Your Success is Determined by Your Leadership Ability

The effectiveness of your leadership determines your level of success in all of your endeavors. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, who your parents are, what your education is, or who you know. You will only go as far as your leadership ability is capable of taking you!

If you don’t believe this, just ask the litany of leaders who have failed publicly over the last number of years. People like Martin Shkreli (Turing Pharmaceuticals), Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos), Martin Winterkorn (VW), or Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini (FIFA).

Your Leadership Ability is the Lid on Your Success

Leadership ability is the lid on your success. If you increase your leadership ability, you effectively raise the level of your success!

Back in the late 1990’s when I started to actively lead large teams I realized that I needed as much leadership help as possible. Fortunately, I met many great leaders who actively mentored me as my career developed.

I also discovered other leaders like John C. Maxwell who provides amazing leadership resources like his book “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.”

Although I first read this book in the late 90’s, this collection of profound leadership wisdom continues to provide me great insight and guidance to this day! I have never met Mr. Maxwell but I consider him to be an important mentor who has made a huge impact on my life!

Following his 21 irrefutable leadership laws will profoundly impact your leadership abilities! I have outlined each of these laws below.

21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

Law #1:  The Law of the Lid – Your leadership ability determines your level of effectiveness. Your leadership ability will always be the lid that limits your ability to advance yourself or your business. If you increase your leadership strengths your will increase your effectiveness as a leader and your ability to impact the world around you.

Law #2:  The Law of Influence – Leadership is influence . . . Nothing more and nothing less! You cannot lead if you do not have influence.

Law #3:  The Law of Process – Leadership develops over time. It is not something that you develop instantly! Developing your leadership ability takes time, life experience, exposure to different environments, successes, and failures.

Law #4:  The Law of Navigation – A leader must know how to navigate and not just lead. Without having a clear vision of where to lead, the leader is just wandering!

Law #5:  The Law of E.F. Hutton – Although you may be the “leader”, you would be wise to understand that you may not be the “leader in the room.” Real leaders understand that leadership is situational. They must be humble and confident enough in their abilities to defer their leadership when appropriate to those that are better suited to lead in that circumstance.

Law #6:  The Law of Solid Ground – Trust is the foundation of healthy and lasting leadership.

Law #7:  The Law of Respect – People will follow those they trust and those who are stronger leaders than themselves.

Law #8:  The Law of Intuition – Great leaders develop an ability to sense problems and determine the correct to take to avoid or overcome those problems.

Law #9:  The Law of Magnetism – Who you are is who you attract. If you don’t like the people around you, you need to change yourself first!

Law #10:  The Law of Connection – Great leaders connect with their followers before they ask for anything.

Law #11:  The Law of the Inner Circle – You are an average of the five people you spend the most time with. Great leaders have great mentors. Your leadership ability will be limited by those you spend the most time with.

Law #12:  The Law of Empowerment – Secure leaders feel confident in giving powers to others.

Law #13:  The Law of Reproduction – Great leaders train and raise up other great leaders.

Law #14:  The Law of Buy In – People must buy-in to you as a leader before you can sell them on a vision!

Law #15:  The Law of Victory – Leaders find a way for their team to win.

Law #16:  The Law of the Big Mo – Momentum is critical for a leader’s success. Great leaders understand how to build and maintain momentum.

Law #17:  The Law of Priorities – Leaders understand what activities are the most important and make the biggest and the proper time. These activities are given priority.

Law #18:  The Law of Sacrifice – Leaders will have to make some sacrifices and give things up for their organizations to ultimately grow and be successful.

Law #19:  The Law of Timing – Timing is critical to a leader. Leaders understand that success of their actions is dependent on many factors and the action that was so successful yesterday may result in failure today!

Law #20: The Law of Explosive Growth – Great leaders know that they must lead and train up great leaders to multiply their organizations. Leading followers is not a recipe for a great legacy.

Law #21: The Law of Legacy – A great leader has a strong succession plan.

Take Action

Take a few hours this week for some deep though and self-reflection on your leadership. What is holding you back? Where do you need to improve? Who can you pull into your circle of influence to help you improve? Is your business being stifled because of your limited leadership abilities?

Go one step further and initiate a 360 degree leadership assessment for yourself. Find out where your weaknesses are and where you have blind spots. Then build a development plan to overcome these blind spots and increase your leadership ability and your business success!

Finally, review these related posts for more leadership ideas:

 

 

Leadership is influence – nothing more and nothing less.” John C. Maxwell

 

What are some of your leadership experiences that would help other leaders? Leave your comments below!

 

 

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

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