What It Takes To Be Number #1: Vince Lombardi on Leadership

Book excerpt: Leadership continues to be one of the most written-about and most trained-for qualities in business today. And no figure so fully embodies the leadership qualities managers hope to cultivate in their professional and personal lives as the late Vince Lombardi, the greatest NFL coach of all time. The exalted place Lombardi holds in American culture has never been clearer than it is today, as evidenced by the enormous success of the 1999 bestseller, When Pride Still Mattered, as well as the vast popularity of the coach's son, Vince Lombardi, Jr., America's most sought-after motivational speaker. In What It Takes to Be #1, Vince Lombardi, Jr. explores his father's leadership philosophy, and extracts powerful lessons about what it takes to be an effective leader. Taking as his jumping-off point his father's legendary 1970 speech on the supreme importance of self-knowledge, character, and integrity, Lombardi, Jr. examines each of those qualities and offers guidelines on cultivating and applying them at work and in your personal life. Throughout, What It Takes to Be #1is enlivened by personal anecdotes and quotes about and by his father, as well as quotes from other great leaders providing further wisdom and inspiration.