Wooden's Wisdom | Leadership Resource Center

Issue 179 - A Person Who Trusts People Will Make Fewer Mistakes Than a Person Who Distrusts


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 4	Issue 179
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A PERSON WHO TRUSTS PEOPLE WILL MAKE FEWER MISTAKES THAN A PERSON WHO DISTRUSTS In his book with Steve Jamison, The Essential Wooden, Coach Wooden discussed the critical nature of building trust: When spring arrived each year in Indiana, the warming weather would slowly soften the ice covering a little pond near our farm. While the ice still looked safe and solid, strong enough to walk on, it was very dangerous. Some called it “rotten ice.” Step on it here, and you were fine; step on it there, and it would give way – you'd fall through. The ice was undependable. A leader who finds it difficult to abide by the Golden Rule is like that Indiana ice in springtime – undependable, untrustworthy. Without trust between a team and leader, there really is no team at all – just a collection of individuals who don't amount to much. Do not betray your team, and the team will not betray you. It begins with my father's teaching of the Golden Rule - “Do onto others as you would have them do unto you.” Abide by his model and you will find yourself leading a team of individuals who are loyal to you and whose bonds to the organization and its mission are sturdy. Loyalty is a two-way street. You must give it to receive it. Be fair, be just and be honest, and you will be a leader who inspires loyalty and who has the trust of those under your supervision. It is not possible for an organization to operate at consistently high levels in a competitive environment without loyalty to a leader who is, in turn, loyal to the team. Loyalty is not bought and sold. You earn it. Trust is needed as well. When you give it, you get it. Like loyalty, it must be earned. It may take years to build trust but it can be lost in a minute. It is precious. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Twitter: @woodenswisdom	COACH'S Favorite Poetry AND PROSE Character of the Happy Warrior WHO is the happy Warrior? Who is he What every man in arms should wish to be? —It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought: Whose high endeavours are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright: Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn, Abides by this resolve, and stops not there, But makes his moral being his prime care; Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! Turns his necessity to glorious gain; In face of these doth exercise a power Which is our human nature’s highest dower; Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives: By objects, which might force the soul to abate Her feeling, rendered more compassionate; Is placable—because occasions rise So often that demand such sacrifice; More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure, As tempted more; more able to endure, As more exposed to suffering and distress; Thence, also, more alive to tenderness. —’Tis he whose law is reason; who depends Upon that law as on the best of friends; Whence, in a state where men are tempted still To evil for a guard against worse ill, And what in quality or act is best Doth seldom on a right foundation rest, He labours good on good to fix, and owes To virtue every triumph that he knows: William Wordsworth
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