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#80 John Maxwell: Developing the Leader in You

Mar 31, 2020 1h 1m 27 insights
John Maxwell breaks down the four traits every successful person possesses and how to awaken the leader within you, no matter what your job title says.   -- Want even more? Members get early access, hand-edited transcripts, member-only episodes, and so much more. Learn more here: https://fs.blog/membership/   Every Sunday our Brain Food newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/   Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish
Actionable Insights

1. Pursue Significance, Not Just Success

Reorient your life’s purpose from personal success to living a life of significance, which is centered on adding value to others. Consistently and intentionally contributing to the lives of others leads to genuine fulfillment and happiness.

2. Master Self-Leadership First

Recognize that your greatest leadership challenge is often leading yourself effectively. Prioritize achieving personal victories and demonstrating strong self-leadership, as this forms the credible foundation for leading others.

3. Invest in Developing Leaders

Make a conscious decision to invest in developing other leaders within your team, rather than solely focusing on followers. This commitment, though time-consuming initially, yields significant long-term returns by empowering others to help you achieve your vision.

4. Prioritize Growth Over Goals

Adopt a growth-oriented mindset rather than solely being goal-oriented, as continuous self-development naturally leads to achieving all your goals. This approach ensures milestones are stepping stones for further progress, not final finish lines.

5. Embrace Continuous Learning Cycle

Commit to the essential and never-ending cycle of learning new information, unlearning outdated concepts, and relearning updated approaches. This continuous process is critical for adapting and succeeding in a constantly evolving environment.

6. Implement Test-Fail-Learn Cycle

Adopt a five-part cycle for success: test new ideas, accept that failure will occur, learn valuable lessons from those failures, use those lessons to improve, and then reenter the process. This continuous loop drives significant growth.

7. Learn From Failure

Understand that failure is not the opposite of success, but rather a crucial component of it. Embrace failures as valuable learning opportunities, as highly successful people leverage them for growth and improvement.

8. Evaluate Every Experience

Transform raw experience into valuable insight by consistently evaluating every event. After an experience, consciously reflect on what you loved and, critically, what lessons it offered to foster continuous personal growth and awareness.

9. Master Four Success Pillars

To achieve success, focus on developing strong relationships, effectively equipping and empowering teams, cultivating a tenacious attitude to overcome adversity, and mastering the skill of influencing and leading others. These four areas are consistently practiced by successful individuals.

10. Shift Vision from Me to We

Move beyond a self-centered vision to embrace a collective ‘we’ vision, creating a leadership culture and empowering environment. This shift enables others to come alongside you, helping to achieve greater things.

11. Value People to Add Value

Develop a deep appreciation and respect for others, because you can only truly add value to those you genuinely value. This foundational principle is key to living a fulfilled life and positively impacting others.

12. Be a Brother’s Lifter

Move beyond simply being responsible for others to actively lifting them up and improving their lives. Intentionally make every interaction with you a positive and beneficial experience for those around you.

13. Increase Your Influence

Recognize that leadership is fundamentally about influence, not just a title. Actively work to increase your influence, as this directly enhances your ability to lead people successfully.

14. Leadership is a Journey

Understand that leadership is an active process of continuous growth, not a fixed title. Identify your current leadership level and develop a game plan to progress to the next stage.

15. Understand Leadership Levels

Educate yourself on the five levels of leadership to gain self-awareness about your current standing. This understanding is crucial because leadership is a daily development process, not a one-time event.

16. Uncover Blind Spots with Others

Recognize that true self-awareness often comes from others who can see your blind spots. Actively seek feedback from people who care about your potential, and approach their insights with a teachable spirit to facilitate growth.

17. Confront Blind Spots with Care

Don’t shy away from confronting others about their blind spots, as this is a crucial way to help them improve. Do so with genuine care, honesty, and in a private, respectful manner, always keeping their best interests at heart.

18. Lead to Help, Not to Please

Prioritize helping people grow and improve over trying to make them happy or liked. Be honest and direct in your communication, understanding that true leadership involves providing beneficial, even if sometimes uncomfortable, truths.

19. Define Personal Reality

Take on the primary leadership responsibility of defining reality, beginning with an honest and realistic assessment of yourself. This self-awareness forms the solid foundation upon which all other leadership is built.

20. Perform Regular Self-Audits

Regularly review your life and career progress to assess if you’re truly achieving your desired potential, not just external success. Use these audits to identify gaps, like under-developing your team, and make strategic shifts to your priorities.

21. Choose Continuous Self-Improvement

Understand that personal growth and improvement are fundamentally a choice. Commit to actively working on areas you wish to develop, knowing that consistent effort in achievable areas will lead to tangible improvement.

22. Maximize Natural Talents

Take personal responsibility for maximizing your inherent gifts and talents. This involves a continuous commitment to learning, growing, and improving, and structuring your life to support this ongoing development.

23. Commit to Daily Growth

Understand that leadership and success are built through a consistent, daily process of growth, not overnight. Commit to doing the right things consistently over time, as this compounding effort will lead to remarkable long-term results.

24. Ground Confidence in Accomplishment

Build genuine confidence by achieving tangible successes and ‘wins’ under your belt, rather than relying solely on affirmation. This experience of accomplishment allows you to own your belief and operate at a higher level.

25. Expect Uphill Challenges

Develop a mindset that acknowledges everything worthwhile is an uphill climb and not easy. This realistic expectation from the outset helps build tenacity and resilience, preparing you for consistent effort.

26. Share Your Failures

Leaders should openly discuss their past failures and mistakes to provide a realistic view of the journey to success. This transparency encourages others, helps them understand the power of process, and builds stronger connections.

27. Develop Character Through Adversity

Understand that character is forged through adversity and the lessons learned from difficult experiences and mistakes. Embrace challenges as opportunities to develop a stronger, more resilient inner self.