Forfatter: MentorGuru

My favorite law, the umbrella under which all of the other laws fall, is the Law of Process. Leadership can’t be developed in a day or a week. Instead, it grows and becomes refined through a lifetime of self-management, skills acquisition, and relationships:

If you continually invest in your leadership development, letting your ‘assets’ compound, the inevitable result is growth over time. What can you see when you look at a person’s daily agenda? Priorities, passion, abilities, relationships, attitude, personal disciplines, vision, and influence. See what a person is doing every day, day after day, and you’ll know who that person is and what he or she is becoming.

Often, when I speak to people about leadership development, someone in the group will ask why a new graduate or a employee in the first few years should be concerned with leadership development, since they’re at the bottom of the totem pole. My answer is three-fold.

First, it’s critical to lead oneself and develop a strong foundation in self-management. Second, usually even «bottom of the totem pole» employees soon have an opportunity to lead something, whether it’s a small project or a intern meeting. And third, as Maxwell writes, «champions don’t become champions in the ring – they are merely recognized there.» If a employee waits until a leadership position is on the horizon to begin developing good leadership skills, the position may never present itself, or if it does, the employee will lack the necessary skills to thrive in that position. (Incidentally, point 3 is well illustrated in Maxwell’s first law, the Law of the Lid.).

Good luck everyone to become a better leader AND Thank you Maxwell for giving us The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.

– A Leader’s Lasting Value Is Measured by Succession

(DAY 21 – The 21 Day Leadership Challenge)

Eventually, someone else will do what you’re doing right now. More than building other leaders, more than being a mentor, you have to build the leader that can take care of and do everything you can do. Start building a leader you can pass the baton to.

Dig into it:

• What do you want people to say at your funeral? If you want your leadership to have real meaning, you need to take into account the Law of Legacy. A leader’s lasting value is measured by succession.

• If you desire to make an impact as a leader on a future generation, then become highly intentional about your legacy. We have a choice about what legacy we will leave, and we must work and be intentional to leave the legacy we want. Here’s how:

a) Know the Legacy You Want to Leave – most people simply accept their lives – they don’t lead them. I believe that people need to be proactive about how they live, and I believe that is especially true for leaders. Someday people will summarize your life in a single sentence. My advice: pick it now!

b) Live the Legacy You Want to Leave – I believe that to have any credibility as a leader, you must live what you say you believe. If you want to create a legacy, you need to live it first.

c) Choose Who Will Carry on Your Legacy – A legacy lives on in people, not things. Too often leaders put their energy into organizations, buildings or other lifeless objects. But only people live on after we are gone. Everything else is temporary.

d) Make Sure You Pass the Baton – No matter how well you lead, if you don’t make sure you pass the baton, you will not leave the legacy you desire.

• Our ability as leaders will not be measured by the buildings we build, or institutions we established. We will be judged by how well the people we invested in carried on after we are gone.

• Jackie Robinson observed, “A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives.” In the end we will be judged according to the Law of Legacy. A leader’s lasting value is measured by succession.

– To Add Growth, Lead Followers – To Multiply, Lead Leaders

(DAY 20 – The 21 Day Leadership Challenge)

To grow, you need to lead everyone in the right direction. To create explosive growth, you need to lead other leaders in the right direction. Reach out and start leading other leaders today.

Dig into it:

• You can grow by leading followers. But if you want to maximize your leadership and help your organization reach its potential, you need to develop leaders. There is no other way to experience explosive growth.

• Leaders who attract followers but never develop leaders get tired. Being able to impact only those people you can touch personally is very limiting.

• In contrast, leaders who develop leaders impact people far beyond their personal reach. Every time you develop leaders and help them increase their leadership ability, you make them capable of influencing an even greater number of people.

– When to Lead Is As Important As What to Do and Where to Go

(DAY 19 – The 21 Day Leadership Challenge)

Opportunities are everywhere. One of the big things that makes something a good opportunity is timing. Recognize an opportunity and pounce on it right away.

Dig into it:

• Timing is often the difference between success and failure in an endeavor. Every time a leader makes a move, there are really only four outcomes:

1. The Wrong Action at the Wrong Time Leads to Disaster – If you take the wrong action at the wrong time, your people suffer and so will your leadership.

2. The Right Action at the Wrong Time Brings Resistance – Having a vision for the right direction and knowing how to get there is not enough. If you take the right action but do it at the wrong time, you may still be unsuccessful because the people you lead can become resistant. Good leadership timing requires many things:

a) Understanding – leaders must have a firm grasp on the situation.

b) Maturity – if leader’s motives aren’t right, their timing will be off.

c) Confidence – people follow leaders who know what must be done.

d) Decisiveness – wishy-washy leaders create wishy-washy followers.

e) Experience – if leaders don’t possess experience, then they need to gain wisdom from others who do possess it.

f) Intuition – timing often depends on intangibles, such as momentum and morale.

g) Preparation – if the conditions aren’t right, leaders must create those conditions.

3. The Wrong Action at the Right Time is a Mistake – the greatest mistake made by entrepreneurs is knowing when to cut their losses or when to increase their investment to maximize gains. Their mistakes come from taking the wrong action at the right time.

4. The Right Action at the Right Time Results in Success – When the right leader and the right timing come together an organization achieves its goals and reaps incredible rewards.

• Reading the right situation and knowing what to do are not enough to make you succeed in leadership. If you want your company to move forward, you must pay attention to timing. Only the right action at the right time will bring success. No leader can escape the Law of Timing.

– A Leader Must Give Up to Go Up

(DAY 18 – The 21 Day Leadership Challenge)

You have more responsibilities to other people and other things as a leader. Sometimes, you have to give something up to take care of those responsibilities. Sacrifice something you care about for someone else today.

Dig into it:

• If you desire to become the best leader you can be, then you need to be willing to make sacrifices in order to lead well. If that is your desire, then here are some things you need to know about the Law of Sacrifice.

1. There Is No Success Without Sacrifice – Every person who has achieve any success in life has made sacrifices to do so. Effective leaders sacrifice much that is good in order to dedicate themselves to what is best.

2. Leaders Are Often Asked to Give Up More Than Others – The heart of leadership to putting others ahead of yourself. It’s doing what is best for the team. For that reason, leaders have to give up their rights. The cost of leadership: Leaders must be willing to give up more than the people they lead. Leadership means sacrifice.

3. You Must Keep Giving Up to Stay Up – Leadership success requires continual change, constant improvement, and ongoing sacrifice.

4. The Higher the Level of Leadership, the Greater the Sacrifice – The higher you go, the more its going to cost you. And it doesn’t matter what kind of leadership career you pick. You will have to make sacrifices. You will have to give up to go up.

– Leaders Understand That Activity Is Not Necessarily Accomplishment

(DAY 17 – The 21 Day Leadership Challenge)

Leaders are busy. And some things are more important than other things. Put together a list of everything you have to do and prioritize it from most important to least.

Dig into it:

• Leaders never advance to a point where they no long need to prioritize.

• Busyness does not equal productivity. Activity is not necessarily accomplishment. Prioritizing requires leaders to continually think ahead, to know what’s important, to see how everything relates to the overall vision.

• The Pareto Principle – if you focus your attention on the activities that rank in the top 20 percent in terms of importance, you have an 80 percent return on your effort. For example if you 100 customers, the top 20 will provide you 80% of your business, so focus on them.

• The Three R’s – requirement, return and reward. Leaders must order their lives according to these three questions:

1. What is Required? Any list of priorities must begin with what is required of us. The question to ask yourself is, “What must I do that nobody can or should do for me?” If I’m doing something that is not necessary, I should eliminate it. If I’m doing something that’s necessary but not required of me personally, I need to delegate it.

2. What Gives the Greatest Return? As a leader, you should spend most of your time working in your areas of greatest strength. Ideally, leaders should get out of their comfort zone but stay in their strength zone. My rule of thumb: If something can be done 80 percent as well by someone else, I delegate it.

3. What Brings the Greatest Reward? Life is too short not to do the things you love. Your personal interests energize you and keep you passionate. And passion provides the fuel in your life to keep you going.