Summary: John W. Gardner And John Wooden On Leadership

Is it possible that life experiences shape a person into a leader? Personally, my life experiences, both the ups and the downs, have shaped me into the leader that I am and want to further become. Leaders such as John W. Gardner and Coach John Wooden books titled, On Leadership and Wooden On Leadership, respectively have opened my eyes to realize that the path to becoming a leader is not a monolithic journey. However, both Gardner and Wooden stresses that what makes a leader out of those journeys are the characteristics that they acquire to change their lives and the lives of others. Even though each leader’s journey to leadership is incomparable, the characteristics to being an effective leader are shared. Nonetheless, even with the shared
A transformational leader is an in “who inspires followers to achieve extraordinary outcomes while also helping to develop the individual leadership skills of their followers” (Bass,2008)(Burton, Damon, & Peachy, 2015). Within each author’s respected book, either it is Gardner who tells the stories of leaders such as Civil Rights leader and activist, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who fought for justices and equality for all while teaching his followers of equality, civil disobedience and nonviolence (Gardner, 1990) is one example of a transformation leader in his book who emphasizes that the success of a leader equates to the success of their followers. Furthermore, this leadership style is present in Coach Wooden’s book, which details his many personal stories of leadership as the Head Men’s Basketball coach at UCLA. Coach Wooden states, “[p]ut [your leadership style] to good use: Be what you want your team to become” (Wooden, 2005). Wooden’s taught his team valuable lessons of confidence, time management, and ethics, valuable for life both on and off the court. Wooden, much like Gardner, believes that great leadership and character will mold your followers into the
I have learned that leadership is much more than being able to make business decisions and having a group of people under one’s supervision. Leadership is a multifaceted position that encompasses that an individual who is or wants to be a leader must have self-confidence, embrace adversity, have a support system and trusting one’s decisions. These underlying characteristics to possess leadership are some that I have now and some that I am constantly working on to gain and