The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Book Summary
Follow Them and People Will Follow You
John C. Maxwell
Thomas Nelson; 10th edition (16 Sept. 2007)
About the author
John C. Maxwell is an internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker, coach, and author who has sold over 24 million books. Dr. Maxwell is the founder of EQUIP and the John Maxwell Company, organizations that have trained more than 5 million leaders worldwide. Every year he speaks to Fortune 500 companies, international government leaders, and organizations as diverse as the United States Military Academy at West Point, the National Football League, and the United Nations. A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week best-selling author, Maxwell has written three books which have each sold more than one million copies: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Developing the Leader Within You, and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader.
About the book:
“Whether you are a follower who is just beginning to discover the impact of leadership or a natural leader who already has followers, you can become a better leader. As you read about the laws, you may recognize that you already practice some of them very effectively. Other laws may expose weaknesses you didn’t know you had. Use your review as a learning experience. […]
No matter where you are in the leadership process, know this: the greater the number of laws you learn, the better leader you will become. Each law is like a tool, ready to be picked up and used to help you achieve your dreams and add value to other people. Pick up even one, and you will become a better leader. Learn them all, and people will gladly follow you.”
John Maxwell devoted his life to studying and teaching leadership, and over the last three decades, he profoundly impacted many leaders worldwide. Today he is one of the most influential leading authorities on leadership. Maxwell wrote over 50 books (just look at that list!) that have sold over 24 million copies in 50 languages.
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is one of Maxwell’s bestsellers, where he draws on personal stories and stories of the world’s greatest leaders to teach us the 21 laws of leadership. It’s an excellent book to understand what leadership is, how it emerges and why some people strive as leaders while others fail to do so.
At first, I felt a bit sceptical about this book, as it has few references to scientific research (I know!) However, when I started to listen to it, I found loads of principles in common with the transformational leadership theory, which I researched for my master’s dissertation project at the LSE. And anyway, I found it very inspirational and highly practical.
So if you are looking for inspiration and tips on becoming a better leader, this book would be a great source of information.
I also think that every parent – or anyone who works with children – will benefit from this book tremendously. It gave me loads of food for thought, and I’m looking forward to sharing my favourite ideas from the book in these notes.
Let’s jump in.
Key insights:
The 21 Laws of Leadership
Maxwell tells us that anyone can become a better leader if they put effort into applying the laws of leadership. He writes:
- The laws can be learned. Some are easier to understand and apply than others, but every one of them can be acquired.
- The laws can stand alone. Each law complements all the others, but you don’t need one in order to learn another.
- 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.
- These laws are the foundation of leadership. Once you learn the principles, you have to practice them and apply them to your life.
In the book, each chapter is dedicated to one of the laws. Here are the laws in a nutshell:
1. The Law of the Lid. Leadership ability determines a person’s level of effectiveness. There’s a lid to your potential. Therefore, if you expand your leadership capacity, you expand your ability to impact the world.
2. The Law of Influence. The true measure of leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less. As simple as that. All great leaders have followers. The main point here is to understand that leadership is about raising others up to their highest potential and accepting the fact that one day they may become better leaders than you. Only in this case can you influence people.
3. The Law of Process. Leadership develops daily, not in a day. You can’t become a leader overnight. It requires time and effort. That means you need a personal plan for growth in place. And as we aim to lead others, we should help them on a course of success as well (growing together).
4. The Law of Navigation. Anyone can steer the ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. Great leaders are navigators who always have in mind that their team depend on them. They look back, learn from mistakes and successes, and look ahead to see where the challenge may arise.
5. The Law of Addition. Leaders add value by serving others. Great leaders put effort into getting to know the people they lead, understand their priorities, goals and dreams, and then find a way to help them get where they want to go. Maxwell says mature leaders “listen, learn, and then lead.”
6. The Law of Solid Ground. Trust is the foundation of leadership. If you do not have trust, you can’t influence people.
7. The Law of Respect. People naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves. Good leaders rely on respect – as soon as people lose respect for a leader, their influence over them will disappear.
8. The Law of Intuition. Leaders evaluate everything with a leadership bias. “Many leaders describe this as an ability to ‘smell’ things in their organization. They can sense people’s attitudes. They are able to detect the chemistry of a team… They don’t need to sift through stats, read reports, or examine a balance sheet. They know the situation before they have all the facts. That is the result of their leadership intuition.” Leadership intuition is very much based on your growth as a leader.
9. The Law of Magnetism. Who you are is who you attract. Leaders attract people like themselves. So if you want to grow an organisation, grow the leader. And if you want to attract better followers, “become the kind of person you desire to attract.”
10. The Law of Connection. Leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand. People will not move into action if they don’t feel connected to their leader.
11. The Law of Inner Circle. A leader’s potential is determined by the people closest to him. Select carefully the people you build relationships with. And remember that you become the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.
12. The Law of Empowerment. Only secure leaders give power to others. If you want to gain respect, trust and admiration from your followers, focus on empowering them. And to be able to give power to others, you need to work on your self-worth first.
13. The Law of the Picture. People do what people see. Lead by example – create a picture to inspire others to action. “Followers may doubt what their leaders say, but they usually believe what they do.”
14. The Law of Buy-In. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Vision and great leadership work hand in hand. So it’s good to have a vision, but it’s equally important to have an excellent personal brand.
15. The Law of Victory. Leaders find a way for the team to win. To be victorious, a leader needs to know three components of victory: unity of vision, diversity of skills, and a leader desiccated to victory and raising players to their potential. “Great leaders are committed to winning.”
16. The Law of Big Mo. Momentum is a leader’s best friend. Small wins create momentum towards achieving big goals. So we need to aim at creating small wins and celebrating them.
17. The Law of Priorities. Leaders understand that activity is not necessarily accomplishment. Great leaders are not just busy, they are effective. Why? Because business doesn’t lead to accomplishments, but setting priorities does.
18. The Law of Sacrifice. A leader must give up to go up. The greater a leader’s vision and mission, the greater sacrifices they must make.
19. The Law of Timing. When to lead is as important as what to do and where to go. Timing is everything in leadership. Only the right action at the right time will bring success.
20. The Law of Explosive Growth. To add growth, lead followers – to multiply, lead leaders. Leadership compounds. So to see the explosive growth, invest your time and effort to develop leaders, not only followers.
21. The Law of Legacy. A leader’s lasting value is measured by succession. Great leaders lead their lives – they have a vision in mind and dedicate their lives to its fulfilment. It’s all about having a greater purpose in life.
That looks like an extensive list! Although you don’t have to be good at all the 21 things, you need to do several things well to become a better leader.
We’ll go through some of the principles in greater detail, but for now, look at the list and think about what you already do well (your strengths) and where you have room for improvement.
Leaders are learners
“In a study of ninety top leaders from a variety of fields, leadership experts warren Bennis and Burt Nanus made a discovery about the relationship between growth and leadership: “It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from their followers.” Successful leaders are learners. And the learning process is ongoing, a result of self-discipline and perseverance. The goal each day must be to get a little better, to build on the previous day’s progress.”
The Law of Progress says, “Leadership develops daily, not in a day.”
So the goal for every leader is to get a little bit better every day. To do that, you need to embrace the concept of ongoing learning – improve your skills, learn from mistakes, learn from the experience of others, and work on your character.
That’s all about the Compound Effect! And to put it into perspective, here is James Clear’s big idea from Atomic Habits to reflect on: if we can get 1% better every day for one year, we’ll end up 37 times better by the time we are done. Impressive, isn’t it?
Question for you – do you have a personal growth plan in place?
Raise your influence
In the book, Maxwell teaches us that a leader’s ability to influence others depends on the seven factors:
Character—who you are
Relationships—who you know
Knowledge—what you know
Intuition—what you feel
Experience—where you’ve been
Past Success—what you’ve done
Ability—what you can do
To raise your influence and become a better leader, you need to put effort into developing all of these seven areas.
Trust is the foundation of leadership
“Most high achievers spend time developing their professional skills. They seek to be highly competent. Fewer focus on their character. What are you currently doing to develop your character?
I recommend that you focus on three main areas: integrity, authenticity, and discipline. To develop your integrity, make a commitment to yourself to be scrupulously honest. Don’t shave the truth, don’t tell white lies, and don’t fudge numbers. Be truthful even when it hurts. To develop authenticity, be yourself with everyone. Don’t play politics, role play, or pretend to be anything you’re not. To strengthen your discipline, do the right things every day regardless of how you feel.”
That’s from Applying The Law of Solid Ground To Your Life.
Maxwell says that trust is the most important thing for a leader. If people don’t trust you as a leader, they will not follow you. To be trustworthy, first of all, you need to focus on the continuous development of your character. Why? Because “Character makes trust possible. And trust makes leadership possible.”
Here are a couple of tips from Maxwell:
- make integrity and honesty your core values and live by them;
- be authentic with people around you;
- strengthen your discipline.
Other things you can do to build trust? Grow your competence and skillset, provide candid feedback, be honest, and apologize to those you’ve upset.
That made me think that it’s also highly applicable to family life. Trust is the foundation of any relationship. So if you want to have influence over your kids and/or your spouse, you need to have a high level of trust. Invest in developing your character and parenting skills, provide honest feedback and aim at the daily top-up of your Emotional Bank Account!
Great leaders connect with their followers
“For leaders to be effective, they need to connect with people. Why? Because you first have to touch people’s hearts before you ask them for a hand. That is the Law of Connection. All great leaders and communicators recognize this truth and act on it almost instinctively. You can’t move people to action unless you move them with emotion.”
The heart always comes before the head. So, to move people into action, leaders need to emotionally engage and connect to their followers. People will not follow if you don’t connect to them. Here are eight steps from Maxwell on how to connect to others:
- Connect with yourself
- Communicate with openness and sincerity
- Know your audience
- Live your message
- Meet them where they are
- Focus on them, not yourself
- Believe in them
- Offer direction and hope
And guess what? It works perfectly with kids! If you want them to cooperate, you need to connect with them first. For example, come closer to a child, look him in the eye and say, “I see you are having so much fun building your Lego castle and would probably want to play with it for the entire evening. I really need your help at the kitchen now – could you please set the table? You can continue building your castle once we finish the dinner!” Connection leads to cooperation.
P.P.: I would highly recommend checking out our notes on Nonviolent Communication by Marshal Rosenberg – it’s a fantastic book on authentic communication!
Empower others to raise your influence
“Leading well is not about enriching yourself – it’s about empowering others. Leadership analysts Lynne McFarland, Larry Senn, and John Childress sat that “empowerment leadership model shifts away from ‘position power’ to ‘people power,’ within which all people are given leadership roles so they can contribute to their fullest capacity.” Only empowered people can reach their potential. When a leader can’t or won’t empower others, he creates barriers within the organization that followers cannot overcome. If the barriers remain long enough, then the people give up and stop trying, or they go away to another organization where they can maximize their potential.”
That’s a powerful message from The Law of Empowerment.
Maxwell teaches us that to empower others, we need to have a high belief in people. And that highly depends on our ability to see people’s positive qualities and strengths, so we can envision how they can leverage those strengths to unleash their potential. That’s the key.
Another essential condition is to have a strong sense of self-worth. Maxwell says, “Only secure leaders are able to give themselves away.” So never stop working on your self-esteem!
I think that’s also a powerful message for parents – to lead our children well, to have a greater influence, we need to empower them. To do that effectively, we should work on our self-esteem first – that’s the foundation. We can then embrace the Strength-Based Parenting mindset to help our children build on their strengths and fulfil their potential.
People do what people see
“Good leaders are always conscious of the fact that they are setting the example and others are going to do what they do, for better or worse. In general, the better the leaders’ actions, the better their people.”
People do what people see. That’s the Law of The Picture.
And it is one of the most important laws when it comes to child rearing! Kids are reflections of us – parents, teachers, and coaches. They do what they see, so our goal is to become the best possible role models for them.
Maxwell shares the modelling insights with us, and I think they are so valuable for every parent, teacher or carer:
- Followers are always watching what you do.
- It’s easier to teach what’s right than to do what’s right.
- We should work on changing ourselves before trying to improve others.
- The most valuable gift a leader can give is being a good example.
It also resonates with Stephen Covey’s wisdom – in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, he pictures modelling as the root of the Principle-Centered Leadership Tree.
So to be able to lead effectively, we need to start with ourselves. Always. And then work on integrity.
Action steps for you:
1) Review the 21 laws of leadership – what are your strong areas and which need improvement?
2) Work on developing your character – investigate your character strengths and practice seeing strength in people around you. You can use the free VIA Character strengths inventory to start with.
3) Shift your focus to your followers – invest time and effort to understand them and help them grow.
Quotes from the book:
