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

John Wooden · Steve Jamison

Jan 2007 · McGraw Hill Professional

About this ebook

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 Healso includes previously unpublished analysesfrom former players and managers, includingBill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.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.

About the author

John Wooden (1910-2010), guided the UCLA Bruins to ten NCAA basketball championships over a 12-year period, including four perfect seasons and an 88-game winning streak. He was named ESPN’s “Greatest Coach of the 20th Century” and voted “#1 Coach of All Time” by The Sporting News. Sports Illustrated said it best when they said: “There’s never been a finer man in American sports than John Wooden, or a finer coach.” In 2003 John Wooden was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Steve Jamison is America's foremost author and authority on the life and philosophy of John Wooden. Mr. Jamison is a consultant to the UCLA Anderson Scool of Business’ John Wooden Global Leadership Program. He has collaborated with Coach Wooden on an award-winning PBS presentation as well as several books, including the classic book on teaching and mentoring, Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections.