Wooden on Leadership
How to Create a Winning Organization
John Wooden is one of my all-time favorite Heroes. As you know if you’re a sports fan, he’s considered THE greatest coach of the twentieth century. His UCLA Bruins won a staggering 10 NCAA National Championships in 12 years. They also had an 88-game winning streak and won 38 straight NCAA tournament games. Wooden only had ONE losing season in his entire 41-year coaching career. And, that losing season came in his FIRST season coaching high school basketball. As you’d expect, this book is PACKED (as in PACKED!) with Big Ideas. My copy of the book is absurdly marked up and we will only scratch the surface of all the wisdom in it so, if you feel so inspired, I HIGHLY recommend you get a copy today. With that, let’s get to work.
Big Ideas
- The Pyramid of SuccessHere are the virtue-blocks.
- Attainable GreatnessYours, mine, all of us.
- Does the Fight Continue?CONSTANT, RELENTLESS pursuit.
- The Ultimate Lesson? DemonstrationDemonstration.
“What occurred in the practice is what gave me joy and satisfaction—teaching others how to bring forth the best of which they are capable. Ultimately, I believe that’s what leadership is all about: helping others to achieve their own personal greatness by helping the organization succeed.
How you accomplish that—at least, how I approached leadership—is the subject of this book.
It was a privilege to have been in a leadership position for 40 years. I miss the excitement of being on that practice court working hard with our team in pursuit of Competitive Greatness—‘being your best when your best is needed.’ To me, that is the most exciting part of being a leader: the journey to become the best of which you and your team are capable.
I miss the joys of that journey very much but take comfort in the fact that this book may provide some ideas useful in your own leadership journey. If it does, I’ll be very pleased. I offer you best wishes all along the way.”
~ John Wooden from Wooden on Leadership
John Wooden is one of my all-time favorite Heroes.
As you know if you’re a sports fan, he’s considered THE greatest coach of the twentieth century. His UCLA Bruins won a staggering 10 NCAA National Championships in 12 years. They also had an 88-game winning streak and won 38 straight NCAA tournament games.
Wooden only had ONE losing season in his entire 41-year coaching career. And, that losing season came in his FIRST season coaching high school basketball.
Now... We have featured wisdom from the Wizard of Westwood in our Notes on Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court and Be Quick But Don’t Hurry by Andrew Hill.
But... I somehow managed to go all this time without reading this book and my goodness am I glad my dear friend (and big Heroic Investor and Heroic Coach!) Jeff Everage reminded me that I hadn’t included it in my collection yet.
I read this book on my flights to and from Norfolk, Virginia (Feb 2024) where I was honored to spend time with Captain Dave Pollard and his leadership team on the USS GEORGE HW BUSH. To put it in perspective, CAPT Pollard and his crew helped defend Ukraine and our allies.
I had the privilege of leading a 3-hour workshop to help them roll out Heroic across the 20 departments of their carrier to serve the 5,000 sailors who are serving my family (and your family!) so profoundly.
I repeat: FREEDOM ISN’T FREE.
And... I repeat: Without the men and women (and their families!) dedicating their lives to protecting the freedoms we can so easily take for granted, there’s NO WAY we will have a shot at fulfilling our Mission of helping create a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing by 2051.
Which is why it is such a SACRED HONOR to serve the Force and their Families who have sacrificed so much to preserve the freedoms on which our flourishing are so dependent.
As you’d expect, this book is PACKED (as in PACKED!) with Big Ideas. My copy of the book is absurdly marked up and we will only scratch the surface of all the wisdom in it so, if you feel so inspired, I HIGHLY recommend you get a copy today.
With that, let’s get to work. It’s time to activate our Heroic potential—what Coach Wooden calls our “Competitive Greatness—being your best when your best is needed.”
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Download PDFSuccess is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.
I wanted to create good habits in those under my leadership—not only in the mechanics of playing basketball, but also in the fundamentals of being a good person.
Get the BookThe Pyramid of Success
“I remembered reading about the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt when I was a student at Purdue. It was the last of the Seven wonders of the Ancient World. Built with blocks of red granite and pure limestone, some weighing up to 60 tons, the Great Pyramid was constructed on a massive foundation whose huge cornerstones were the biggest and most important of the whole structure.
Additional blocks, each carved with a specific purpose and position in mind, were then painstakingly ramped and hoisted into place, creating successive tiers—each one supported by what had come before.
There was a center, or heart, of the Great Pyramid, which then rose to the apex that towered 481 feet over the sands of the desert. For 4,300 years it remained the tallest structure on Earth. And despite its size, the Great Pyramid was built with such precision that, when it was completed after decades of labor, you couldn’t slide a single playing card between its huge blocks of granite and limestone. Even in the twenty-first century it is considered one of the sturdiest and best-planned structures ever built. And I am not alone in this thinking. The great management writer and analyst Peter Drucker, when asked who were the greatest managers of all time, answered, ‘The builders of the great Pyramids.’
An Egyptian proverb says, ‘Man fears time, but time fears the Pyramids.’ The Great Pyramid of Giza was built to last—and it did. The symbolism of all this effort seemed very practical to me.”
Welcome to chapter #1: “The Pyramid of Success.”
In the book, Wooden walks us through the FIFTEEN blocks that form the basis of his ENTIRE leadership philosophy. Here’s a picture of the Pyramid in my copy of the book. (Online here.)
Let’s take a quick look at the 15 blocks now.
First... The pinnacle of success? Wooden calls that “Competitive Greatness.” Wooden sums that up with: “Be at your best when your best is needed. Love the battle.”
The CORNERSTONES of the Pyramid? We’ll go into them in detail in a moment as they are THE most important. In short: Industriousness and Enthusiasm.
“Industriousness. Work hard. Worthwhile things come only through hard work.
Friendship. Mutual esteem, camaraderie, and respect create great bonds of strength.
Loyalty. To yourself and to all those depending on you.
Cooperation. Be interested in finding the best way, not in having your own way.
Enthusiasm. You must truly enjoy what you are doing.
Self-Control. Practice self-discipline and keep emotions under control.
Alertness. Be observant and eager to learn and improve.
Initiative. Summon the courage to make a decision and take action.
Intentness. Stay the course. Concentrate on your objective with steely resolve.
Condition. Mental—Moral—Physical. Moderation must be practiced.
Skill. Be able to execute all aspects of your job. Keep learning.
Team Spirit. An eagerness to sacrifice personal interest for the welfare of all.
Poise. Stay calm under fire. Avoid pretense or posturing. Just be yourself.
Confidence. Proper preparation creates the right kind of confidence.
Competitive Greatness. Be at your best when your best is needed. Love the battle.”
I want to note a couple of things.
First, notice that each of those “blocks” in the pyramid is a VIRTUE.
Also, notice that the summit (aka, the summum bonum or the GREATEST GOOD!) is the ability to be your best when it matters most.
You know what the Ancient Greeks and Stoics called the person who actualized their potential and activated their “Competitive Greatness”? They called them a eudaimon. A “good soul.”
As we discuss in our Notes on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the eudaimon WAS A SUCCESS.
Know this...
We can summarize all 15 of those virtues from Wooden’s Pyramid of Success in a single word...
ARETÉ.
Here’s to living with Wisdom, Discipline, Love, Courage, Gratitude, Hope, Curiosity, and Zest as we activate our Heroic potential. Or, to channel our inner Wooden... Here’s to living with Industriousness, Friendship, Loyalty, Cooperation, Enthusiasm, Self-Control, Alertness, Initiative, Intentness, Condition, Skill, Team Spirit, Poise, and Confidence as we activate our Competitive Greatness.
When?
TODAY’S THE DAY, Hero.
It’s DAY 1. We’re ALL IN.
LET’S GO!
The force of character is cumulative.
But, most people, and many leaders, lack real Patience. Benjamin Franklin understood its value quite well: ‘Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience.’
The hallmark of successful leadership is consistently maximum performance. Emotionalism opens a leader to inconsistency. Seek intensity coupled with emotional discipline. Display those behaviors then demand them from those you lead.
Never be satisfied. Work consistently to improve. Perfection is a goal that can never be reached, but it must be the objective. The uphill climb is slow, but the downhill road is fast.
Be uncomfortable being comfortable, discontent being content.
Attainable Greatness
“I wanted the individuals under my leadership—players, assistant coaches, student managers, the trainer—to know that the kind of greatness I sought was available to each one of them. How? By performing his specific job to the highest level of his ability. I wanted every individual connected with the team to fully comprehend that when this was being accomplished, he had achieved the kind of greatness I valued most.
I didn’t ask our student manager, Les Friedman, to do Bill Walton’s job, and I didn’t ask Bill Walton to do my job. Each of us needed to be concerned only with doing our specific job to the very best of our ability. Therein lies our personal greatness.
As the leader, my job was to do everything possible to help those I allowed to join our team to achieve this—to create an environment and attitude that brought out the very best in each of them. Personal greatness for any leader is measured by effectiveness in bringing out the greatness of those you lead. Thus, personal greatness is within the grasp of each member of an organization, regardless of roles and responsibilities—whether a CEO or secretary, starter or nonstarter, head manager or head coach.
I am not naïve. I knew that an All-American such as Bill Walton should have much greater impact than the player sitting at the end of UCLA’s bench. But my expectations (demand is a more accurate word) was that all those under my leadership seek greatness—their own, not that of anyone else.”
That’s from chapter #12: “Make Greatness Attainable by All.”
Your #1 JOB as a leader? According to Wooden, to do everything possible to help those we allow (important distinction—allow!) to join our team to show up as THEIR BEST.
From this vantage point, we see that “personal greatness is within the grasp of each member of an organization.” ← THAT’S A REALLY BIG IDEA.
LEADERS! (Note: That would be ALL of us!)
Know this: YOUR #1 JOB is to help the people on your team—whether that’s your spouse and/or kids or your colleagues and/or clients, show up as their absolute best. We need to create the conditions through which they can flourish. Then we must BE THE CHANGE we want to see as we DEMAND (!) that they each seek their own, idiosyncratically defined personal greatness.
As I read these ideas on attainable, personal greatness for EVERYONE in an organization, I thought of Abraham Maslow.
In Future Visions, Maslow tells us: “Anybody, any person whatsoever, under any circumstance whatsoever, can be a psychological success—at least in the above sense, of doing the best that one can and doing fully what one can—to be himself or herself and to accept the reality of himself or herself.”
btw. Maslow also had something to say about GREATNESS. Apparently, at the beginning of the college classes he taught, he would ask his class: “‘Which of you believe you will achieve greatness?’ When they stared at him blankly, he asked, ‘If not you, who then?’”
With that in mind, I ask YOU...
“Which of you believe you will achieve greatness?”
If you’re staring at me blankly right now (hah!), I ask... If not you, who then?!
P.S. My job? To help YOU (yes, YOU!), step up and show up as THE BEST, MOST HEROIC version of yourself. YOU are the Hero we’ve been waiting for.
It’s Day 1. We’re ALL IN. Let’s go!!!
P.P.S. Wooden tells us that “Before our team left the locker room and entered the arena… my final words were always about the same: ‘When it’s over, I want your heads up. And there’s only one way your heads can be up—that’s to give it your best out there, everything you have.’”
Strive to accomplish the very best that you are capable of. Nothing less than your best will suffice.
Never lie; never cheat; never steal. Don’t whine; don’t complain; don’t make excuses.
My basic philosophy was to prepare for each opponent with the same intensity and respect regardless of whether they were undefeated or hadn’t won a single game. Respect all; fear none; concentrate on improving and executing our own system to the highest level possible. That was always my approach.
You can do nothing about yesterday, and the only way to improve tomorrow is by what you do right now.
Does the Fight Continue?
“Good things take time, usually lots of time. Achieving worthwhile goals requires Intentness. There are setbacks, losses, unexpected reversals, hardships, bad luck. Does the fight continue? The team will look to you for the answer.
When thwarted, you go over, under, or around. Perhaps you do the same thing again—only better and harder. In the face of severe adversity, this conduct is only possible with Intentness, the willingness to persevere when hardship is forced upon you and those you lead.
I had intentness for 28 years as a coach at the high school and college level—intent on doing my best to help others do their best. In my twenty-ninth year of coaching, something remarkable occurred: UCLA won a national championship. Intentness was required for this to happen.
Industriousness and Enthusiasm are a powerful combination, essential to Success. But the great force they produce must be constant, ongoing, relentless, and unremitting—Intentness.”
That’s from chapter #2: “The Pyramid’s Second Tier.”
Industriousness (the willingness to WORK HARD!) and Enthusiasm (bringing a profound JOY to our work) are the two cornerstones of our Pyramid of (Eudaimonic!) Success.
And... Our Industriousness and our Enthusiasm must be, to quote Wooden: CONSTANT. ONGOING. RELENTLESS. UNREMITTING.
As Phil Stutz likes to jokingly say in our 1-on-1 sessions, most “normal” people like to work hard for a week and a half and then want to pack their bags for their next vacation.
Of course, oscillating and integrating the multiple facets of our lives is essential for our sustainable success.
And... We MUST embrace the CONSTANT, ONGOING, RELENTLESS, and UNREMITTING Industriousness and Enthusiasm required to activate (and forge!) our Heroic potential. Period.
btw: When I type the word “Relentless,” I think of Tim Grover’s book Relentless. I also think of David Goggins’s Never Finished.
And... When I typed out the first words of that passage about good things “taking time, usually lots of time,” I thought of this gem from Epictetus: “No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”
I also thought of wisdom my mentor William Damon shared with me when I reached out to him for guidance days after I founded Heroic Public Benefit Corporation.
When I asked him what ONE thing he wanted me to have in mind as I set out on my Heroic quest, he told me to expect it to be a LOT harder than I thought it would be. Laughing as I type this, but let’s just say his wisdom was presciently spot on. I think of him often as I eat challenges as energy bars and commit to playing the long game—doing whatever it takes for however long it takes to have a shot at fulfilling our Mission.
P.S. When most people think of Wooden, they think of his 10 championships in 12 years, the 88-game winning streak and all that. They rarely think about the THREE DECADES (!) of HARD WORK that PRECEDED the FIRST championship.
Wooden was 53 when he won his first championship. Once he figured it out, HE FIGURED IT OUT. Keep that in mind as YOU move from Theory to Practice to Mastery.
Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out.
A good leader never stops learning. A great leader never stops teaching.
The Ultimate Lesson? Demonstration
“Most of all I attempted to demonstrate in my behavior—on and off the court—those qualities I hold so dear, the values within the Pyramid. I believe there is no more powerful leadership tool than your own personal example. In almost every way the team ultimately becomes a reflection of their leader. For me, I wanted that reflection to be mirrored in the Pyramid of Success. I attempted to teach it mainly by my own example. …
The ultimate role of the Pyramid was not to produce championships; championships were a by-product. Rather, it provided directions for reaching one’s own ultimate level of excellence as a part of a team or as a leader of a team. The Pyramid didn’t guarantee that UCLA would outscore an opponent, only that our opponent would face individuals—united as a team—who were fully prepared to battle hard and compete at their highest level. The score would take care of itself.”
That’s from an early chapter, sub-section: “YOUR OWN EXAMPLE COUNTS MOST.”
Two things I want to highlight briefly here. First, I repeat... YOUR EXAMPLE COUNTS MOST. If you want to lead (whether that’s as a parent or a football coach or a General!) YOU MUST LIVE the wisdom you hope your kids and/or team aspire to embody. PERIOD.
This is why our Heroic Coach program is, to the best of my knowledge, the ONLY program that requires its certified Coaches to actually DO THE THINGS THEY SAY THEY WILL DO.
Let’s be blunt... If a leader and/or Coach can’t coach him or herself first, how in the world can they possibly credibly coach anyone else? That makes NO SENSE. Which is why I challenge the ELITE coaches with whom I’m blessed to work these days to SHOW UP as THEIR best selves—doing the hard work to show up as THE MOST Heroically Energized/Productive/Connected versions of themselves as they set the pace for their team to follow in their own idiosyncratic ways as we ALL strive for personal greatness.
Second... Notice Wooden’s use of the word “excellence” in that passage above. Again, it ALL comes down to EXCELLENCE. Which makes me think of THIS VIDEO my friend Brandon Guyer recently shared with me. You know who the highest-paid coach in North American sports history is? Coach Erik Spoelstra of the Miami Heat. You know what he strives to do? Create a “culture of excellence.” You know what he gave his players for Christmas 2023? Our book, Areté.
Here’s to the pursuit of excellence as we summit the Pyramid of Success.
A good leader always seeks improvement—always.
About the authors
