Living Out the Laws of Leadership

I’ve personally really enjoyed this month’s blog posts on The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.  I’ve had the privilege of working with John Maxwell since 1998, the same year that he published the 21 Laws.  While a lot has changed in 15 years, one of the things that I appreciate about the Laws of Leadership is that the principles are timeless.  They are just as relevant today as when John published the book 15 years ago.

In this post I would like to share with you my favorite Law of Leadership and how I’m working to continually develop my application of this law. 

The Law of Process:  Leadership Develops Daily, Not in a Day

When I joined John’s organization, INJOY, I had an appreciation for leadership but not necessarily a passion for it.  Being exposed to a leadership culture fueled my desire to grow and develop as a leader.  I love progress and I hate complacency.  When that passion to develop as a leader kicked in, I committed to sharpening my leadership skills everyday; I made it a goal to be a slightly better leader at the end of the day than I was at the beginning. 

Here are a few tangible things that I do to develop myself:

• Evaluate everything through a leadership lens.  I’m constantly evaluating leadership decisions that I make and asking myself what I did well and what could I have done better.  I also look at leadership circumstances that others are in and ask how I would have handled that situation.  What can I learn from how they handled it?  How would I have handled it differently?
• Seek out leadership mentors.  Typically, twice a year I have an extended mentoring session with John.  I always come to the meeting with an update of things that I’ve been working on since our last mentoring conversation.  I have specific leadership questions that I’m thinking about and want his perspective and advice on.  I ask him to evaluate my leadership and ask him for specific areas where he thinks that I can improve.  His feedback provides me with tangible things to work on for the next season.  In addition to John I have a handful of other leadership mentors in my life.  There is not a month that goes by that I don’t have at least one leadership mentoring meeting with someone I respect and whose opinion is valuable to me.
• Continually expose myself to leadership resources and environments.  Following are several of my favorite things that fuel my leadership growth:

1. Events:  Catalyst Conference, Exchange and Willow Creek Summit
2. Leadership Books:  Anything by Andy Stanley, Jack Welch, Jim Collins, John Maxwell, Patrick Lencioni
3. Leadership Biographies:  Recent great reads include A Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Eisenhower by Geoffrey Perret, John Adams by David McCullough, Truman by David McCullough
4. Subscriptions:  Executive Book Summaries, Harvard Business Review, Maximum Impact Club

While we’re on the subject of The Law of Process and continuing to develop yourself, let me take this opportunity to let you know that we just released a brand new workshop on Living the Laws of Leadership.  The first public workshops are in Atlanta on September 17 – 18 and Dallas on November 19 – 20.  I highly encourage you to attend.

So I’ve shared my favorite of the laws with you, I’d love to hear what your favorite law is.  Also, share with us below or on Facebook or Twitter why it’s your favorite law and how you’re working to apply it. I look forward to learning from you.