The Essential Wooden: A Lifetime of Lessons on Leaders and Leadership

Book excerpt: The Essential Wooden--more leadership lessons from the Wooden playbook The Essential Wooden is the ultimate collectionof Wooden’s opinions and observationson achieving exceptional leadership in anyorganization, with 200 invaluable lessons forinspiring championship performance. Coach Wooden offers his hard-wonwisdom on building an organization thatperforms at its full potential under pressure,from preparing and training the team toinstilling personal drive and dedication. Hetakes his famous Pyramid of Success to thenext level, filling the entire book with hisstraight-shooting personality and keen insighton human nature. Wooden shares rarely seen preseason lettersto his players, revealing how he instilledproductive attitudes and winning ways. Healso includes previously unpublished analysesfrom former players and managers, includingBill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. From Wooden’s earliest days as a leaderthrough his legendary UCLA dynasty, TheEssential Wooden distills a lifetime of learninginto the leadership playbook for the twenty-firstcentury.