The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential

by John C. Maxwell

leadership is influence. If people can increase their influence with others, they can lead more effectively.

Leadership is a process, not a position.

The challenge of leadership is to create change and facilitate growth. Those require movement, which, as you will soon see, is inherent in moving up from one level of leadership to the next.

Good leadership isn’t about advancing yourself. It’s about advancing your team.

a practice is an action that may work in one situation but not necessarily in another.

A principle is an external truth that is as reliable as a physical law.

When you like people and treat them like individuals who have value, you begin to develop influence with them. You develop trust.

You can like people without leading them, but you cannot lead people well without liking them.

happy. That was the wrong goal. As a leader, my goal should have been to help people, not to make them happy.

Effective leadership finds its source in understanding. Unless a leader has an awareness of humanity, a sensitivity toward the hopes and aspirations of those he leads, and the capacity to analyze the emotional forces that motivate conduct, he will be unable to produce and be successful regardless of how often other incentives are given.”