Book Review: Wooden on Leadership

Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization by John Wooden

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Trite but true... sometimes the smartest people in the world, the ones with the most to give, come from the most unlikely of places.  Like an Indiana farm in the run up to the Great Depression.  But the way John Wooden (winner of 10 NCAA college basketball championships) talks about his father and his family life, it is clear that he credited all he became as a person to what he learned at home.  From his father he inherited and learned a strength of character, and perhaps a bit of natural ability, that would carry him through college and early career.  It's the way he handled himself as an adult that got him the "big job" in the "big city" and all the success that followed.

The idea that leadership is a set of skills that can be developed throughout one's life is liberating.  Sure, some people have more in-born ability than others, but Coach Wooden believed that it was what he learned along his journey that brought so much success into his life.  It follows, therefore, that leadership skills can be taught... and the lessons Wooden provides in this entertaining and well-crafted book are valuable indeed.  There are lots of books on leadership, but one coming from a coach with as many fun stories to tell as Wooden does provides the spoon full of sugar it takes to make the learning a pleasure. 

I am glad I read this one, and I hope others will too!  I've posted a two-page summary written by me for those who want to know more.



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