Wooden On Leadership
John Wooden, a leader and a legend has been referred to as the greatest coach of all time; he has led UCLA men’s basketball team to multiple championships. John Wooden is a man of character and integrity who possessed some solid philosophies on leadership; he has written several books on leadership, success, and values just to name a few. Some of his illustrious achievements include ten national championships of which seven of them he won consecutively, most consecutive victories, which was eighty-eight, most appearances in the final four, thirty –eight straight victories in the NCAA tournament play between 1964 and 1974; this is not all inclusive of his accomplishments. John Wooden appear to make these type of success stories look so simple and so natural that I’m sure many of his colleagues, coaches, and business leaders from all over are curious as to how he achieve such greatness. John Wooden is a graduate of Purdue University where he studied teaching; he was an outstanding athlete at Purdue and was sought after to become coach for a high school in Indiana. During his formative years as a coach, his understanding of leadership concepts began to develop, becoming a philosophy by which he exercised throughout his career (Jamison). Coach Wooden’s building blocks of his success pyramid are fundamentally sound to his leadership principles, many which leaders of successful organizations have adopted. He is of the belief that leadership is mostly learned; in some of his writing, he reveals that he knew virtually nothing about leadership when he began coaching. Coach Wooden studied extensively to discover what leadership meant to him before he was able to coach others. Many organizations have adopted John Wooden’s attributes to success, they seek employees that possess leadership qualities that John Wooden identify in the structure of his pyramid illustration. Employers want people that are
References: Buzzle.com. (2013). Leadership Strategies. Retrieved from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/leadership-strategies.html Farrell, R. (2011). 23 traits of good leaders. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/08/03/good.leader.traits.cb/index.html Jamison, S. (Retrieved November 1, 2013). The Joy of The Journey. Retrieved from http://www.coachwooden.com/index2.html