Russell Rules: 11 Lessons on Leadership from the Twentieth Century's Greatest Winner

you are the only one who can define what is and isn’t right for you. It is essential that you recognize this because what you are after is the location of that place within yourself, yourself alone, that you will have to call on to choose right from wrong, wise from unwise, caring from uncaring or indifferent.

When listening is most productive, it is always about communication. It is two-sided even when one person is left to make a decision. It takes into account the words, the viewpoints, of others and then respects them. To be a good listener it is imperative that you become free enough of your own agenda to really hear someone else.

Winning had nothing to do with how good Cousy was, it had to do with our style of play with the players we had. That is the Celtic Pride tradition.

I imagined things that no one else

One final thought. Because I have gotten so much joy from the things I have done in my life, it has sometimes been hard to think that joy itself is a leadership quality. But it is. When a leader is obviously passionate and joyful in what he or she does, that is inevitably communicated. It sets a tone, a standard in which winning is not the only thi

I began by telling them that despite that so much had been written about me being the most unselfish player, I was the most egotistical player they would ever meet. All kinds of nervous smiles were coming back at me from people who were not sure what was coming next. These smiles disappeared when I said, “Do you know the difference between your ego

We won all those championships in part because we knew how to let other teams’ stars do their thing and at the same time take that style of play and convert it to our advantage. My battles with Wilt; our series against the great Bob Pettit; the games we played against “The Big O,” Oscar Robertson, one of the greatest players ever; and, of course, o

Commitment means a willingness to put up with adversity, uncertainty, even failure.

What has to be understood about toughness is that it is necessary only because a team, a business, a family, cannot exist without core leadership. Decisions can be made in many ways, top-down or democratically, but ultimately there must be responsibility for decision-making.