out with different models," he said.

It had to be remembered that cricket at international level has only had coaches since 1985. Before then it was the captain who decided tactics while the manager of the side was usually a board member whose job was to look after the hotel and flight arrangements and made sure players caught the bus on time.

The attitude that the coach should be the dominant individual with a team was a rugby notion that had no place in cricket, he said.

Unfortunately, that is what has happened in New Zealand and the practice has filtered down through associations and into age-group teams and it is the latter that has most concerned Reid.

Associations tended to be driven by the need to win trophies for the cabinet rather than allowing for development to occur with players.

This attitude revealed itself in tournaments when, as the chances of success increased the dominance of coaches was also raised to the point where messages were constantly being sent out onto the field directing the play.

That did nothing to allow young leaders to develop the skills of assessment, risk-taking or management of situations.

"Coaches become dominant in tight situations rather than leaving leadership to develop," Reid said.

"The learning strategy is about making mistakes.

"The national selectors tell us there is a lack of leadership in first-class teams and this is one of the reasons."

Players needed to be self-sufficient and capable for thinking for themselves about different aspects of the game.

And when a captain made a good decision and did well, it was up to the coach to reinforce the decision while a mistake by a captain then became a chance for a coach to educate the captain.

Reid said that while the management team was growing around teams it was a case of that team being complementary and supportive rather than dominating.

It was harder to get that across in this country compared to Australia or England.

"There is more empathy in those countries for cricket and what it takes to develop the game.

"But here, we apply the rugby model and that is wrong," he said.

Reid said the media had contributed to that by developing the concept that the coach was all things to all people and the person responsible for the success or failure of a team.

That was wrong, however, and there needed to be a change in attitudes.

"Using a coach's win/loss record as the way to judge him is poor. It is not the only way he should be assessed. We are too impatient in New Zealand," Reid said.

"If that is the way a coach is to be assessed you'll have no coaches in the end. Someone has to lose," he said.

© CricInfo