Wooden's Wisdom | Leadership Resource Center

Issue 294 - Parenting and Leadership


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 6	Issue 294
Craig Impelman Speaking \| Championship Coaches \| Champion's Leadership Library Login
PARENTING AND LEADERSHIP Click here to watch Coach John Wooden video clip. In his book Wooden on Leadership, with Steve Jamison, Coach Wooden discussed the parallels of good parenting and good leadership. A leader in sports, business or any other field of endeavor should possess and provide the same qualities inherent in a good parent: character, consistency, dependability, accountability, knowledge, good judgment, selflessness, respect, courage, discipline, fairness and structure. And while all of these will make you a good leader, they will not make you a great leader. For that, one additional quality - perhaps the most important of all - is necessary. Although it may sound out of place in the rough-and-tumble context of sports or corporate competition, I believe you must have love in your heart for the people under your leadership. Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. Caring is not just codling. In his book A Game Plan for Life with Don Yaeger, Coach expanded on this idea: President Lincoln said, "The worst things you can do for those you love are the things they could and should do for themselves." It is only natural for us to want to shield our students and our children from anything that might possibly cause them hurt or to suffer or even to be uncomfortable. But some degree of pain is necessary for a person to become suited for the responsibilities that lay ahead. We, as parents, I think, deprive our children (the ones we love the most and want to help the most) of the development of initiative by making decisions for them too long in certain areas. Give them the opportunity to fail. Let them learn from it so they won't make that same mistake over again when you are not there, telling them what or what not to do. As a parent or a leader, the example we set is our best teacher. We can’t truly teach character traits we don’t model. Coach said: "If children grow up in an atmosphere of respect and appreciation between their parents, they will conduct the relationships in their lives on similar terms. After all, our parents are almost universally the first adults with whom we have any long-term contact. Their behavior first indicates to us how people should act toward one another." If we expect those that we parent or supervise to act with self-control, we must maintain self-control ourselves. Great parents don’t criticize each other in front of their children, great coaches don’t criticize each other in front of their players and great managers don’t criticize each other in front of their employees. Coach added: "There is always someone you can reach with your life. Example is the best teacher. It's the key. It is something we all can do." Who are you teaching? What are you teaching them? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 294. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 294. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE IDEALS Better than land or gold or trade Are a high ideal and a purpose true; Better than all of the wealth we've made Is the work for others that now we do. For Rome grew rich and she turned to song And danced to music and drank her wine, But she sapped the strength of her fibres strong And a gilded shroud was her splendor fine. The Rome of old with its wealth and wine Was the handiwork of a sturdy race; They builded well and they made it fine And they dreamed of it as their children's place. They thought the joys they had won to give, And which seemed so certain and fixed and sure, To the end of time in the world would live And the Rome they'd fashioned would long endure. They passed to their children the hoarded gold, Their marble halls and their fertile fields! But not the spirit of Rome of old, Nor the Roman courage that never yields. They left them the wealth that their hands had won, But they failed to leave them a purpose true. They left them thinking life's work all done, And Rome went down and was lost to view. We must guard ourselves lest we follow Rome. We must leave our children the finer things. We must teach them love of the spot called home And the lasting joy that a purpose brings. For vain are our Flag and our battles won, And vain are our lands and our stores of gold, If our children feel that life's work is done. We must give them a high ideal to hold. Edgar Albert Guest (1881 to 1959)
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