Quotes from “How Successful People Lead” by John Maxwell
Quotes from “How Successful People Lead” by John Maxwell

Quotes from “How Successful People Lead” by John Maxwell

What you do daily, over time, becomes your legacy.

John Maxwell is probably the world’s foremost thought leader on leadership. He has written many books to teach and reinforce his learnings and experience. This book offers nothing new; however, it packages material familiar to his readers in a new way. Maxwell offers a picture of what leadership looks like through all 5 levels and offers practical steps on reaching the next level.

For those less familiar with Maxwell’s work, the 5 levels of leadership are:

    1. Position (Rights)
    2. Permission (Relationships)
    3. Production (Results)
    4. People Development (Reproduction)
    5. The Pinnacle (Respect)

Here are a few of the quotes I noted during this reading:

    • Leadership is a process, not a position.
    • Good leadership isn’t about advancing yourself. It’s about advancing your team.
    • A principle is an external truth that is as reliable as a physical law.
    • Position is a poor substitute for influence.
    • You can like people without leading them, but you cannot lead people without liking them.
    • Production may win games, but People Development wins championships.
    • Good leaders do not lead everyone the same way.
    • You must earn your level of leadership with each person, and that level can go up or down at any time.
    • Building always takes a lot longer than destroying.
    • If you think you’re leading but no one is following, then you are only taking a walk.
    • The leaders who do the greatest harm to an organization are the ones who think they have arrived.
    • Good leaders are always good learners.
    • Positional leaders focus on control instead of contribution.
    • If you have to tell people that you’re the leader, you’re not.
    • You must be willing to give up what is in order to reach for what could be.
    • Leadership isn’t a right. It’s a privilege.
    • A leader’s job is not to know everything but to attract people who know things that he or she does not.
    • As long as you’re winning, people are willing to follow.
    • Conflict is a part of progress.
    • To become someone who is good at building relationships with others, you must become the kind of person you would want to spend time with.
    • Caring should never suppress candor while candor should never displace caring.
    • Risk is always present in leadership.
    • “There are two types of people in the business community: those who produce results and those who give you reasons why they didn’t.” – Peter Drucker
    • Good leaders constantly communicate the vision of the organization.
    • Good leadership is never based on what someone does by and for himself.
    • Growth occurs only when it’s intentional.
    • Leaders must transition from producers to developers because people are any organization’s most appreciable asset.
    • If you want to be an effective leader, you must move from perfectionist to pragmatist.
    • Empowerment means helping people to see what they can do without your help, and releasing them to do it.
    • A handful of leaders will give an organization a far greater return than hundreds of followers.
    • In America, we believe everyone has the right to speak. But even in a free society, you have to earn the right to be heard.
    • If you’re through learning, you’re through.
    • What you do daily, over time, becomes your legacy.