For this months’ business book we’re turning to what some might call a classic read: John Maxwell’s 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, written in 1999. Even though so much changes in the [business] world over time, leadership principles and qualities are two things that become not only more important and integral to success as a business owner, they are also something you can depend on to work well for you whether you’re learning from one of the kings of old or presidents today. Leadership is also something that we can talk about universally, which I really appreciate, which means that we can all gather at the table together and have conversations about it that are applicable to each of us, whether we run a pizzeria, big box store, ad agency, or staffing company because every company needs leadership to survive and especially to thrive.
As you may know, one of my favorite things to do in reading books on leadership is to learn how people define leadership. Maxwell shared a definition from history, that of Napoleon Bonaparte who said that leaders are “dealers in hope.” This is one of the defining factors I think in not only what makes a company successful, but also determines the culture of a company. If the leadership of the company is dealing in hope, you’ll find that the company is more welcoming, a place people usually like to work, has great rapport with their customers and that it’s preferred by customers time and again and they’re hard-pressed to choose other companies instead.
Second, Maxwell addressed the challenge we all face regarding weaknesses and things that need to be worked on. I’ll share what he wrote, but I want to preface it with saying that it reminded me that sometimes we have a hard time looking past the bad and seeing the good. As he said, yes, of course we should be admitting what’s not good enough and where we struggle, because when we don’t admit those things we leave the door open for possibly serious mistakes and big issues to happen. But what Maxwell shared is that we should focus 70% of the time on our strengths and only 5% of our time on our weaknesses (the other 25% is on new things). This is another reason why we should make time to celebrate and highlight the successes of our team, the good things that people do, and the ways that they contribute to the overall success, growth and health of our companies.
Finally, I want to close with a quote from the end of the book that really spoke to me about what it means to be a leader: “…all people…like to feel special, so sincerely compliment them. They want a better tomorrow, so show them hope. They desire direction, so navigate for them. They are selfish so speak to their needs first. They get emotionally low, so encourage them. They want success so help them win.” Right there are a whole bunch of great insights about how you can be a better leader to your people. Yes, of course we should be trying to integrate all of them into our leadership on a daily basis, but even if we pick just one each day to work on, I know we’ll come out far ahead of many other people in leadership positions who are not sufficiently focused on being a leader to their people.
What have you learned about leadership lately?