Notes on Developing the Leader in You with John Maxwell by the Knowledge Project
Source: fs.
When I listened to it: January 2020
Why I listened to it: I’m a big fan of both John Maxwell and Shane Parrish. When two of my favorite leaders discuss leadership, I’m required to take note...s. If you're an aspiring leader, you might find these notes helpful too.
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My notes
Guest is John Maxwell:
Leadership guru
Author of many, many books on leadership (e.g. The 21 Irrefutable Laws Leadership)
Books have sold more than 30 million copies in 50 languages
Defining leadership
Biggest surprise about leadership = most people don’t qualify themselves as a leader ⇒ they see it as a position or title (this is wrong).
Leadership is influence ⇒ so every person is a leader because every person has influence
Leadership (and influence) applies to parenting, work, relationships, and one’s self.
5 levels of leadership
These levels help bring awareness to leadership growth opportunities.
There are 5 levels of leadership, that each build on top of each other like a pyramid:
Position ⇒ this is where someone gives you a leadership shot in title/position ⇒ people follow you because they have to (80% of people never get off this level)
Permission ⇒ this where you build relationships with followers who give you their permission to lead them ⇒ people follow you because they want to
Production ⇒ this where you produce results and build credibility with someone ⇒ people follow you because of what you have done for the organization
People Development ⇒ this is where you know how to lead yourself and, as a result, you know how to help others learn how to lead (you know how to reproduce leadership) ⇒ People follow you because of what you have done for them
Pinnacle ⇒ this is where you generate so much respect that your leadership gains a positive reputation ⇒ people follow you because of who you are and what you represent.
To date, #2 is where I’ve been most inconsistent historically.
Leadership is a continual growth process ⇒ you must accept this as a reality to become a great leader (and maintain it).
Lack of awareness
You can’t improve yourself until you’re aware of your leadership weaknesses.
Noone is fully self-aware; we all have blind spots ⇒ you need people (and frameworks) around you who can help you become aware of your blinds spots and work on them.
Developing leaders
Most leaders never develop other leaders ⇒ they just have followers (i.e. people looking for someone to lead them).
Leaders are much less needy (than followers); and they aren’t necessarily interested in being led ⇒ they want to have followers of their own.
Young leaders often don’t prioritize leadership development because they “don’t have the time” ⇒ this is a huge mistake ⇒ if you invest in your people, they’ll help you create more time.
When you’re young, you think hard work and focus is enough to get you everything you want to have or that you need to have ⇒ this is a lie.
At some point, some of these young leaders (like John Maxwell) reach a point where they reflect and note that:
I have worked hard
Other people look at me and would probably consider me to be successful
I feel I have not achieved near the level of my potential (i.e. I am not successful by John Wooden’s definition).
This is where leaders have an opportunity to go from “me” to “we” ⇒ by creating a leadership culture and an empowering environment ⇒ with priority #1 being developing other leaders.
Success and significance
Success and significance are not the same thing.
Success is about me and about what I’ve done in my life.
Significance is about what you’ve done to add value to others.
Unhappiness comes from the disillusion that if we take care of ourselves, our life will be fulfilling.
4 things highly successful people are good at
Highly successful people do four things really well:
Relationships ⇒ they’re good with people
Teams ⇒ they have the ability to form teams and empower teams
Attitude ⇒ they have the ability to overcome adversity
Leadership ⇒ they have the ability to lead
If you can improve in these 4 areas, your life will improve.
The hardest part is realizing you CAN improve in all four areas if you’re willing to work at ⇒ it’s a choice you have to make consistently to make progress.
Consistency compounds.
Confidence
If you feel confident and you don’t back it up with success, your confidence will become shallow and hollow after a while.
You gain confidence through affirmation or through accomplishment ⇒ affirmation is borrowed confidence; accomplishment is owned confidence.
Confidence based on accomplishment is much stronger than confidence based on affirmation ⇒ If your confidence is based on affirmation, your confidence will erode when things get tough.
Most confidence starts with affirmation and is cemented through accomplishment ⇒ accomplishment leads to self-confidence.
Leading yourself
The greatest leadership challenge = leading one’s self
You gain confidence in your leadership ability when you lead yourself well ⇒ If I can lead myself well, I can potentially lead others well; If I can’t lead myself well, uh…
Do you want to follow yourself? If not, you’re probably not going to be confident in leading others.
Leadership mistakes
The biggest leadership mistake is a blind spot for blind spots ⇒ if you are unaware of your own lack of awareness, you will get in trouble.
Blind spots mean that they’re blind spots ⇒ You have no idea until something or someone else makes you aware.
The best way to improve your leadership is to 1) become aware that you have blind spots and 2) get help from others in identifying them.
Helping others identify blind spots
“Look, I care enough for you that I’m going to confront you on this issue. I care enough for you to be honest with you.”
“Here’s one thing that’s holding you back. I work with you. I know it. I believe in you. I want to help you.”
“I don’t ______ to make you happy. I _______ to help you.”
We avoid helping others because we don’t want to hurt each others’ feelings ⇒ but we hurt each other even more when we don’t bring awareness to each others’ blinds spots.
To be a great leader, you have to understand that helping someone is not the same as making them happy ⇒ be a leader; not a clown.
When bringing awareness to blinds spots:
Be honest
Do it privately
Always have their best interests at heart
Success, failure, and learning
In today’s world of rapid change, you have to keep learning new things.
You also have to unlearn old things and relearn them.
Failure is not the opposite of success ⇒ In all success, there’s a lot of failure.
Highly successful people fail a lot ⇒ this is how they learn faster.
The value of failure = learning.
The cycle of success = test ⇒ fail ⇒ learn ⇒ improve ⇒ re-test; it’s vicious.
Learning is not useful if it doesn’t bring positive change into your life.
Goals vs growth
Biggest mistake most aspiring leaders make is focusing on goals instead of growth.
When you’re goal-oriented, you judge by the number, time, and date established by the goal
When you’re growth-oriented, you judge yourself by consistency and continual improvement as you reach milestones.
If you’re goal-oriented, there’s a finish line.
If you’re growth-oriented, there’s no finish line. The milestones you hit are just stops along the way.
We overestimate the event (e.g. what we get done in a day), and we underestimate the process (what we do in a day).
Life is hard
Everything worthwhile is uphill.
Better to have a mindset that life is hard; and when it’s hard, it’s good and meaningful.
Character is birthed out of adversity.
We should do a better job of teaching the value of failure / mistakes / shortcomings.
Sharing your failures / mistakes makes you more human ⇒ as a leader, you want to talk about this stuff so you can teach the power of process and compounding; it also makes you more human to other people (it removes the gap).
Experience vs reflection
People are wrong when they say “experience is the best teacher” ⇒ if this were true, people would get better as they get older ⇒ A lot of people have experiences and learn nothing.
Reflection (or “evaluated experience”) is the best teacher ⇒ after the experience, we ask ourselves:
What did we learn from that?
What did that experience have to teach me?
If you can teach your kids to reflect, that is a parenting win ⇒ after an experience with your kids, ask:
What did you love?
What did you learn?
Reflection turns experience into insight.
What it means to live a fulfilled life
A fulfilled life is a life that’s lived for others and that’s not about me ⇒ we are created and designed to be people that help others.
Example for improving communication ⇒ if you want to be a better communicator, get over yourself ⇒ the moment you are concerned about how others perceive you is the moment you put limitations on your communication skills.
You only add value to things you value; including people.
Secret to a fulfilled life?:
Live for others
Value others
Intentionally add value to them
Random notes
Those who are closest to you determine your level of success.
The greatest leadership challenge is leading yourself