Four keys to developing great leaders
Everyone is a teacher to someone. Celebrities, athletes, and people in the public spotlight may not want to be seen as a role model; But they are.
You too. With your family, the people you work with, and within your community. The lessons we teach others by the way we live our daily lives speak louder than any ad campaign.
One person who has been hailed as the “winningest coach” of all time, John Wooden, saw himself more as a teacher than a coach.
“Knowledge is not enough.”
Coach Wooden in his early years as a basketball coach at Dayton High School said, “I was a leader who couldn’t teach but didn’t know.” His team was having a losing season. He had “knowledge” and experience about the game and knew the essentials, but did not know “how to teach it”. In his Pyramid of Success, the Trainer calls knowledge “Skill” and puts it “at the heart” of his Pyramid.
Teach students how to do it!
Coach said, his former coach at Martinsville High School, Glenn Curtis had the skill and knew “how to teach.” The coach said: “Knowledge is not enough. You must be able to effectively transfer what you know to those you manage.not only the basic material, but also their standards, values, ideals, beliefs, as well as their way of doing things. Above all, you must teach those under your leadership how to become a real team rather than a group of people who simply work in the same place for the same boss. All this is only possible if you know how to teach ”.
Coach Wooden’s Four Principles of Effective Teaching:
As an English teacher, Coach learned to teach by dividing “teaching into a set of four components: demonstration, imitation, correction and repetition. These four principles are the key to effective teaching. “
Lessons: Teach with patience.
Coach Wooden said, “The mistakes that a leader, a fair, informed, and patient teacher fixes quickly disappear. There is something inherently simple, noble, and modest about a leader who sees his role as a teacher, not a teacher.” chief. The role of the teacher is to help the student to do his best; a boss believes that his employees help the organization to achieve its goals. The coach wanted his players to know that they were working with him, not for him. “
One of my first teachers was my grandmother Mary Chernick Leader. When I was seven, Grandma Mary came to visit us. When she found she couldn’t read, she quietly sat next to me and patiently pointed to the page in my book and read a line on the page, each word ringing to me. He then asked me to repeat that line slowly and carefully pronouncing each word and then asked me to try the next line in the same way. Grandma enjoyed reading and explained to me how you could visit any part of the world and go on an adventure reading a book.
At a nearby table, Grandma had a large Hershey’s chocolate bar and a small bottle of soda. For each page I read, pronouncing the words correctly, my grandmother gave me a piece of chocolate and a sip of soda as a reward for a good job. This was our “little secret” since my mom never allowed soda or chocolate in the house.
Grandma taught me to read with kindness and patience. If I made a mistake, he would say to me in a low voice: “Mimi, say it slowly. Try again, you can do it!”
She was a fierce reader who devoured newspapers, biographies, and loved doing crossword puzzles. These efforts kept her mentally sharp and aided her in her efforts to teach me to read.
Coach Wooden led by example: “Action speaks louder than words.”
Coach Wooden said, “I used to smoke cigarettes when I was a young high school coach in South Bend. I stopped smoking during basketball season to set a good example, but then I was also setting an example by smoking, a bad one. So to give up. “I felt that my example meant more than my words.”
Leadership captures more than it teaches. Practice what you preach.
One of Coach Wooden’s favorite poems that helped him quit smoking was written in the mid-1930s:
“No written word, no spoken plea can teach our young people what they should be. Not all the books on all the shelves, is what the teachers are themselves.”
When I was 17 years old, I attended Virginia Commonwealth University, VCU, as a full scholarship student in violin. As part of the scholarship obligation, I played my violin as a member of the Richmond Symphony, studied and excelled in my freshman classes, and helped Professor Peter Zaret, my violin teacher, teach his adult violin class.
Music education students were required to take a class on learning to play the violin for credit.
Before attending VCU, I had performed at Carnegie Hall, 4 months prior, I graduated from high school at the North Carolina School of Performing Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and graduated with my high school diploma and my Diploma of Violin Performance. That summer I performed and studied at the Wolf Trap Music Festival in Vienna, Virginia, on a full scholarship.
When teaching Professor Zaret’s class of beginning adult learners, they needed to learn the following:
-How to stand tall and straight and balance on your feet, how to hold the violin and bow, how to make a sound on the violin by pulling the bow through the string, and finally where to place your fingers on the violin to play simple money.
We started the class from scratch: Balance of feet
Step 1: I first demonstrated for beginning adult violin students how to stand tall and straight with their shoulders down and balance their feet like a tree with the roots down.
I also demonstrated how to bend my left and right arms from the elbows keeping them close to the body.
Step 2: Then each student took a turn by imitation, how he or she stood tall and upright, swinging their feet and bending their arms from their elbows keeping them close to the body.
Step 3: Then, going around the room once more, I made corrections showing each person the little details that were missing.
Step 4: Each student again showed by repetition how they should stand tall and straight, balance their feet, and bend their elbows keeping their shoulders down.
Each step was done with patience and paying attention to the smallest detail.
Our next step was to hold the violin. I showed them how to hold the violin with the shoulders down, bending the arms at the elbow. We follow our four steps: demonstration, imitation, correction, and repetition.
We begin the process again this time by learning to hold the violin bow.
Step 1: I showed them demonstrating how to hold my bow by making a loose fist keeping the thumb and fingers curled and placing the fingers at the bottom of the bow called a frog. The fingers are close together with the thumb and second finger touching in an oval shape.
Step 2: Each violin student, as he walked around the room, imitated how he had shown them to do so. As each student took their turn, they observed how the other students did. One student had huge hands and had trouble holding the bow. I had him make a loose fist, curling and bending his fingers, and then wrapping his fingers around the bow.
Step 3: Next, going around the room one more time, I made corrections by showing each person the little details they needed for a good position to hold their bows.
Step 4: Each student again showed by repetition how they held their bows.
Each step was done with patience and paying attention to the smallest detail.
Our next step was to make a clear sound on the violin with the bow: I showed them how to put their bows on the violin string, drop their elbows a little to put weight on the string, and get a sound out of the violin leaning on the string with your index finger on the bow and pulling the bow through the string to vibrate the string.
Each violin student, as he walked around the room, imitated how he had shown them to do so. When they were having difficulty, he would ask them to lean on the string with their index finger on the bow, lowering the elbow slightly with a little added weight.
Then, going around the room one more time, I made corrections by showing each person the small details they needed to make a clear and focused sound.
Our last step was repetition, repeating the process over and over to practice making a clear and smooth sound. I reminded them to practice what we were working on so that they would improve in the next lesson.
Each step was done with patience and paying attention to the smallest detail.
Coach Wooden said, “You haven’t taught until they have learned.”
Dr. Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
By being a role model and adding the four components of Coach Wooden teaching – demonstration, imitation, correction, and repetition – to your daily life, you will become a better and more effective leader, coach, mentor, parent, friend, and teacher.
Andrew Hill and Coach Wooden said, “Remember, corrections should not be made in anger, and if you wait to correct behavior until you are angry, it will be difficult to strip your feelings of your comments. But mistakes that are corrected with a leader – a teacher – who is fair, informed, and patient disappears quickly. There is also something intrinsically simple, noble, and modest about a leader who sees his or her role as teacher, not boss. The role of the teacher is to help the student be his or her best; a boss believes that his employees help the boss to achieve his own goals. “
Andrew Hill said: “Coach Wooden wanted his players to know they were working with him, not for him.” Remember, whether you are a leader, boss, coach, or parent, you want the people you are working with to feel like they are “working with” you, not for you!
So who will you guide and help improve their skills with the teaching components of Coach Wooden 4? Get started today!