Book Notes: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book presents the following leadership laws:

  1. Lid – your level of impact is capped by your leadership abilities, grow leadership grow your potential for impact
  2. Influence – this is leadership. Management is about processes, entrepreneurship is about finding ideas and pioneering is about being first. Leadership is about influencing others through your character, relationships, knowledge and past success and failures, intuition and experience, plus abilities – certainly not title.
  3. Learning Process – leaders are learners, every day a small amount. There are no overnight leaders.
  4. Navigation – to see the bigger picture and to chart a course towards the goal
  5. Addition – make things better for the people who follow you by valuing others, growing ourselves and relate to others values
  6. Solid Ground – trust is the bedrock.
  7. Respect – people follow people stronger then themselves. Natural leadership is a start – one of the greatest pitfalls is relying on this and not growing. Respect others, have courage, success, loyalty and help others.
  8. Intuition – leaders see everything through a leadership perspective, this intuition is grown over time and is key so that when struggles come along they already see things through leadership.
  9. Magnetism – people attract people who are similar in age, gender, values, attitude, background, energy, abilities and leadership.
  10. Connection – leaders connect through openness and sincerity, vision, them (members), belief, direction and hope.
  11. Inner Circle – no leaders ride alone, it’s about having a great team with variety of skills to complement each other. A strong inner circle means better leadership.
  12. Empowerment – secure leaders give power to others. Keeping out of other people’s way is tough and insecure people don’t trust others so medle. Strong leaders give credit when things go well and take the blame when they don’t.
  13. Picture – people do what they see. As a leader you need to model the behaviours you want and you need to build a vivid picture of what you are trying to achieve.
  14. Buy-In – people buy into the person then the vision. Building personal relations is key to people buying into you.
  15. Victory – leaders find ways for the team to win, success is important for team morall and without it everything is much tougher.
  16. Momentum – a team with momentum is unstoppable. So with some victories and growing people builds momentum that means that the team will achieve more and more.
  17. Priorities – good leaders realise that being busy does not mean accouplishing things. Prioritisation is key – there is just not enough time to do everything.
    What are the 20% of tasks which are actually important. If things could be done 80% as well by someone else then delegate.
  18. Sacrifice – a leader has to give things up to grow. Be that giving up a well performing team to grow a new one or giving up personal time or location.
  19. Timing – timing is key. The right action at the wrong time gives the wrong result, so does the wrong action at the right time. Getting time and action to work together is critical.
  20. Explosive Growth – leaders who develop leaders – succeed, grow the top 20%, focus on strengths, treat individuals uniquely, invest time in others and impact people beyond their reach.
  21. Legacy – everything comes to an end so thinking for legacy and long term success is important. Many leaders don’t grow people in their team and leave a whole when they move on – don’t do this as your work will go to waste.

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