Wooden on Leadership explores the ways in which teamwork and collectivity can be harnessed to amplify success. Wooden’s treatment of this theme emphasizes the principle of whole-team inclusion over the heroization of star players and suggests that this approach has a deeper moral purpose for equality and shared worth.

Collaborative teamwork became strongly associated with Wooden during his nearly three decades as a college basketball coach. Teamwork and collaboration are deeply embedded in Wooden’s pyramid of success, the iconic diagram he created early in his career, consisting of 15 characteristics required for success. At the very base of the pyramid, the building blocks of friendship, loyalty, and cooperation provide a strong foundation. Regarding cooperation, he writes that “cooperation—the sharing of ideas, information, creativity, responsibilities, and tasks—is a priority of good leadership. The only thing that is not shared is blame” (29). In Chapter 1, Wooden establishes this principle, commenting that the “assist” in basketball—a pass that leads to another player scoring—epitomizes cooperation. He argues that “the assist is valuable in all organizations, helping someone do his or her job better. It makes producers out of everyone; it makes everyone feel ‘we did it ourselves’” (29).