My Thoughts on Wooden on Leadership

 

               For my book I read Wooden on Leadership by John Wooden.  John Wooden is known as one of the greatest sports leaders of all-time.  His NCAA basketball teams set multiple records, won many championships, and he developed many players who would become stars in the NBA.  This book is a collection of all the wisdom he compiled on leadership throughout his 40 years of coaching.  The best thing about this book is that he not only talks about how his leadership style helped his teams on court, but he also relates what he learned about leadership to business.  He shows how the leaders of organizations can use what he learned to their advantage, so that they could build a great team that would make the business successful.

                Before I read this book I knew a little about John Wooden, what I knew mainly revolved around him being the winningest coach in NCAA history.  This book showed me a whole new side of him, and showed me what a humble man he was, and what a true leader he was.  The best part is that if you read interviews with former players, you’ll see that John Wooden truly did as he preached.  All the advice he mentions in the book, are things he actually followed in real life.  You hear many people give advice and their opinions on topics, but in the end they don’t even do as they say.  Knowing that John Wooden actually followed the advice in the book gave it more credibility, and it made it easier for me to reflect on how I could incorporate some of his advice into my own life. 

“Work hard to get as good as you can get.  Do that and you may call yourself a success.  Do less and you’ve fallen short”

                Those are the words that John Wooden lived by.  Wooden was not concerned with the outcome of the score, instead he wanted to know that his team had done everything in their power to become better.  Wooden never talked to his players about beating an opponent, he never told his team they needed to win, or that they needed to be number one.  John Wooden stressed that giving your best effort was all that was required.  He also did not compare himself or his team to anyone one else.  The others teams and players were not a measure of success, each individual has their own measure of success.  This is the part of the book that I believe has most impacted me.  Personally at times I may not give my best effort, but I can still end up with results that are better than most people can.  John Wooden’s words have made me realize that I need to stop focusing so much on what other people are doing, but rather concentrate on doing the best I can.  I know for many things I can give more effort and now I have begun to try and focus on the journey, rather than the destination.  Likewise as a leader I need to show others that it is more important to change the goal from beating others, to a goal of maximizing your skills, abilities, and learning opportunities.

                That being said do not misunderstand that as Wooden saying losing was fine, or that a business losing money was fine, just as long as everyone tried their best.  No one likes losing, and Wooden also understood this.  What he said in response to the critics that said he tolerated losing, was that winning is a by-product of effort.  If your team is well-prepared, well-conditioned, and operating to their best capacity, then the score will take of itself.  Wooden proved this was true as during one point his teams won 88 out of 90 games.  His team, the UCLA Bruins, had taken time to put effort into becoming a champion.  The players were prepared to handle the physical and mental requirements of the game.  The reason why Wooden did not like emphasizing winning is because it would lead to a winning at any cost mentality that can be detrimental to a team.  This type of mentality will cause people to deviate from their values, to hurt other people, and eventually will create a toxic environment which may cause the team to collapse.  There are many examples of this in business, where the bottom-line is the most important thing, and it does not matter how you do it, as long as you increase profits.  This has cause companies like Enron to lie to the public, it caused other companies to use dirty tactics to beat a competitors, and it caused the death of civilians among many things.  Companies ignored the human aspect of business, solely for the pursuit of winning.      

“Successful leadership is…first and foremost about character”

                John Wooden each season was tasked with developing new players and showing them the UCLA way.  Through this book I can see that Wooden was a very organized man, who had certain way of doing things.  He was very meticulous in the way he wanted things done and the type of players he wanted.  While he needed to teach players how win basketball games, he knew it was more important to build their character.  Realistically few college players move on to the NBA, so Wooden knew he had to prepare them to be leaders in the real world.  This is why before teaching them basketball, his goal was to teach them values that would benefit them in the long run.  He needed to come up with a way to easily teach these kids the important qualities needed to be a success, the characteristics which he believed all great leaders must possess.  This led him to create his famous Pyramid of Success with contained 15 fundamental values required for success.  It consisted of 5 levels, and he started off every new season by introducing his student to the pyramid.

                Each level of the pyramid was needed to support the next level.  Some of the characteristics that I found most important were alertness, poise, and team spirit.  Alertness describes a leader who constantly on the lookout for change, opportunities, and potential threats.  Too many companies have failed because they did not foresee the change that was undergoing in the industry.  Relating to the case we gave the students during OHLI the leaders of RIM were not alert, they did not see the threat of Apple and Google, and then they were not quick enough to incite change to react to them.  Poise means holding fast to your beliefs, and acting in accordance with them regardless of how bad  and good the situation may be.  I believe how a leader reacts under fire shows how strong of a leader they are.  People want to follow someone who demonstrates poise in tough situations, it reassures people that they are in good hands.  Team spirit means that someone has an eagerness to sacrifice personal interest or glory for the welfare of all.  People who put the goals of the organization above their own, even at the expense of their personal desires are the people Wooden wanted on his team.  A leader asks themselves ” what can I do to help our team today?” and not “what can I do to get ahead.”  Of course as Wooden points out the answer to the latter is found in the former. 

                 I enjoyed reading Wooden on Leadership, it showed a different approach to leadership.  Most importantly it has made me reflect on whether or not, I possess the characteristics in the pyramid.  I am trying to incorporate these values into my everyday life because from reading this book and seeing how it helped so many young men at UCLA, I can see that John Wooden knew what he was talking about.  His many years of leadership experience were put into this book, and allows one to peer into the mind of one of the greatest team builders and leaders in sports history.