The U.S. Naval Institute on Naval Leadership

“Wheel books” were once found in the uniform pockets of virtually all junior officers and many senior petty officers. Each small notebook was unique to the Sailor carrying it, but all had in common a collection of data and wisdom that the individual deemed useful in the effective execution of his or her duties. Often used as a substitute for experience among neophytes and as a portable library of reference information for more experienced personnel, those weathered pages contained everything from the time of the next tide, to leadership hints from a respected chief petty officer, to the color coding of the phone-and-distance line used in underway replenishments.In that same tradition, the Naval Institute has created and aptly named the Wheel Book series, portable libraries culled from USNI’s vast array of information that has accumulated for more than a century. Articles from the Institute’s flagship publication Proceedings are combined with selections from USNI’s oral history program and from Naval Institute Press books to create unique guides on a wide array of relevant professional subjects.Just as the “wheel books” of yesterday served the fleet well, the Naval Institute Wheel Books of today provide supplemental information, pragmatic advice, and cogent analysis on topics important to modern naval professionals. Recognizing that leadership is vital to any functioning organization of people, the Naval Institute has devoted countless pages of its publications to the subject of naval leadership, providing start-up guidance to neophytes, giving voice to the accumulated wisdom and experience of those who have led, and serving as a forum in search of answers to the many questions that have always been a part of this vital but sometimes elusive practice. In these pages are some of the more outstanding examples of this wealth of knowledge, gathered here for the use of both would-be and seasoned leaders in the never-ending quest for better leadership.