A smile, a head nod, a handshake, a pat on the back...

When first deciding to introduce John Wooden I had no idea how contradicting he was to the figure we studied last week - Rex Ryan. John Wooden is probably one of the purest people to ever achieve so much success in his time and be so humble about it. John Wooden epitomized the saying: taking it one step at a time, he walked the walked, and performed with the best of them. John Wooden was the type of coach that as a mother, you wanted your son to play for. He was the grandfatherly figure that everyone wants in their life - vastly different than Rex. John Wooden is definitely someone we'll talk about throughout the semester as he's a very influential figure in my life even without ever meeting him. His values are so sensible but so complex that they're mind blowing. His passages get you thinking about yourself and it's not as if he's trying to convince you that he's right at all, but he's doing what he does best and that's teaching.

Who Can Lead, A Leader's Difficult Task, A Leader Is Fair, Walk the Walk, Dictator Leaders, Leaders Listen, Rewarding Individuals, Leadership and Punishment are a few of the passages from John Wooden's A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

It's a title everyone should have in their book collection. The discussion caught fire with a Leader is Fair. I think that a lot of times in life people encounter troubling times with leadership that's frustrating to them. They encounter a Captain, Vice President, Manager, a Coach or leader of whatever organization you are a part of that makes you feel held down, people that hold back your creativity, don't see your potential, don't see your ability to grow, and if you are the last one on the bench - they treat you like it. We talked about treating the last guy on the bench the same as the starter and being just as hard on both, treating the entry level college grad with the same level of respect as the Vice President in a company. We coined this as building a healthy environment for leaders to be developed. We talked about how in building an organization or a championship team that role players are just as important as the All-Americans. In a business sense - that means that the entry level employees who are crunching the numbers are just as important as the VP's making the deals. It's an intertwined net that makes a company go, makes a company flourish - when everyone feels that self-worth, they perform better.

We talked about walking the walk - and doing everything that you're preaching to your company, parishioners, followers, players (we can go on and on, but in our opinion you're influencing people at every moment in your lifetime). Then we walked into an interesting discussion as to why John Wooden thinks dictators don't make good leaders. Someone brought up Hitler and a few actually argued that Hitler was the best leader to ever walk planet Earth - only leader to ever have zero unemployed, etc., etc (I see the argument but I'm not buying it - it's something we'll talk about in the Leadership vs. Power section later in the semester) Wooden mentions dictator leaders like General Patton and Vince Lombardi who were successful but Wooden claims that he (himself) led with "concern, compassion, and consideration". What did we think of this? We said it depends - we talked about having the best of those qualities - like setting the tone as a dictator while having a soft, compassionate inside. Many of us saw that with Lombardi, who had a dictator approach on the field, but was a little softer with his players off it. He would rip into a player for doing something wrong in practice and then in the locker room a few moments later (probably feeling guilty) he would compliment the guy or give him a pat on the back. That's the kind of guy Vince was, however, and maybe that's what made him such a great leader. He had that vision for greatness and he also knew how to relate to his players.

I think that ultimately what we tried to beat home is that people are humans. Humans want to feel valued, humans want to be pushed, and whether they fail or succeed they want to be acknowledged. Simply put, "Treat people the same way you'd like to be treated" (Sully). You probably learned that from your mother in the 1st grade, but it's as simple as that. A pat on the back, a head nod, a smile, a handshake, a hello. It doesn't always need to be much, but it's important for a leader to have those personable qualities that make the last guy on the bench, the entry level college grad, or the middle class father/mother of two feel important once and a while. It's funny, but sometimes maybe our own leaders lose sight of this oh so important quality, losing sight of what's important in life.

Next week we're welcoming in Coach Mark Woodworth of the Wesleyan Baseball Cardinals to talk about many a topic.

If anybody would like the slides we reviewed in class I can send them to you, just e-mail me at jgiaimo@wesleyan.edu.

All the love from Middletown,
JG

"Be more concerned  with your character than with your reputation. Character is what you really are; reputation is merely what you are perceived to be." - John Wooden