John Wooden - Woodens Complete Guide to Leadership

To Nell, whose love and support throughout these years
has been my strength. And Nan and Jim whose strength
through these years has been their love.
JOHN WOODEN

To Mary and Ev Edstrom, my parents.
And to Coach Wooden, my teacher and friend.
STEVE JAMISON

Whether your team has talent to spare
or is spare on talent, a leaders goal
remains the same; namely, you must bring forth
the best from those with whom you work.

Most leaders define winning as beating an opponent, gaining supremacy over the competition in the marketplace, achieving production or sales goals.

For any of these objectives to be met, talent must be present within your organization. A leader cant create a competitive team out of nothing; no coach can win consistently, and no leader can prevail in the marketplace without good material.

However, while you need talent to win, many leaders dont know how to win even with talent in their organization. Furthermore, we are frequently forced to compete when the talent match-up isnt in our favor. What then?

Over and over I have taught that we all have a certain potential, unique to each one of us. A unique potential also exists for every team. My responsibility as a leaderand yoursis to make the utmost effort to bring forth that potential. When this occurs, you have achieved success. Then, perhaps when circumstances come together, we may find that we are very competitive, perhaps even number 1.

It is my belief that when this occursbeing number 1, winningit is simply a by-product of leadership that knows how to get the most out of a team that is very talented. Thus, for me the highest standard is successthe knowledge that you have made the effort to teach your team how to work together at their highest level.

And that, in my opinion, is the first goal of leadershipnamely, getting the very best out of the people in your organization, whether they have talent to spare or are spare on talent.

Coach Woodens Leadership Game Plan for Success seeks to offer details of how I went about bringing forth my own potential and that of our teamsstriving to reach an uppermost level of our competency.

In some seasons the teams I taught were blessed with significant ability. Other years this was not the case. But in all years and with all levels of talent, my goal remained exactly the same, namely, to get the most out of what we had.

What I teach has stood me in good stead during nearly a half century in the competitive arena, and in spite of all of the changes we see around us, I believe it can be equally effective in the twenty-first century. Why? Because in many ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

And one of the things that has stayed the same is peoplehuman nature hasnt changed.

John Wooden strides across twentieth-century sports in America in a singular mannera preeminent and most revered coach, teacher, and leader. His UCLA basketball dynasty won 10 national March Madness championships, including seven in consecutive years. Under his leadership the UCLA Bruins had four perfect seasons and set the all-time record for consecutive victories: 88. Experts generally agree these records will stand forever.

The UCLA teams won 38 straight playoff games (a record) and appeared in the Final Four 12 times during a 14-year period (a record).

During his 40-year coaching career, John Wooden had one losing season, his first. He taught at Dayton High School in Kentucky for 2 years; South Bend Central High School for 9 years; Indiana State Teachers College for 2 years; UCLA for 27 years. During that time his teams won over 80 percent of their games.

As a student-athlete at Purdue University, John Wooden was the nations first three-time, all-consensus, All American and led the Boilermakers to a national championship. Upon graduation from Purdue in 1932, the university president, Edward Elliot, awarded him the Big Ten Medal for Scholastic and Athletic Prowess.

Mr. Wooden was selected by ESPN as The Greatest Coach of the 20th Century. In 2003 he received the nations highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom Award, in ceremonies at the White House. According to Sports Illustrated, Theres never been a finer coach in American sports than John Wooden. Nor a finer man.

In 2008 the prestigious UCLA Anderson School of Management established the John Wooden Global Leadership Program. In coming years, the school will serve as the academic home for sharing the principles of Mr. Woodens philosophy and methodology of leadership.

Coach Woodens Leadership Game Plan for Success is a response to the great interest in and acceptance by the business community and academic world of two earlier publications: Wooden on Leadership (McGraw-Hill) and The Essential Wooden (McGraw-Hill). Those bestsellers introduced John Woodens leadership concepts to a new and large corporate audience in America. Here we extend his teaching on leadership and offer a commonsense approach to understanding and incorporating his concepts.

The great coach, now 98 years old, reminds us that when it comes to leadership, teaching, and coaching there is no one right way, or only way, but many ways. He offers his own lessons from his own experience with that in mind as well as the hope that youll find some observations and directions that lend themselves to bringing out your best as a leader.

In large part John Wooden is self-taught. When he was coming up as a young man, there were no graduate courses in leadership, no gurus of management, no large section at the bookstore titled Leadership and Management. You basically had to figure it out for yourself. And he did.

I believe to a large degree this still holds true. You have to pay attention to whats going on; you have to be a good listener and learner. As youll see here, John Wooden was an astute listener and a voracious learner.

In the process he became an historic leader.

Just as John Wooden took the words and deeds of his father and mentors in new directions with creative applications, he hopes you will do the same with his body of teaching.

Weve included questions that call for reflection and the creation of some straightforward steps on your part, but thats just to prime your pump. The real evaluation, introspection, and application of this books substance in your leadership is up to you. The most important questions, the most valuable tasks you design as derived from Coach Woodens philosophy and methodology will come from you.

For many years many people thought of John Wooden as a teacher of basketball only. Since he stepped away from active coaching following UCLAs tenth national championship, his ideas and example have become increasingly revered and taught by others outside of sports.

Most recently UCLAs Anderson School of Management established the John Wooden Global Leadership Program to promulgate his leadership philosophycharacter-basedin its graduate program.