“Be good role models and good human beings.”
These are the words of Joe Root as he prepared to lead the England men’s cricket team once again, this time in the Test series against Pakistan. For those of you reading Reflections on Character who have little interest in English cricket, let me provide a little context.
Joe Root is one of England’s greatest-ever cricketers and is closing in on the all-time record for Test runs. He previously captained England for five years, taking over in 2017 and leading the side through the extraordinarily challenging period of the Covid-19 pandemic. He eventually stepped down in 2022, with Ben Stokes taking over as captain.
The Stokes era, alongside head coach Brendon McCullum, became synonymous with an unusually high degree of personal agency – on and off the pitch. Players were encouraged to express themselves, take risks and play with freedom. The philosophy was essentially that the captain and coach would take the pressure, allowing the players to take responsibility for their performance on the field. For several years, this worked remarkably well. England played an exciting and successful brand of Test cricket, and players repeatedly spoke about how much they enjoyed being part of the team. It seemed that England had discovered a winning formula: give talented people freedom, trust them to perform, and allow them to enjoy themselves.
But, over time, cracks began to appear. Following a disappointing Ashes campaign in Australia, stories emerged about players drinking heavily and behaving in ways that appeared inconsistent with the professionalism expected of an international sports team. Concerns about the team’s culture and off-field behaviour grew. In response, the England management introduced tighter behavioural expectations, including a midnight curfew. Yet rules did not solve the problem. In June 2026, Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson breached the curfew following England’s victory over New Zealand and were subsequently unavailable for the second Test. The incident became another moment of uncomfortable reflection about the culture of the team. Stokes subsequently retired from international cricket and Root was asked to take over the captaincy once again.
It is against this backdrop that Root’s words about being “good role models and good human beings” caught my attention. For me, they point towards an interesting third way between freedom without responsibility and rules without ownership. The first approach, give people complete agency and trust them to do the right thing, can work brilliantly when individuals possess the character to use that freedom well. But agency without character can become licence.
The second approach, introduce extensive rules to regulate behaviour, can establish clear boundaries but it has an obvious limitation. Rules can tell people what they must or must not do. They cannot, on their own, make people want to do the right thing. Root appears to be trying something different. He has rejected the idea of simply imposing another curfew. Instead, he is putting responsibility back on the players. He has said that professional cricketers should be trusted to behave like responsible adults both on and off the field. But this is not a return to an anything-goes culture. The expectation is that players will be good human beings. They are being given freedom, but that freedom comes with a moral expectation: use it well.
This is where character becomes important. Root is, in effect, asking his players not simply to follow rules but to exercise judgement. When should I stay out? When should I go home? How much should I drink? How will my behaviour affect my teammates? What does it mean to represent England? What is the right thing to do when nobody is telling me what to do? These are questions of practical wisdom – the ability to apply good judgement in the messy circumstances of real life.
Root is asking his players to be role models. This is particularly significant in elite sport. International cricketers are not simply employees doing a job. They are highly visible representatives of their country. Young people watch them. Fans identify with them. Their behaviour is noticed and judged whether they like it or not. But there is an important leadership lesson here too. If you ask other people to be role models, you had better be prepared to be one yourself. Otherwise, the call for good character quickly becomes hypocrisy. And this is where Root has an important advantage. Throughout his career he has developed a reputation not simply for extraordinary cricketing ability, but for his conduct. His career has had its ups and downs, and he has experienced the enormous emotional highs and lows that come with elite sport. But he has generally conducted himself with humility, kindness, and integrity. He has shown that it is possible to be fiercely competitive without losing sight of how you treat other people.
For me, Root is well placed to make this argument. He is not simply telling his players to behave better. He is modelling the kind of behaviour he expects from them.
There is also something important here about intrinsic motivation. The strongest teams are not necessarily those in which people behave well because they are being watched, because there is a rule, or because there will be a punishment if they get caught. They are teams in which people want to do the right thing because they understand what it means to be part of something bigger than themselves. That is a much harder culture to create. It requires trust. It requires responsibility. It requires good judgement. And, above all, it requires character.
The next chapter of England cricket will therefore provide an interesting natural experiment in leadership. Can you give highly talented people significant agency while maintaining high expectations of their character? Can you create a culture in which players are trusted to make good decisions rather than controlled through rules? And can you get the best from people by giving them freedom and responsibility?
I suspect Root would argue that the answer is yes. And I think he may be onto something. Because perhaps the real alternative to a rules-based culture is not a culture without rules. It is a character-based culture – one in which people are trusted precisely because they are expected to develop the judgement, virtues, and sense of responsibility necessary to use that trust well. As out lined within the Jubilee Centre’s Educating Character Through Sports Framework, it is important those involved in organising and supporting sports participation understand they have a “responsibility to enable participants to explore character, to think about the sorts of player and person they wish to be, and to have intentional and explicit opportunities to form character through their participation – including having the opportunity for reflection and to learn when things do not go as they should”, and it seems this is what Root is trying to embrace in his second stint as England cricket captain.
“Be good role models and good human beings” I believe holds truth not just in sport but in life.
