During my 27-day vacation to the Philippines, I brought along this book with me and intended to tackle one law at a time every day. I did it and I wanted to share it to everyone. Below is the synopsis that I found on web [I think this is the old version]. I underlined a lot of text in the book but too lazy to copy it here.
To me, everyone is a leader. We somehow lead somebody – be it a child, a daughter, a son, a spouse, a family, a co-worker or a barangay, a town, a city, a group or an organization or a nation or our personal life. If you have to skim the synopsis, feel free to do so but do not skip the Law of Solid Ground. This is where the success/failure of leadership starts. It should be written as Law #1.
Recently, I’ve been bothered by a few couples with broken trust. I just learned that it will take a great amount of effort/energy/patience to restore the broken trust. It is doable to reestablish the trust back but the recovery will take time because it requires a change of character [a complete overhaul of one self]
Leadership in Action
Editors: John Mohr and Rich Clampitt
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership [MindMap]
By John Maxwell
As you learn about the laws of leadership, keep in mind these four ideas:
1. The laws can be learned. Some are easier to understand and apply than others, but every one of them can be acquired.
2. The laws can stand alone. Each law complements all the others, but you don‟t need one in order to learn another.
3. The laws carry consequences with them. Apply the laws, and people will follow you. Violate or ignore them, and you will not be able to lead others.
4. These laws are the foundation of leadership. Once you learn the principles, you have to practice them and apply them to your life.
The Law of the Lid
Leadership ability is the lid that determines a person‟s level of effectiveness. The lower an individual‟s ability to lead, the lower the lid on his/her potential. The higher the leadership, the greater the effectiveness. Your leadership ability — for better or for worse —always determines your effectiveness and the potential impact of your organization.
A person‟s impact is only a fraction of what it could be with good leadership. The higher you want to climb, the more you need leadership. The greater the impact you want to make, the greater your influence needs to be. Whatever you will accomplish is restricted by your ability to lead others.
Wherever you look, you can find smart, talented, successful people who are able to go only so far because of the limitations of their leadership.
Don Stephenson, the chairman of Global Hospitality Resources, Inc., of San Diego, Calif., an international hospitality advisory and consulting firm…said that whenever they came into an organization to take it over, they always started by doing two things: First, they trained the staff to improve their level of service to the customers; and second, they fired the leader. The good news is that getting rid of the leader isn‟t the only way.
The Law of Influence
If you don‟t have influence, you will never be able to lead others.…titles don‟t have much value when it comes to leading. True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that can‟t be mandated. It must be earned. The only thing a title can buy is a little time — either to increase your level of influence with others or to erase it.
A widespread misunderstanding is that leading and managing are one in the same. The main difference between the two is that leadership is about influencing people to follow, while management focuses on maintaining systems and processes.
The best way to test whether a person can lead rather than just manage is to ask them to create positive change. Managers can maintain direction, but they can‟t change it. To move people in a new direction, you need influence.
Sir Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge is power.” Most people believing this is the essence of leadership, naturally assume that those who possess knowledge and intelligence are leaders. But that isn‟t automatically true. IQ doesn‟t necessarily equate to leadership.
Another misconception is that anyone who is out in front of the crowd is a leader. But being first isn‟t always the same as leading. To be a leader, a person has to not only be out front, but also have people intentionally coming behind them, following the lead, and acting on the vision.
In business, bosses have tremendous leverage in the form of salary, benefits, and perks. But in voluntary organizations, such as churches, the only thing that works is leadership in its purest form. If you are a businessperson and you really want to find out whether your people are capable of leading, send them out to volunteer their time in the community. If they can get people to follow them while they‟re serving at the Red Cross, a United Way shelter, or their local church, then you know that they really do have influence — and leadership ability.
“He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.”
The Law of Process
Becoming a leader is a lot like investing successfully in the stock market. If you hope to make a fortune in a day, you‟re not going to be successful. What matters is what you do day by day over the long haul.
Leadership is complicated. It has many facets: respect, experience, emotional strength, people skills, discipline, vision, momentum, timing — the list goes on…many factors that come into play in leadership are intangible. That‟s why leaders require so much seasoning to be effective.
The relationship between growth and leadership is this: “It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from their followers.” Successful leaders are learners. The goal each day must be to get a little better, to build on the previous day‟s progress.
The Four Phases of Leadership Growth:
Phase 1 I don’t know what I don’t know. As long as a person doesn‟t know what he doesn‟t know, he doesn‟t grow.
Phase 2 I know what I don’t know. “To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.” — Benjamin Disraeli
Phase 3 Grow and know and it starts to show. Read books, listen to tapes regularly. And keep attending seminars. And whenever you come across a golden nugget of truth or a significant quote, file it away for the future.
Phase 4 I simply go because of what I know. If you want to be a leader, the good news is that you can do it. Everyone has the potential, but it isn‟t accomplished overnight. It requires perseverance. And you absolutely cannot ignore the law of Process. Leaderships doesn‟t develop in a day. It takes a lifetime.
The Law of Navigation
The truth is that nearly anyone can steer the ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. Leaders who navigate do even more than control the direction in which they and their people travel. They see the whole trip in their minds before they leave the dock. They have a vision for their destination, they understand what it will take to get there, they know who they‟ll need on the team to be successful, and they recognize the obstacles long before they appear on the horizon.
“A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others do.” Leroy Eims
The larger the organization, the more clearly the leader has to be able to see ahead. That‟s true because sheer size makes midcourse corrections more difficult.
Before leaders take their people on a journey, they go through a process in order to give the trip the best chance of being a success:
Navigators draw on past experience. Successes teach you about yourself and what you‟re capable of doing with your particular gifts and talents. Failures show you what kinds of wrong assumptions you‟ve made and where your methods are flawed.
Navigators listen to what others have to say. Top-notch navigators gather information from many sources. They get ideas from members of their leadership team. They talk to the people in their organization to find out what‟s happening on the grassroots level. And they spend time with leaders from outside the organization who can mentor them.
Navigators examine the conditions before making commitments. Good navigators count the cost before making commitments for themselves and others.
Navigators make sure their conclusions represent both faith and fact. Being able to navigate for others requires a leader to possess a positive attitude. On the other hand, you also have to be able to see the facts realistically. Sometimes it‟s difficult balancing optimism and realism, intuition and planning, faith and fact. But that‟s what it takes to be effective as a navigating leader.
If leaders can‟t navigate the people through rough waters, they are liable to sink the ship.
An acrostic for charting the course:
PLAN AHEAD
Predetermine a course of action.
Lay out your goals.
Adjust your priorities.
Notify key personnel.
Allow time for acceptance.
Head into action.
Expect problems.
Always points to the successes.
Daily review your plan.
Major barriers to successful planning are fear of change, ignorance, uncertainty about the future, and lack of imagination. When you prepare well, you convey confidence and trust to the people.
The Law of E. F. Hutton
The real leader holds the power, not just the position.
“Being in power is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren‟t.” — Margaret Thatcher
Don‟t listen to the claims of the person professing to be the leader. Instead, watch the reactions of the people around him/her. The proof of leadership is found in the followers.
People become leaders because of:
Who they are. True leadership always begins with the inner person.
Relationships — who they know. You‟re a leader only if you have followers, and that always requires the development of relationships. The deeper the relationships, the stronger the potential for leadership.
Knowledge — what they know. You need a grasp of the facts, an understanding of the factors involved, and a vision for the future. Knowledge alone won‟t make someone a leader, but without it, he/she can‟t become one. I always spent a lot of time doing homework before I tried to lead an organization.
Intuition — what they feel. Leadership requires more than a command of data. It demands an ability to deal with numerous intangibles.
Experience — where they’ve been.
Past success — what they’ve done.
Ability —what they can do.
People listen not necessarily because of the truth being communicated in the message, but because of their respect for the speaker.
The Law of Solid Ground
Trust is the foundation of leadership. To develop trust, a leader must exemplify these qualities: competence, connection, and character. Leaders without inner strength can‟t be counted on day after day because their ability to perform changes constantly. If your people don‟t know what to expect from you as a leader, at some point they won‟t look to you for leadership.
When a leader‟s character is strong, people trust them, and they trust in their ability to release their potential. That not only gives followers hope for the future, but it also promotes a strong belief in themselves and their organization.
How do leaders earn respect? By making sound decisions, admitting their mistakes, and putting what‟s best for their followers and the organization ahead of their personal agendas.
The greatest test of respect comes when a leader creates major change in an organization.
The Law of Intuition
The law of intuition is based on facts plus instinct and other intangible factors. And the reality is that leadership intuition is often the factor that separates the greatest leaders from the merely good ones.
Some people are born with great leadership intuition. Others have to work hard to develop and hone it. But either way it evolves, the result is a combination of natural ability and learned skills. This informed intuition causes leadership issues to jump out. The best way to describe this bias is an ability to get a handle on intangible factors, understand them, and work with them to accomplish leadership goals.
Leaders have the ability to step back from what‟s happening at the moment and see not only where they and their people have gone, but where they are headed in the future.
A major difference between achievers and leaders is the way they see resources. Successful individuals think in terms of what they can do. Successful leaders, on the other hand, see every situation in terms of available resources: money, raw materials, technology, and most important, people. They never forget that people are their greatest asset.
Intuitive leaders can sense what‟s happening among people and almost instantly know their hopes, fears and concerns.
Good leaders develop the ability to read themselves — their strengths, skills, weaknesses, and current state of mind. They recognize the truth of what James Russell Lovell said: “No one can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.
The Law of Magnetism
What will determine whether the people (employees) you want are the people you get? Believe it or not, who you get is not determined by what you want. It‟s determined by who you are. In most situations, you draw people to you who possess the same qualities you do. That‟s the law of magnetism: Who you are is who you attract.
Good leaders know that one secret to success is to staff their weaknesses. That way they can focus and function in their areas of strength while others take care of the important matters that would otherwise be neglected. But it‟s crucial to recognize that people who are different will not naturally be attracted to you. Leaders draw people who are like themselves.
…the people who follow you share common ground in several of these key areas:
Attitude: Rarely have I seen positive and negative people attracted to one another. People who view life as a series of opportunities and exciting challenges don‟t want to hear others talk about how bad things are all the time.
Generation: People tend to attract others of roughly the same age.
Background.
Values: People are attracted to leaders whose values are similar to their own. Whatever character you possess you will likely find in the people who follow you.
Life experience.
Leadership ability: The people you attract will have leadership ability similar to your own.
If you think the people you attract could be better, then it‟s time for you to improve yourself.
The Law of Connection
Some leaders have problems with the Law of Connection because they believe that connecting is the responsibility of followers. But successful leaders who obey the Law of Connection are always initiators. They take the first step with others and then make the effort to continue building relationships. That‟s not always easy, but it‟s important to the success of the organization. A leader has to do it, no matter how many obstacles there might be.
When a leader has done the work to connect with his/her people, you can see it in the way the organization functions. Among employees there are incredible loyalty and a strong work ethic.
Don‟t ever underestimate the importance of building relational bridges between yourself and the people you lead. There‟s an old saying: To lead yourself, use your head; to lead others, use your heart.
The Law of the Inner Circle
Every leader‟s potential is determined by the people closest to them. If those people are strong, then the leader can make a huge impact. If they are weak, he/she can‟t. That is the Law of the Inner Circle.
You should try to bring five types of people into your inner circle:
Potential value — those who raise up themselves.
Positive value — those who raise morale in the organization.
Personal value — those who raise up the leader.
Production value — those who raise up others.
Proven value — those who raise up people who raise up other people.
The Law of Empowerment
Only secure leaders are able to give power to others. The people‟s capacity to achieve is determined by their leader‟s ability to empower.
Why do some leaders violate the Law of Empowerment?
Desire for job security. If you are able to continually empower others and help them develop so that they become capable of taking over your job, you will become so valuable to the organization that you become indispensable. That‟s a paradox of the Law of Empowerment.
Resistance to change. By its very nature, empowerment brings constant change because it encourages people to grow and innovate. Change is the price of progress.
Lack of self-worth. Many people gain their personal value and esteem from their work or position. Threaten to change either of them, and you threaten their self-worth. Author Buck Rogers says, “To those who have confidence in themselves, change is a stimulus because they believe one person can make a difference and influence what goes on around them. These people are the doers and the motivators.” They are also the empowerers.
Only secure leaders are able to give themselves away. Mark Twain once remarked that great things can happen when you don‟t care who gets the credit. But you can take that a step farther. I believe the greatest things happen only when you give others the credit. That‟s the Law of Empowerment in action.
A key to empowering others is high belief in people. The truth is that empowerment is powerful — not only for the person being developed, but also for the mentor. Enlarging others makes you feel larger.
The Law of Reproduction
…a few people step into leadership because their organization experiences a crisis, and they are compelled to do something about it. Another small group is comprised of people with such great gifting and instincts that they are able to navigate their way into leadership on their own. But more than four out of five of all the leaders that you ever meet have emerged as leaders because of the impact made on them by established leaders who mentored them.
People cannot give to others what they themselves do not possess.
Only secure leaders give power to others.
Spend time with the best leaders you can find.
An eagle environment is where the leader casts a vision, offers incentives, encourages creativity, allows risks, and provides accountability.
If a company has poor leaders, what little leadership it has will only get worse. If a company has strong leaders, and they are reproducing themselves, then the leadership just keeps getting better and better.
It all starts at the top because it takes a leader to raise up another leader. Followers can‟t do it. Neither can institutional programs.
The Law of Buy-In
The most remarkable thing about Gandhi isn‟t that he became the leader of India, but that he was able to change the people‟s vision for obtaining freedom. Gandhi challenged the people to meet oppression with peaceful disobedience and noncooperation. Rallying everyone to his way of thinking wasn‟t easy. But because the people had come to buy into him as their leader, they embraced his vision. And once they had embraced the vision, they were able to carry it out. That‟s how the Law of Buy-In works. The leader finds the dream and then the people. The people find the leader, then the dream.
…many people who approach the area of vision in leadership have it all backward. They believe that if the cause is good enough, people will automatically buy into it and follow. But that‟s not how leadership really works. They follow worthy leaders who promote worthwhile causes.
…if they have not built their credibility with their people, it really doesn‟t matter how great a vision they have.
Every message that people receive is filtered through the messenger who delivers it. If you consider the messenger to be credible, then you believe the message has value.
You cannot separate leaders from the cause they promote. Even though people may think a cause is good, if they don‟t like the leader, they will go out and find another one.
When followers like the leader and the vision, they will get behind both. When followers don‟t agree with their leader‟s vision, they react in many ways. Sometimes they work to convince the leaders to change their vision. Sometimes they abandon their point of view and adopt the leaders‟. Often times they compromise. But as long as they still buy into the leader, they won‟t out-and-out reject them. They will keep following.
As a leader, you don‟t earn any points for failing in a noble cause. You don‟t get credit for being “right.” Your success is measured by your ability to actually take the people where they need to go. But you can do that only if the people first buy into you as a leader.
The Law of Victory
Abraham Lincoln never forgot that the nation‟s victory was his highest priority, ahead of his pride, reputation and personal comfort. He surrounded himself with the best leaders possible, empowered his generals, and was never afraid to give others credit for the victories the Union gained.
Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, never seemed to make victory his priority. When he should have been thinking like a revolutionary, he worked like a bureaucrat. When he should have been delegating authority and decision making to his generals — the best in the land — he spent his time micromanaging them. And worst of all, he was more concerned with being right than with winning the war. Historian David M. Potter says of Davis, “He used an excessive share of his energy in contentious and even litigious argument to prove he was right. He seemed to feel that if he were right that was enough; that it was more important to vindicate his own rectitude than to get results.”
Teams succeed only when the players have a unified vision, no matter how much talent or potential there is. A team doesn‟t win the championship if its players have different agendas.
Unity of vision doesn‟t happen spontaneously. The right players with the proper diversity of talents don‟t come together on their own. It takes a leader to make those things happen, and it takes a leader to provide the motivation, empowerment, and direction required to win.
Leaders who practice the Law of Victory believe that anything less than success is unacceptable. And they have no Plan B. That keeps them fighting.
The Law of the Big MO
…strong leaders understand that to change direction, you first have to create forward progress—and that takes the Law of the Big Mo. It takes a leader to create momentum. Followers catch it. And managers are able to continue it once it has begun. But creating it requires someone who can motivate others, not who needs to be motivated.
When you have no momentum, even the simplest tasks can seem to be insurmountable problems. But when you have momentum on your side, the future looks bright, obstacles appear small, and trouble seems temporary. With enough momentum, nearly any kind of change is possible.
The Law of Priorities
Leaders never grow to a point where they no longer need to prioritize.
“A leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, „Wrong jungle!‟” — Stephen Covey
If you focus your attention on the activities that rank in the top 20 percent in terms of importance, you will have an 80 percent return on your effort.
To be effective, leaders must order their lives according to these three questions:
What is required? Your list of priorities must always begin with what is required of you.
What gives the greatest return?
What brings the greatest reward?
Successful leaders live according to the Law of Priorities. They recognize that activity is not necessarily accomplishment.
The Law of Sacrifice
“Leadership means setting an example. When you find yourself in a position of leadership, people follow your every move.” Lee Iacocca
Many people today want to climb up the corporate ladder because they believe that freedom and power are prizes waiting at the top. They don‟t realize that the true nature of leadership is really sacrifice.
When you become a leader, you lose the right to think about yourself.
“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else; and for everything you gain, you lose something.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Law of Timing
Great leaders recognize that when to lead is as important as what to do and where to go. Every time a leader makes a move, there are really only four outcomes that can result:
The wrong action at the wrong time leads to disaster
The right action at the wrong time brings resistance
The wrong action at the right time is a mistake
The right action at the right time
When leaders do the right things at the right time, success is almost inevitable. People, principles, and processes converge to make an incredible impact. And the results touch not only the leader, but also the followers and the whole organization.
If leaders repeatedly show poor judgement, even in little things, people start to think that having them as the leaders is the real mistake.
Reading a situation and knowing what to do are not enough to make you succeed in leadership. Only the right action at the right time will bring success. Anything else exacts a high price.
The Law of Explosive Growth
Leaders who develop followers grow their organization only one person at a time. But leaders who develop leaders multiply their growth, because for every leader they develop, they also receive all of that leader‟s followers. That‟s the difference between addition and multiplication. It‟s like growing your organization by teams instead of by individuals. The better the leaders you develop, the greater the quality and quantity of followers.
Leaders who Leaders who
develop followers develop leaders
Need to be needed Want to be succeeded
Focus on weaknesses Focus on strengths
Develop the bottom 20 percent Develop the top 20 percent
Treat their people Treat their leaders
the same for “fairness” as individuals for impact
Hoard power Give power away
Spend time with others Invest time in others
Grow by addition Grow by multiplication
Impact only people Impact people far
they touch personally beyond their own reach
The Law of Legacy
“Leadership is one of the things you cannot delegate. You either exercise it, or you abdicate it.” — Robert Goizueta, former chair, CEO, Coca-Cola
Just about anybody can make an organization look good for a moment—by launching a flashy new program or product, drawing crowds to a big event, or slashing the budget to boost the bottom line. But leaders who leave a legacy take a different approach. They lead with tomorrow as well as today in mind.
No matter how good they are, no leader can do it all alone. Just as in sports a coach needs a team of good players to win, an organization needs a team of good leaders to succeed. The larger the organization, the stronger, larger, and deeper the team of leaders needs to be.
Achievement comes to someone when they are able to do great things for themselves.
Success comes when they empower followers to do great things with them.
Significance comes when they develop leaders to do great things fro them.
But a legacy is created only when people put their organization into the position to do great things without them.
When all is said and done, your ability to lead will not be judged by what you achieved personally or even by what your team accomplished during your tenure. You will be judged by how well your people and your organization did after you were gone.
As you work to build your organization, remember this:
Personnel determine the potential of the organization.
Relationships determine the morale of the organization.
Structure determines the size of the organization.
Vision determines the direction of the organization.
Leadership determines the success of the organization.
