The great basketball coach John Wooden passed away Friday at age 99. His successful career hold lessons for anyone charged with motivating others and leading a team. We drafted the following post for an edition of our bimonthly eNewsletter, the Atkinson Advisor, a few years ago, and thought it would be a good time to revisit Wooden's Pyramid of Success.

John Wooden’s accomplishments as a leader are legendary. Wooden coached UCLA for the last 27 years of his career. Here are the statistics:

From 1963 to 1974, Wooden’s UCLA teams also completed four undefeated seasons. No other Division I program has more than one.

How did Wooden’s team make the leap from good to record-breaking?

Wooden spent a number of years early in his career developing, experimenting with, and perfecting his Pyramid of Success. It defines 15 key behaviors that Wooden believes (and who would argure?) produce a highly successful team. The application of these behaviors manifested itself in UCLA’s unprecedented success.

The 15 behaviors in Wooden’s Pyramid of Success are:

• Industriousness 
• Enthusiasm 
• Friendship 
• Loyalty 
• Cooperation 
• Self-control 
• Alertness 
• Initiative 
• Intentness 
• Condition 
• Skill 
• Team spirit 
• Poise 
• Confidence 
• Competitive greatness

Download a copy of the pyramid.

Wooden’s website also includes an interactive version of the pyramid with a more detailed explanation of each behavior.

About the Author

Brannan Atkinson, APR, is president of Atkinson Public Relations.

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