Wooden and Lyon
A Comparison of Leadership Styles
By Eric Reed
Throughout my interview with General William Lyon I was amazed at how many of the
leadership principals mentioned in John Wooden’s book “Wooden on Leadership” were
shared by the General.
While many leadership principals are both timeless and universal, I couldn’t help but
notice that both Lyon and Wooden are both of the same generation (also referred to as
“The Greatest Generation”. A term coined by Tom Brokaw in his book by the same
name). I wondered if perhaps these two leader’s similarity in leadership styles could also
be attributed to the characteristics of their generation.
Mr. Brokaw’s book provides several “real life” stories of individuals from “The greatest
Generation”. They’re characterized as starting off with very little (also known as
“depression babies”) but hard-working, selfless and humble. They’re also noted for
having strong values and principals Based on my interview with Lyon and after reading
Wooden’s book I believe these characteristics describe both men.
Wooden – “Adversity Is your Asset”
Lyon – “Never Give Up”
Wooden begins his chapter on “Adversity is your Asset” with a quote: “Things turn out
best for those who make the best of how things turn out”. He discusses how life is full of
adversity that you cannot control. However you can control your response to adversity.
He goes on to say, “That response becomes all important because fate plays such a
profound role in much of what we do in life and leadership.” It’s easy to blame “fate” and
give up, but the strong leader “ignores the temptation” and instead learns from the
challenges and improves. Wooden takes it one step further and advises that leaders (and
people in general) should “expect” the “rough patches” and you should let them make
you stronger.
Lyon’s leadership principal of “Never Give Up” matches Wooden’s principal closely.
Even though Lyon listed several adversities while he was in school (and even stated that
he “felt like a failure” in school) he refused to simply give up. Instead, he turned this
adversity into his motivation to succeed in life - He “Never (Gave) Up”! Lyon has faced
adversity his entire life and continues to face adversity today as he leads his
homebuilding company in one of the worst economic periods ever for the home-building
industry.
Wooden – “Lead with Love”
Lyon – “You must make a commitment to care about your people more then anyone
else”
Wooden believes that you must, “have love in your heart for the people under your
leadership”. You need to demonstrate your care and concern for the people that report to
you. He explains that nobody really cares how much you know, until they know how
much you care. By showing how much you care you will earn your employee’s respect.
If you respect your employees they will respect you.
I was surprised that one of the first leadership principals that Lyon mentioned in our
interview was, “You must make a commitment to care about your people more then any
one else”. I had always assumed that a military general would have a colder more
impersonal style of leadership. Lyon described how this “care” shapes the work
environment. His son left to go work for one of his competitors for about a year (Lyon is
actually friends with the owner of this competitor and they both agreed that it would be
healthy for his son to learn outside of his father’s company). After working there for
about a year and then returning to Lyon’s company, his son told him that there was a
“noticeable difference” in the atmosphere of the other company. At Lyon’s company, the
atmosphere (while still productive and professional) was more like a family. The other
company, in his son’s opinion, was colder and the employees were less likely to go out of
their way to help each other.
Lyon gave another example of an employee they had recently laid off after working for
them over 15 years. The employee came to see Lyon after he was laid off and asked if he
would hire him back when business started picking up again. Lyon told him, “Absolutely!
You will be one of the first that we hire back”. The lesson learned from Lyon and
Wooden is that when you truly care and love your employees they will be more loyal and
more willing to go “above and beyond” for you your company.
Wooden – “A good demonstration Tops a Great Description”
Lyon – “Have your management understand the problem and then take they through the
steps for the solution.”
Wooden states that as a leader you have to be a great teacher. You need to teach those
under your leadership to perform to the best of their ability. Too many leaders simply
“tell” their employees what to do rather then teaching them “how” to do it. Wooden
discusses the “laws of learning: explanation, demonstration, imitation, correction (when
necessary) and then repetition”. While focusing on demonstration he believes that,
“What you do counts for more then what you say”. This closely follows another popular
saying, “Action speaks louder then words”. His point being that you can verbally teach
your employees a skill, process or philosophy, but it is far more effective to demonstrate
what you are trying to teach.
One of the key leadership principals that stands out in my interview with Lyon is the
AirCal turnaround example in which he demonstrated: “Have your management
understand the problem and then take them through the steps for the solution.”. He
explains how he got the management team to visualize the resources needed to fly each
plane for the minimum expense. He was demonstrating a process to his management
team.
Lyon could have easily come into the room and told the management team. “Okay here is
what we are going to do. Now I need you each to go out and execute my instructions”.
But rather then doing this he used the same leadership principal that Wooden used by
demonstrating how they will reduce their expenses. Not only was this effective in
“demonstrating” to the management team how to work through a problem, it also brought
them through the logic of the solution (in a step-by-step manner) so they could see for
themselves that it was the right decision. They also became “co-owners” of the solution
which allowed Lyon to gain greater concessions from management and the pilots to
restore profitability to the airline. Wooden and Lyon believe that to be a great leader you
must also be a great teacher. And to be a great teacher you must demonstrate your vision,
your work habits, your solutions and your values to those who follow.
Wooden – “Its tough to coach character”
Lyon – “You need to „weed out‟ the „bad apples‟ in your organization or their bad
attitudes and/or habits will spread to other workers.”
While you can teach skills you cannot teach character. Character is either inherent or
learned early in life. Wooden makes the point that if a basketball player has poor
character, he simply did not recruit them for his team. He gives an example of a very
talented basketball player and his mother who met with him in order to be considered for
a scholarship on the UCLA basketball team. The boy was very disrespectful to his
mother. Wooden wondered, “If he couldn‟t respect her, how could he possible respect me
when things got tough?” He quickly ended the meeting and never offered the scholarship.
Lyon also discussed employees that were what he calls, “bad apples”. He believes that for
the health of an organization you must “weed them out” quickly or their bad habits may
spread. Similar to what Wooden was saying, Lyon thought that these individuals were not
teachable. They did not have the character to be good workers and Lyon was concerned
that if their behavior was tolerated other may also adopt their poor habits and attitudes.
These are just a few of the leadership principals that are shared by Wooden and Lyon. I
was so struck by the similarities of these two men that I sent a copy of Wooden’s book to
Lyon along with my “thank you” card for the interview. In my card I told Lyon that
Wooden held many of the same leadership principals that he did.
I was pleased to have had the opportunity to interview Lyon and to read Wooden’s book
on leadership. I’ve already started applying many of these leadership principals to my
daily life. Its was nice to have these principals clearly outlined and to have these two men
serve as excellent examples of great leaders.