Brian Johnson summarizes and closes a short series on John Wooden's leadership lessons, focusing on Wooden's claim that a leader's personal example is the most powerful leadership tool. Johnson stresses that leaders must 'coach themselves'—living the values they expect of others—and connects Wooden's Pyramid of Success to the pursuit of excellence, citing a contemporary example (Coach Spo gifting the book Arete to players in December 2023).
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. In our last several plus ones, we've been mining some wisdom gold from John Wooden's great book Wooden on Leadership. I hope you've enjoyed the tour through his playbook to activate our heroic potential, AKA competitive greatness as much as I have today, we're going to wrap up the tour. It's time to talk about the most important aspect of leadership. All capsules, let's get to work. Wooden tells us, and I quote 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. He continues by saying the ultimate role of the pyramid was not to produce championships. Championships were a byproduct. 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 are 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. End quote. Now that's from an early chapter subsection. 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. It's also why whenever I am blessed to speak to a group of elite leaders, I always make sure to deliver this point with a sledgehammer. What's people on? If a leader and or coach can't coach him or herself first, how in the world can they possibly credibly coach or lead anyone else? That makes no sense. Which again 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 I linked to in this plus one my friend Brandon Geier recently shared with me. You know who the highest paid coach in North American sports history is? Coach SPO of the Miami Heat. And you know what he strives to do to create a culture of excellence. And you know what he gave his players for Christmas 2023? Our book arete. And that's today's plus one. Here's the pursuit of excellence as we summit the pyramid of success. Be the demonstration and living embodiment of what excellence in action looks like. Moment to moment to moment, all day, every day, especially today.
