Jack Gunston recently passed an anniversary that betrays how much has happened in a veritable hand-span of his blessed football life.

In round 18, 2011 he was a 19-year-old playing his ninth game for Adelaide. The Crows scratched together three goals for the night and lost to St Kilda by 103 points. Five years on he’s played in four grand finals, won three premierships and is coolly and resolutely building towards an historic fourth in a row.

He is 24 yet remains one of the younger members of an evolving team, among only a handful of senior regulars under 25. But in maturity and outlook he is growing all the time, and feels ready to embrace his next challenge as a footballer committed to bettering those around him as well as himself.

“I’d love to be a leader of the footy club,” Gunston says. “Being part of the emerging leaders’ group, looking at the leadership group now, they’re playing some great footy but they’re not going to be around forever. I want to be part of that next wave coming through.”

Operating within the organised chaos of an AFL forward line, Gunston has felt the absence of his totemic teammate Jarryd Roughead as much in a directional sense as what “Roughy” brings purely as a player. He misses him as much as anyone, but has been committed to making adversity a fast lane to opportunity.

“I’ve found myself in the last four years just following Roughy and learning off him,” Gunston says, acknowledging the leadership void he leaves in the Hawthorn front half. “What’s great is other guys are evolving as well. We’ve got Luke Breust and with Ben McEvoy spending time down there we’ve got other guys speaking in games and speaking up in meetings. It’s what we need.

“Roughy was always the vocal one, always the director. He’s got such a good footy brain – he’d speak and we’d all listen. He’s still around when he can be which is great, but he’s not out there on game day so I’ve taken it upon myself a little bit to speak up and try and fill that void of his leadership.”

Gunston admits he was a quieter presence early in his brown and gold days, concerned more with learning from the likes of Roughead, Cyril Rioli and Lance Franklin without treading on their toes. As comfort in his surrounds and place in them grew, the relationships that underpin effective leadership solidified. He feels ready to embrace its demands.

“The key to leadership that I’ve learned so far is don’t try and be something you’re not. If you’re not a rambler, if you’re not the dictator type, don’t try and bring that. Bring your strengths, on and off the field.” Having strong bonds with teammates makes it easier “when those hard conversations” need to be had. “And you expect the same back from them.”

A mantra among the forward group is encouragement and enjoyment, fundamentals that tend to produce results in any workplace. In the quest for leadership inspiration Gunston has never had far to go – his father Ray boasted an impressive corporate history before he stepped in as interim CEO at Essendon and then to his current role managing the game’s dollars as the AFL’s general manager of finance, corporate and major projects. “I don’t look too far past my own family … if there’s ever leadership advice it can come from Dad.”

He feels blessed his club boasts serious business cred from Stuart Fox at the top down, citing coach Alastair Clarkson and teammates such as Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell as perfect sounding boards.

Away from the club (when he’s not playing golf), studies in management and project management are ticking boxes towards the ultimate football leadership path. “As I’m getting older and more mature, the leadership (ambition), it’s leading me towards a bit of coaching. I’ll start (studying for) that in a couple of years’ time, try and tick that off.”

He is happily settled, enjoying his solitude in Richmond after years of house sharing and a brief stint back home when he returned from Adelaide. Girlfriend Dani lives bayside but half a dozen Hawks are in what Gunston calls “the Richmond bubble”; he likes having the option of hanging out, or being home alone if that’s what he fancies.

Leaving Adelaide when he did was influenced by a desire not to have “a half-half career”, rather one dominated by a decade or more at one club. He chose well, and still pinches himself. Watching the Crows he sees ex-teammates he feels like he only just left, alongside a growing band he’s never met. Getting booed when they meet makes him chuckle. “I’m like, ‘I’ve been here four or five years, surely you’ve moved on?’”

Gunston assuredly has, and he senses nothing stale in the pursuit of history. “You don’t want those eight weeks off dwelling on what might have been. You want to be able to experience that going into every off-season.”

In the search not only for immediate but sustained success, his conviction to bring the next wave through is heartening. “Looking at the younger guys coming into the team, I want to help them. I’m looking at the guys we’re drafting in, I want them to be coming through because in a couple of years’ time we’re going to be relying on them like the older guys are relying on us.”