The Leader’s Greatest Return by John C. Maxwell

 

The Leader's Greatest Return: Attracting, Developing, and Multiplying Leaders by John C. Maxwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love being inspired by John C. Maxwell. You will love the quotes below. Let them challenge you to not only be a great leader but to build other leaders through you. Enjoy:

I don’t promise you it will be easy. I do promise you it will be worthwhile. ~Art Williams

If you desire to fulfill a bold vision or do something great, you have to let go of a microwave mindset for leadership. ~John C. Maxwell

People too often overvalue their dream and undervalue their team. . . . A big dream with a bad team is a nightmare. ~John C. Maxwell

For a leader who develops leaders, there's something scarier and much more important than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. ~John C. Maxwell

I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down. ~Abraham Lincoln

Great leaders help people have a larger vision of themselves. ~ Mark Sanborn

We will do everything in our power to measure up to the spoken belief we have received. ~John C. Maxwell

Encouragement is oxygen to the soul for the leader, and if you're a leader who wants to develop other leaders, you need to encourage them and help them breathe. ~John C. Maxwell

Attitude is a choice, and at the heart of a good attitude is willing willingness -willingness to learn, to improve, to serve, to think of others, to add value, to do the right thing, to make sacrifices for the team. Leadership skill may come from the head, but leadership attitude comes from the heart. ~John C. Maxwell

Good leaders want more for the people they lead then they won't from them. ~John C. Maxwell

At Delta, we hire for attitude but train for aptitude. Always start with attitude. Bring people on the team that the other members will enjoy working with. ~Ed Bastian

The formation of our character creates predictability to our leadership. Predictability, dependability, and consistency: these three qualities ensure that our leadership is reliable and motivates people to place their confidence in us. Our effectiveness as leaders is built on trust. ~Gayle Beebe

Character is about managing your life well, so you can lead others well. ~John C. Maxwell

Talent is always conscious of its own abundance and does not object to sharing. ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The vision gap is the space between what we are doing and what we could do period builders are impatient to close that gap. ~John C. Maxwell

People often say, “I'll know it when I see it.” That's not a good strategy. I say, “know it and you'll see it!” ~John C. Maxwell

A company’s culture is the expression of the values of the people within the organization. It is the sum of the behavior of the people, not a reflection of what you wanted to be. People do what people see - and they keep doing it. What people do on an ongoing, habitual basis creates culture. ~John C. Maxwell

Knowledge isn't the key to success. Applying knowledge is. ~John C. Maxwell

Leadership is more caught than taught. ~John C. Maxwell

If someone is always at the head of the class, he or she is in the wrong class. ~John C. Maxwell

The only way for any person to learn leadership is to lead. Leading isn't a theoretical exercise. ~John C. Maxwell

Leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand. ~John C. Maxwell

Good leadership requires a perspective shift from it's all about me to it's all about others. ~John C. Maxwell

If you will sweat with your people, they can handle the heat. ~John C. Maxwell

Ten ways to make connections with people:
• Most people are insecure. Give them confidence.
• Most people want to feel special. Compliment them.
• Most people want a bright future. Give them hope.
• Most people need to be understood. Listen to them.
• Most people want direction. Walk with them.
• Most people are selfish. Speak to their needs first.
• Most people get emotionally low. Encourage them.
• Most people want to be included. Ask their opinion.
• Most people want success. Help them win.
• Most people want to be appreciated. Give them credit. ~John C. Maxwell

Always ask questions. Here's what questions do:
• Create a space for open conversation
• Place value on others and their opinions
• Help people know one another better
• Invite everyone to participate
• Clear up assumptions
• Causes people to think
• Gather conversation ~John C. Maxwell

Leadership isn't controlled - it's influence . ~John C. Maxwell

You do not want to control people's responses. You want to influence their thinking and actions. ~John C. Maxwell

Front-end questions set the agenda, while back-end questions maximize the agenda. Front-end questions encourage preparation, while back-end questions encourage reflection. ~John C. Maxwell

What others have to say to you really must remain more important than what you have to say to them. Why? Because the higher leaders rise, the farther they get from the front lines, and the more they have to depend on what others tell them to know what's really going on. Listening is still the best way to gather information, to learn, to understand people, and to connect with them. ~John C. Maxwell

A suffering person does not need a lecture; he needs a listener. ~Billy Graham

Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable. ~David Augsburger

Listening draws people to you, which works much better than trying to push your leadership on them. Empathy builds trust. ~John C. Maxwell

People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing-that's why we recommend it daily. ~Zig Ziglar

Good leaders inspire others only to the extent that they inspire themselves. ~John C. Maxwell

THE SEVEN MOTIVATIONS OF LEADERS:
1. Purpose - Leaders Want To Do What They Were Created To Do.
2. Autonomy - Leaders Want The Freedom To Control Their Lives.
3. Relationships - Leaders Want To Do Things With Other People.
4. Progress - Leaders Want To Experience Personal And Professional Growth.
5. Mastery - Leaders Want To Excel At Their Work.
6. Recognition - Leaders Want Others To Appreciate Their Accomplishments.
7. Money - Leaders Want To Be Financially Secure. ~John C. Maxwell

The partnership principal: working together increases the odds of winning together. ~John C. Maxwell

Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better. ~Pat Riley

People don't determine their future. They determined their habits, which determined their future. ~John C. Maxwell

The best way to set your people up for success is:
Believe in them.
Encourage them.
Show them.
Train them. ~John C. Maxwell

Survival of the fittest is not the same as survival of the best. Leaving leadership development up to chance is foolish. ~ Morgan McCall

The function of leadership isn't together more followers. It’s to produce more leaders. ~John C. Maxwell

Five-step plan for equipping:
• I model.
• I mentor.
• I monitor.
• I motivate.
• I multiply. ~John C. Maxwell

Next level equipping:
• I'll do it.
• I do it and you are with me.
• You do it and I am with you.
• You do it.
• You do it and someone else is with you. ~John C. Maxwell

Being An Example Others Want To Follow. Here's what you need to be asking yourself:
Learning:“What am I learning?”
Experiencing: “What am I experiencing?”
Applying: “What am I applying?”
Developing: “Who am I developing?” ~John C. Maxwell

Telling others to do what you haven't done yourself isn't equipping. It's bossing. ~John C. Maxwell

The position doesn't make the leader; the leader makes the position. ~John C. Maxwell

It's very difficult for people to rise up if their leader refuses to put the wind of empowerment under their wings. ~John C. Maxwell

Only secure leaders get power to others. ~John C. Maxwell

The greatest leaders aren't necessarily the ones who do the greatest things. They are the ones who empower others to do great things. ~John C. Maxwell

If we start with the attitude that different viewpoints are additive rather than competitive, we become more effective because our ideas or decisions or honed and tempered by that discourse . ~ Ed Catmull

Leadership is like swimming. It can't be learned by reading about it. Leaders become leaders by practicing. ~John C. Maxwell

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. ~George S Patton

The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated. ~William James

Advice from John Wooden's father:
1. Be true to yourself.
2. Help others.
3. Make every day your masterpiece.
4. Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible.
5. Make friendship a fine art.
6. Build a shelter against a rainy day.
7. Pray for guidance and count and give thanks for your blessings every day.

In talking to the top executive coaches who worked for the John Maxwell company, they've told me that poor self-awareness is the number one problem they see in leaders. ~John C. Maxwell

A dream is a compelling vision you see in your heart that is too big to accomplish without the help of others. ~Chris Hodges

Area	“We” Needs	“Me” Needs
Purpose	I am really enthusiastic about the mission of my company.	At work, I clearly understand what is expected of me.
Excellence	In my team, I am surrounded by people who share my values.	I have a chance to use my strengths every day at work.
Support	My teammates have my back.	I know I will be recognized for excellent work.
Future	I have great confidence in my company's future.	in my work, I'm always challenged to grow.

If you have a dream and no team - the dream is impossible.
If you have a dream and a bad team - the dream is a nightmare.
If you have a dream and are building a team - the dream is possible.
If you have a dream and a good leadership team- the dream is inevitable. ~John C. Maxwell

Members of trusting teams:
• Admit weaknesses and mistakes
• Ask for help
• Accept questions and input about their areas of responsibility
• Give one another the benefit of the doubt before arriving at a negative conclusion
• Take risk and offering feedback and assistance
• Appreciate and tap into one another’s skills and experiences
• Focus time and energy on important issues, not politics
• Offer and accept apologies without hesitation
• Look forward to meetings and other opportunities to work as a group ~ Pat Lencioni

Growth plans for members of my leadership team:
Give them a growth environment.
Recognize each person's growth needs.
Open up opportunities for them to grow.
Walk with them in challenging times.
Teach them to learn from every experience.
Help them add value to their teammates. ~John C. Maxwell

In teamwork, silence isn't golden, it's deadly. ~Mark Sanborn

When people get to weigh in on their development, they more readily buy into owning their personal growth progress. ~John C. Maxwell

I think if you truly understand the meaning of mentoring, you understand it as important as parenting; in fact, it is just like parenting. As my father often said, “there is nothing you know that you haven't learned from someone else.” Everything in the world has been passed down. Every piece of knowledge is something that has already been shared by someone else. If you understand it as I do, mentoring becomes your true legacy. It is the greatest inheritance you can give to others. It is why you get up every day- to teach and be taught. ~John Wooden

Quotes and what John Maxwell learned from people throughout his life:
Having a great attitude is a choice. He taught me that attitude is the difference maker. ~Melvin Maxwell (John Maxwell’s father – Consistency)

There's power in proximity. He taught me to get close to the people who can make you better. ~Elmer Towns (Faithfulness)

Go to places that inspire you. He gave me the idea of visiting presidential libraries, and I've been to all of them. ~Lon Woodrum (Reflectiveness)

Be the first to see potential in others. He saw the potential in me when I was 25, and I've never looked back. ~Bob Kline (Duty)

Expand your influence beyond your personal touch. He encouraged me to start writing books. ~Les Parrott (Creativity)

Be a rancher, not just a shepherd. He challenged me to not just feed the sheep I had, but to build and make room to reach other sheep. ~Jerry Falwell (Faith)

Become your mentee’s champion. He was more than a mentor; he was a sponsor who put his reputation on the line for me so I could take risks and live outside the box. ~ Tom Phillippe (Humility)

Carry the baton with excellence. He asked me to be a successor and handed the leadership baton to me for the organization he founded and led for 31 years. I worked to carry it out with excellence for 14 years and then handed it off to the next leader. ~Orval Butcher (Joy)

“Who luck” is the best luck a person can have. Chuck introduced me to the leaders much bigger and better than me, and they accepted and helped me. ~Chuck Swindoll (Possibilities)

Everything rises and falls on leadership. He mentored me from a distance through his book, Spiritual Leadership, which lit my fire to lead; I was able to meet him 20 years later to express my gratitude. ~J. Oswald Sanders (Fulfillment)

The gift is greater than the person. He taught me that I should be grateful for the amazing gifts God gave me, but to remember that I'm flawed, not amazing; that awareness grounded me. ~Fred Smith (Perspective)

Develop different streams of income. A talented businessman, he instructed me to create passive income that would work for me when I wasn't working. ~Larry Maxwell (John Maxwell’s brother – Focus)

Have a vision for the world. He wanted to change the world, and every time I was with him, he expanded my vision and purpose. ~ Bill Bright (Vision)

Help others get what they want, and they will help you get what you want. His statement prompted me to change the way I saw and practiced leadership, and I loved him for it. ~ Zig Ziglar (Reciprocity)

Take your message to the business world. He encouraged me to include the business market when I wrote my books, at 31 million books later, we're still helping people. ~Sealy Yates (Opportunity)

Will the reader turn the page? Les coached me in how to write and make my written message more compelling. ~ Les Stobbe (Servanthood)

Make every day your masterpiece. He modeled his philosophy last Friday and was my greatest mentor; my book Today Matters was inspired by him. ~John Wooden (Intentionality)

Mentorship is both caught and talk. The catching part of mentorship is totally dependent upon the credibility of the person mentoring you. ~John C. Maxwell

The underlying purpose of mentoring is not for people to act differently but rather to become different. ~ Dale Bronner

The difference between coaching and mentoring: ~John C. Maxwell

Coaching	Mentoring
Skill centered	Life Centered
Formal setting	Informal setting
More structured	Less structured
Directive	Advisory
Short- term	Long- term
narrow in scope	broader in scope
Drives the agenda	Receive the agenda
Positional	Relational
Skill awareness	Self- awareness
Trains	Develops
Do something	Be something
Transactional	Transformational

Mentors do not seek to create a new person; they simply seek to help a person become a better version of himself. ~John Wooden

Mentoring is discipling another person. It involves discerning where they are, knowing where they are supposed to go, and giving them what they need to get there. ~John C. Maxwell

Good mentors don't hesitate to have difficult conversations with the people they mentor. They deal with the “elephants” in the room even when others won't. ~John C. Maxwell

The greater an individual’s leadership ability, the greater the success or impact he or she can make ~John C. Maxwell

The only thing limiting the future of any organization is the number of good leaders with the develops. ~John C. Maxwell

I strive to model the six C's of of reproducing a culture. You should too.
• CHARACTER - BE IT. Everything starts with strong character. That's not something you can just talk about; it's something that has to be at the core of who you are. You have to live it every day. You must maintain integrity, treat others with respect, desire the best for people, and go out of your way to help them.
• CLARITY - SHOW IT. You have to spend time developing leaders yourself. You need to be personally involved, and your team needs to see you doing it so that you understand how it's done and how important it is.
• COMMUNICATION - SAY IT. You have to constantly talk about leadership development, so it becomes part of the common language in everyday conversation.
• CONTRIBUTION - OWN IT. If you're the leader the buck stops with you. You need to own your responsibility for developing leaders, and others will too. And when others step up and say, “I'll own this,” the entire team gets stronger.
• CONSISTENTLY - DO IT. The development of leaders is never once and done. Is something that needs cultivating every day. Why? Because the need for more and better leaders never ends.
• CELEBRATION - EMBRACE IT. When the development of leaders is recognized, rewarded, and celebrated continually, it becomes elevated in the organization and woven into the culture. Every leader aspires to become part of it and join in. ~John C. Maxwell

Nothing is easier than saying words. Nothing is harder than living them, day after day. What you promised today must be renewed and re-decided tomorrow and each day that stretches out before you. ~Arthur Gordon

David Ogilvy, founder of the giant advertising agency Ogilvy and Mather, used to give each new manager in his organization a Russian doll. The doll contained five progressively smaller dolls. A message inside the smallest one read: “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, Ogilvy and Mather will become a company of giants.” Commit to finding, hiring, and developing giants. ~Dennis Waitley

Winning companies when because they have good leaders who nurture the development of other leaders at all levels of the organization. ~Noel Tichy

Every day every leader you work with should ask, “Am I using my gifts for myself or others?” ~John C. Maxwell

When you begin developing leaders, the most important thing you can do is let them know what you're thinking and why. ~John C. Maxwell

The 80/ 20 rule:
• 20% of the workers produce 80% of the product
• 20% of the Salesforce close 80% of the sales
• 20% of the products return 80% of the revenue
• 20% of the population possesses 80% of the wealth
• 20% of the teams in the league win 80% of the championships

Accumulative advantage: what begins as a small advantage gets bigger over time. ~James Clear

Intentional living turns good intentions into good actions. ~John C. Maxwell

If the vision is right, the right leaders will show up. ~John C. Maxwell

A good leader will always have those around him who are better at particular task than he is. This is the hallmark of leadership. Never be afraid to hire or manage people who are better at certain jobs than you are. They can only make your organization stronger. ~John C. Maxwell  

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