Wooden on Leadership Quotes

“You are not a failure until you start blaming others for your mistakes”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“Little things make the big things happen”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“I thought treating everyone the same was being fair and impartial. Gradually I began to suspect that it was neither fair nor impartial. In fact, it was just the opposite. That’s when I began announcing that team members wouldn’t be treated the same or alike; rather, each one would receive the treatment they earned and deserved.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“A strong leader accepts blame and gives the credit. A weak leader gives blame and accepts the credit.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“there are no big things, only a logical accumulation of little things done at a very high standard of performance.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.” –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“Work without joy is drudgery. Drudgery does not produce champions, nor does it produce great organizations.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“The teams that compete at the highest level love the thrill of the contest. They may have winning in their heads, but they have a love for the effort and struggle in their hearts.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“Never lie; never cheat; never steal. Don’t whine; don’t complain; don’t make excuses.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“As a leader you must be sincerely committed to what’s right rather than who’s right.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“The two qualities of Friendship so important for a leader to possess and instill in team members are respect and camaraderie.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“To my way of thinking, when you give your total effort—everything you have—the score can never make you a loser. And when you do less, it can’t somehow magically turn you into a winner.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“don’t worry about whether you’re better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best you can become. You have control over that; the other you don’t.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“You might find it easy to pay lip service to this concept, but it is most difficult to fully embrace it—to truly believe that the quality of your effort is the first measure of success, not the final score, promotion, salary, or all the rest. It is difficult but not impossible.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“How you practice is how you “play.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“Be a realistic optimist and remind yourself that things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“When you say you’ll do it, do it. Don’t give your word unless you intend to keep it.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“Success Breeds Satisfaction; Satisfaction Breeds Failure.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“not almost right, but completely right. It’s an attitude, a way of conducting business. A casual approach to executing the details of a job ensures that the job will be done poorly. And then another job will be done poorly. It grows.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“PERFECTION OF DETAILS MUST NOT COME AT THE EXPENSE OF EQUILIBRIUM”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“For the strength of the pack is the wolf; and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“I will not like you all the same, but I will love you all the same. And whether I like you or not, my feelings will not interfere with my judgment of your effort and performance. You will be treated fairly. That’s a promise.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“The star of every successful team is the team.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“Team Spirit—an eagerness to sacrifice personal interests or glory for the welfare of all—is a tangible driving force that transforms individuals who are “doing their jobs correctly” into an organization whose members are totally committed to working at their highest levels for the good of the group.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“There is a choice you have to make,
in everything you do.
So keep in mind that in the end,
the choice you make, makes you.
—Anon.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“Losing focus, giving a half-hearted effort, or quitting before the task is complete are all hallmarks of those who aspire to, but never acquire, success.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“when you punish your people for making a mistake or falling short of a goal, you create an environment of extreme caution, even fearfulness. In sports it’s similar to playing “not to lose”—a formula that often brings on defeat.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“The leader who has a fear of failure, who is afraid to act, seldom will face success.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization

“Is Easier to Instill with the Carrot. The best leaders perhaps understand this fact intuitively. Members of an organization always fearful of penalty and punishment are at a great disadvantage when competing against a team filled with pride. This is so particularly over the long haul.”
― John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization