Thanks for sharing!
Not sure how many others might have listened to Any Sting Goes recently - the one with Gaskell on, but a pretty lengthy chat about leadership on that which was interesting.
Gaskell spoke about being given the Captaincy at Sale very young (20 or early 20's) and not really being ready for it and would often simply pass-through comments from Cueto, or Hodgson. He says, with hindsight, he would have politely declined the offer to Captain and focussed on his game a little more until he had more experience.
They spoke about Launchbury and how leadership/captaincy has really evolved, very little of the shouting or geeing up and talk about it being much more of a non-gameday type role. Speaking in their team meetings, as well as generally keeping an eye on the boys and making sure that all was ok outside of their club life.
I also feel that on the pitch, Launchbury leads by example, but doesn't always seem like a leader (if that makes sense?) he's not often talking to other players, or the team that much and although getting better, his engagements with the Ref some times leave a bit to be desired. There's plenty of times I would rather he took a slightly stronger line with the ref, not in a forceful sense but to politely enquire about a decision and explain why he was doing vs what the ref thought he'd seen - 2 or 3 times he's been pinged in mauls that commentators disagree with, for example.