The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership #1 - The Law of the Lid

I’m currently training the Leaders at Jesus House Elkridge on The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, a book by my mentor and friend, John C. Maxwell. If you are a leader or you aspire to develop your leadership skills, I will encourage you to buy and study (not only read) this book. 

The leadership laws Dr. Maxwell discussed in the book is universal and it works either you are leading yourself, a family, a church, an organization, a company, a local government, or a nation. 

We live in a complex, fast-paced, dynamic world and everything, including leadership, is changing at a very fast rate.
If you are a leader, you want to make sure you are constantly growing and also exposing your team to new leadership ideas, else you and your organization will soon found yourself in oblivion.

I will briefly discuss each of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership in the next 21 weeks and give some action tips on the immediate step you can take to increase your effectiveness as a leader.

Leadership Law #1: The Law of the Lid

The Law of the Lid of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership states that your leadership ability is the lid that determines your level of effectiveness. 

John Maxwell used the story of Dick and Maurice McDonald to illustrate the Law. With more than 34,000 McDonald’s restaurants in 119 countries, few people knew who Dick and Maurice was but a lot more knew a man named Ray Kroc, who bought the rights to franchise McDonald’s restaurants and turned McDonald’s into an American institution and a global entity.

Though Dick and Maurice were very successful as restaurateurs, they failed as franchisers because they lacked the leadership necessary to make a larger enterprise effective. Ray Kroc on the other hand is a leader who had a vision for McDonald’s potential as soon as he visited the restaurant back in 1954.

“The higher you want to climb, the more you need leadership. The greater the impact you want to make, the greater your influence needs to be.”

Action Points

1. Become a student of leadership to increase your leadership lid (i.e. your level of leadership).
2. Ask your spouse, boss, colleagues, friends to rate (on the scale of 1 to 10) your ability to connect with people, plan and think strategically, cast a vision, get results.
3. When faced with a challenge, think first on who you can enlist to help.
4. When your team, department, or organization fails to achieve an objective, assume that it’s a leadership issue.
5. Think in terms of significance more than success