Laws of leadership - Dr. John Maxwell

Dr John Maxwell’s Leadership Seminar in Nairobi, Kenya

Part II: Laws of Leadership -John Maxwell
(Meeting held at Nairobi Pentecostal Church, Valley Road, on 9^th March, 2004)

Dr. Maxwell started by encouraging the people to look for things that add value to an individual. He said that there are laws that govern leadership which should help every aspiring leader.

Basing his teaching on his book, 21 Laws of Leadership, he outlined three laws of leadership which every leader should have. These are:

Law of Lid. He said that one can never go beyond his/her lid, implying that one will never go beyond their limit. There is no organization that can do better than its leadership. Dr. Maxwell said that a leader in every organization should always take responsibility since it is much easier to lead from failure to success than from excuses to success.
Law of Influence. Leadership is influence. A person with influence at a given time and to a given people is the leader of the time. ‘A leader with nobody following is only taking a walk’, he said. He outlined five levels of influence. These are:

(i) Position. This is the lowest level of leadership. This level is acquired by people at a certain position of leadership who think they have a right to be leaders. But being at a position gives certain rights. Here people follow you because they have to. In this state, people can follow you but never give you their best.

(ii) Permission. This is the second level of leadership where relationships begin to form. At this stage, people tend to like you as the leader. They follow because they want to. It is a voluntary action and people will give the leader their best.

(iii) Production. At the third stage, momentum begins to pick. People follow you because of the results you have achieved in an organization or to a certain group of people. For example, the train moves because of one engine starting, even when a block stands on its way, it cannot stop.

(iv) Reproduction Level. This is where as a leader you are reproducing and growing as you develop people. It is the level of reproducing. People follow you because of what you have done for them. Such people become very loyal to you as a leader. “A team’s work makes a dream work”, Maxwell said. This is all about raising people. He encouraged the leaders present to raise up leaders who are better than them.

(v) Respect. This is the highest level where as a leader you have earned respect from people. At this level you have done so much, for so many, for a long time, such people tend to follow you automatically.

Note that the result one gets from people depends on what level of leadership they have with them. Maxwell advised the leaders to look at the change of attitude as they lead people because the higher one climbs as a leader, the easier it gets to lead the people.

Dr. John Maxwell gave four stages of his personal journey as examples to the leaders. These were:

He wants to make a difference. When he received Christ as his Saviour, he wanted to make a difference but could not make it on his own.
He joined with people who wanted to make a difference. He is not interested with self serving people.
Aim at doing something that makes a difference. It is good to ask amongst yourselves if you have something that could make a difference.
Be on time when it is necessary to make a difference. He told Kenyans that they haven’t yet seen what they are capable of. Maxwell was very happy to meet with people who want to make a difference in Kenya. He told them that they needed one another since they cannot do it alone. He encouraged the leaders present to become the leaders that God made them to be. He finally told Kenyans to step forward and do what God has intended them to be, because ‘if God be for us who can be against us!’

Reported and compiled by
Jane Wanjiku Mwangi
Sword of the Spirit Ministries
March 2004