Essential Lessons

I would not consider myself to be a sports fan really. I enjoy watching college sports more than professional and I enjoy watching local teams particularly the Toledo Mud Hens. Perhaps the most joy I get out of watching sports is watching the coaches and identifying their different styles. I think we would agree that there are some coaches that are only known for their coaching style not necessarily their win/loss record. Coach Bobby Knight comes to mind here.

One of my all time favorite coaches is John Wooden. Basketball is one of my favorite sports. I even played while in junior high and high school. Yes, it's hard to believe that some one who is vertically challenged like myself could dominate the court...but I was fast on my feet and that made a difference.

John Wooden is known for his leadership style and this leadership style became the foundation for his coaching style. A lifetime of learning, losing, and playing, combined with an attitude of humility and positive influence created this legend of a man. I recently picked up his book, The Essential Wooden, (like I needed another one of his books...) and started to flip back through all the leadership lessons printed within. I remembered the first Wooden leadership book that I received as a gift and how it still sits on my shelf. Filled with highlight marks, underlines in red ink, post-it marked pages, it reminds me of a style of leadership that I want to model and help others model as well.

In a time when it seems like we can't seem to get our act together and leaders from government to business continue to let us down I think it's a good reminder to us all that we all have the capacity within each of us to lead in our style. We all have the capacity to live, learn and make the most of the chances that have been given to us.

Perhaps with all that is going on in the world of business and government now is the time to take the essential lessons of leadership from humble servant leaders like John Wooden and put them into action in our own lives. Now is the time to discover the leader that is in each of us.

My recommendation - Put down the newspaper filled with all the things going wrong in our world, turn off the TV and stop listening and watching the pundits playing games with our government and read something that will inspire you to discover how you have within you all you need to be a leader in your own home, community and workplace.

If you don't know where to start...as Coach Wooden says, "You cannot change the past, and you can only influence the future by what you do today."

So start today to begin to unleash the capacity already in you to be a leader.