John C. Maxwell’s “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” illustrates the many facets that together constitute good leadership. By using historical and business-oriented examples and personal anecdotes from his decades as a pastor and leadership consultant, Maxwell provides a detailed description of what makes a good leader. I found that the 21 laws can be summarized into three major categories: investing in oneself, investing in others, and investing in the future.
Investing in Oneself
Before a leader can take on the task of guiding and developing others, he or she must first develop his or her own qualities. This includes internal development (managing impulsiveness, building self-confidence) and external development (learning new software, improving one’s public speaking skills). The laws of process and influence address this need by calling leaders to invest in their own characters, experiences, and skills.
Maxwell’s law of influence states, “The true measure of leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.” Leadership is more than just position, knowledge, or an entrepreneurial or pioneering spirit. It’s about character, relationships with others, experience, ability, and knowledge, all of which can be developed and improved.
The law of process states, “Leadership develops daily, not in a day.” Building and polishing one’s leadership skills takes time, discipline, and perseverance. In order to be a good leader, one must continuously improve one’s knowledge. This doesn’t happen overnight; it’s the result of a lifetime of learning, practicing, and utilizing one’s skills.
Investing in Others
One of the strongest themes to emerge from this book was the importance of strong relationships in effective leadership. These include leader-subordinate relationships and peer relationships. Maxwell focuses primarily on enhancing employee-subordinate relationships for the sake of building influence and increasing productivity.
The law of addition states, “Leaders add value by serving others.” By adding value to others, leaders create positive relationships and build trust with the people around them. Those people are then more likely to accept the leader’s influence. One aspect of adding value to others is empowering them through teaching and encouraging. This leads to improved efficiency through training and delegation, making leaders and managers more productive. In short, the ability to create more good leaders not only enhances one’s own value as a leader but also one’s influence with others.
In order to add value to others, one must follow the law of connection and remember that emotional connection in the form of trust is the key to building personal relationships and credibility. The law of the buy-in states, “People buy into the leader, then the vision.” Once the connection is forged, leaders will have influence and support for their vision. People will follow a leader they trust much more than someone who is a leader by title alone.
Investing in the Future
After the leader has developed his or her qualities and built strong team relationships, Maxwell says the next steps involve concrete tactics for leading a team and planning for the future through the laws of victory, momentum, and priorities.
The law of victory notes that a productive and effective team needs unity of vision, diversity of skills, and empowerment of subordinates. The law of victory cannot be fulfilled unless the leader takes responsibility for his or her team. Sacrifices of time are required of the leader, who should demonstrate the highest levels of commitment and dedication.
The law of momentum goes hand in hand with the law of victory; as Maxwell notes, “Many times momentum is the only thing that makes the difference between winning and losing.” Momentum can make a leader look better than he or she actually is, inspire team members to perform beyond their abilities, and act as a powerful change agent. A lack of momentum can exaggerate small problems and damage team morale. It is the leader’s responsibility to direct and create momentum. This can be done by praising effort and rewarding accomplishments. As Maxwell says, “The more you reward success, the more people will strive for it.”
The law of priorities notes, “Leaders understand that activity is not necessarily accomplishment.” Maxwell illustrates the need to prioritize with the three R’s: What is required of you? What gives the greatest return? What brings the greatest reward? He recommends the use of the Pareto Principle, which states, “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.”
This book is written in more of a self-help tone than a business development tone; the laws are illustrated more through anecdotes that through statistics. While some laws can feel redundant, they are effective in expressing the nuances between different elements of leadership (power v. influence, training v. empowerment). The end of each chapter provides several questions or exercises that the reader can use as a means of developing leadership skills. This makes the book a good choice for a book club as discussion topics are built in to the book.
Ashley Stockwell is Communications Coordinator at BuckleySandler LLP for the January/February 2016 Issue of the Capital Ideas Newsletter