Wooden On Leadership Skills, Book Review Essay Example

Leadership skills are very useful especially when dealing with a group of people from different backgrounds and regions. It enables one to exercise effective leadership to a diversity of people such as people of diverse culture. A leader is destined for success. To achieve such a success, a leader has to get everything into a state of equilibrium. In such a group, a leader has to exhibit a high degree of leadership skills so that required goals are achieved. So many sources are available to offer these beneficial skills. Some are all over the internet, some in the great libraries all over the world, and some in the different articles and journals. But the main aim of them all is to deliver the leadership skills to the reader who is the main beneficiary. All these sources ought to be respected in order to achieve the aim. Wooden on Leadership is an example of the source that gives critical skills on leadership. The book was written by John Wooden explaining different ways that can be used to acquire quality leadership. The book has encouraging quotes with reference to football. Wooden himself was a coach who showed and utilized the many available skills to better his team. The book has been divided into fifteen chapters. Each has a unique and important lesson that can help in building leadership skills. Out of the fifteen chapters, I was encouraged with three areas that prompted me into selected them (John 2005). Adversity is not your asset, the pyramid of success, and make greatness attainable by all, are examples of the quotes in the areas chosen in the book.

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In the first area, Wooden says, "Adversity is not your asset." In this area, the author explains his history in the football world and how he started at one club called UCLA. Before he a got a chance at the club, the author admired to coach at the club of Minnesota but never made it. Minnesota was a good club that had won many titles in all the competitions it had participated in. The players of the team were very much disciplined too. This discipline gave their coaches an easy task while handling them hence inspired them to win as many titles as they could. The status of the team made him to have urge to seek for a chance in the team. He attended the interviews for the clubs, UCLA and Minnesota. Back in his mind, he made a decision of securing a chance at the Minnesota club but waited for a little as he tried to analyze the situation (John 2005). He also remained calm as he waited for the offer from the club. Minnesota replied to him by telling him that the offer would be made after meeting and agreeing on the issue. Therefore, specific time and date were to be communicated to Wooden. After receiving this response, Wooden became happier and even decided to make a phone call to the UCLA club. The aim of the phone call was to turn down their offer as he anticipated another offer from Minnesota. But in the waiting process, something embarrassing happened. All the telephone lines in Minnesota failed to function making it difficult to communicate the much-awaited message to be relayed (John 2005). The problem made him miss the call from the station. He tried to his efforts to contact them again but it was already too late continue with the process. Even after getting all these embarrassments, he never went back to his word that he had said earlier.

The reason I selected this section is because of the illustration and explanation it has offered to the adversity. When relating to any organization or group, we develop various goals together. Some may be achieved others may fail according to the situation in place. The minds of the people in the place can aid in achieving the set goals or turn the goals to be achieved to a dream. As a leader of the group, some stakeholders or well-wishers may make a promise of offering a helping hand to us but later on turn them down. We need not develop adversity against them. Instead, we should take it easy and forge forward with the life while dealing with the decisions that we have to make. Furthermore, it has proved that we do not have the power to control what happens around us. We can only control ourselves in how we react to them. When offering leadership to the team, you cannot give in or even quit when things start going wrong (John 2005). When such action is taken, a wrong message is sent to the team hence making it not to perform. Furthermore, the message from this section has taught me the reason as to why the team faces challenges so that it is able to come out with proper solutions.

Pyramid of success forms the content of another area that I selected. In this chapter, the author carefully created the pyramid of success which has several layers of importance. The area focuses on and describes the bottom tier of the pyramid. Wooden spent a lot of his time deciding on what will go on at the bottom layer of the pyramid that he had created. This journey actually took him a lot of time to achieve what he had set up as an objective. Actually, it is true that many people were going to benefit from the results of these objectives. The aims as explained were not only directed to players but also to the other members of the community (John 2005). When compared to the great pyramid of Egypt built in ancient times, the pyramid of wooden took some time to be built. During the building of the pyramid, he realizes that there were two cornerstones that were important to the pyramid. They acted like the foundation on which the pyramid was to be established. The future of the pyramid fully relied on them. Without them, the pyramid could not stand strong however much efforts. These cornerstones included: industriousness and enthusiasm. Industriousness articulated that there is no substitute for work to be done. On the other hand, the cornerstone of enthusiasm advocated for the enjoying for what we do. The entire two cornerstones used by Wooden to build the pyramid took my minds back to the saying, "Love what you do, and you never have to work a day in your life." This saying only worked well when the two pillars were combined together. Inside the two cornerstones, the following was found. They included: friendship, cooperation and loyalty. According to the author, the art of friendship thrived well when a joint effort was incorporated (John 2005). For loyalty to be enhanced, one needs to be loyal to themselves and extend it to those around them without bias. Cooperation, on the other hand, stresses on working hard on finding the best way and not choosing your own preferred way of doing things.

In this chapter, loyalty formed the base of the bottom tier. The author urged that the same way should be applied in all things. I really noted that to be a great leader, you must show loyalty to your organization or team. Just as it is required in the marriages, loyalty is also required for the good progress of the team. Loyalty to the team you are leading as a coach may be the strongest connection that you will have in your entire. I was encouraged and enjoyed quotes in this area (John 2005). Actually, the starting idea may not be the best, it is therefore good to get the feedback and input efforts from the peers surrounding you. It worth noting that a leader has to commit them to what is right and not to who is right. Concerning the matters on the decision making, a leader should have the final say. After making the decision, they must make sure that they are being accepted by the whole team without complaints. In so doing, the leader must make sure that they are considering the opinions of the team members. On my side, I intent to use this area to making sure that nobody is being excluded when making the decision on matters to do with the team.

"Make greatness attainable by all" is another area that got my attention. In this area the author explains on finding a suitable way that makes someone to feel great hence plays their role with all the strengths. He later adds on that once you get what an individual is good for, you will make them feel appreciated about their role to the team (John 2005). They will even yearn to perform it well. In the example he gives in the book, there were several times he had had to encourage the players with this quote for them to perform and it perfectly worked. For instance, in the team, one player was solely used when doing practices. The player would later on backup the starting center of the team hence the skills of the player were enhanced in the long run. From this observation, I as the couch will teach the players the importance of their role to the rest of the team (John 2005). Additionally, I will try to my level best as a coach to encourage ambition in the talented people in the team. Before making any step, I will encourage them to learn first.

In precise, for one to be a leader and be recognized by many people in the society, he or she must have some leadership skills to be used. A leader need to direct people towards their desired vision, and also should be willing to listen to his follower's opinions. An effective leader should be an example to the rest of the people. As a couch of the team in place, loyalty to team is very important, it works to achieve more in the rest of the career. To realize the desired goals in any organization or team, all quotes on the leadership skills presented in these Wooden on Leadership should be utilized. Great results can only be realized when they are observed.

Cited works

John. Wooden. (2005). Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization. McGraw Hill Professional