The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You

by John C. Maxwell

leadership ability is the lid that determines a person’s level of effectiveness.

Your leadership ability—for better or for worse—always determines your effectiveness and the potential impact of your organization.

The greater the impact you want to make, the greater your influence needs to be. Whatever you will accomplish is restricted by your ability to lead others.

True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and that cannot be mandated. It must be earned.

The main difference between the two is that leadership is about influencing people to follow, while management focuses on maintaining systems and processes.

To be a leader, a person has to not only be out front, but also have people intentionally coming behind him, following his lead, and acting on his vision. Being a trendsetter is not the same as being a leader.

Stanley Huffty affirmed, “It’s not the position that makes the leader; it’s the leader that makes the position.”

You’re a leader only if you have followers, and that always requires the development of relationships—the deeper the relationships, the stronger the potential for leadership.

Leaders seek to recognize and influence intangibles such as energy, morale, timing, and momentum.

“He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.” If you can’t influence people, then they will not follow you. And if people won’t follow, you are not a leader.

He calls it the Stockdale Paradox. He writes, “You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end and you must also confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.”3

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Character makes trust possible. And trust makes leadership possible. That is the Law of Solid Ground.

NBA great Jerry West commented, “You can’t get too much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.” If your people don’t know what to expect from you as a leader, at some point they won’t look to you for leadership.

J. R. Miller once observed, “The only thing that walks back from the tomb with the mourners and refuses to be buried is the character of a man. This is true. What a man is survives him. It can never be buried.”

When people respect you as a person, they admire you. When they respect you as a friend, they love you. When they respect you as a leader, they follow you.

People’s opinion of us has less to do with what they see in us than it does with what we can help them see in themselves.

“Leaders are dealers in hope.” That is so true. When you give people hope, you give them a future.

successful leaders who obey the Law of Connection are always initiators. They take the first step with others and then make the effort to continue building relationships.

Only if you reach your potential as a leader do your people have a chance to reach their potential.

When your immediate staff numbers more than seven When you can no longer directly lead everyone In the volunteer world, when others besides paid staff should be in the inner circle

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.”

As I push him lower, I go lower. That’s the same way it is in leadership: to keep others down, you have to go down with them. And when you do that, you lose any power to lift others up.

author John Steinbeck asserted, “It is the nature of man as he grows older to protest against change, particularly change for the better.”

As author Buck Rogers says, “To those who have confidence in themselves, change is a stimulus because they believe one person can make a difference and influence what goes on around them. These people are the doers and motivators.”

Mission provides purpose—answering the question, Why? Vision provides a picture—answering the question, What? Strategy provides a plan—answering the question, How?

The leader must also live the vision. The leader’s effective modeling of the vision makes the picture come alive!

The leaders who make the greatest impact are often those who lead well in the midst of uncertainty.

Uncertainty is not an indication of poor leadership. Rather it indicates a need for leadership. The nature of leadership demands that there always be an element of uncertainty. The temptation is to think, If I were a good leader, I would know exactly what to do. Increased responsibility means dealing with more and more intangibles and therefore more complex uncertainty. Leaders can afford to be uncertain, but we cannot afford to be unclear. People will not follow fuzzy leadership.

Norman Vincent Peale stated, “Nothing is more confusing than people who give good advice but set a bad example.”

“That’s because ethics can be instilled in others only if it is taught and modeled for them,”

They send people places they have never been. Instead, they should be more like tour guides, taking people places they have gone and sharing the wisdom of their own experiences.

Featherstone remarked, “Leaders tell but never teach until they practice what they preach.” That is the Law of the Picture.

“Which is the most difficult—leading up, across, or down?” “None of the above,” I answered quickly. “Leading myself is the toughest.”

I caught perseverance by watching my father face and overcome adversity. I caught encouragement by looking at how Ken Blanchard valued people. I caught vision by seeing Bill Bright make his vision become reality.

As Nobel Peace Prize–winner Albert Schweitzer observed, “Example is leadership.”

“You cannot ask those who work for you to do something you’re unwilling to do yourself,” he states. “It is up to you to set a standard of behavior.”10

“Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.”

By developing a good relationship with them By being honest and authentic and developing trust By holding yourself to high standards and setting a good example By giving them the tools to do their job better By helping them to achieve their personal goals By developing them as leaders

Inspirational writer Eleanor Doan observed, “You cannot kindle a fire in any other heart until it is burning within your own.”

Why is it so important to pay attention to your “life sentence”? Because your life sentence not only sets the direction for your life but it also determines the legacy you will leave.

Grenville Kleiser, in his classic personal development book, Training for Power and Leadership, wrote, Your life is like a book. The title page is your name, the preface your introduction to the world. The pages are a daily record of your efforts, trials, pleasures, discouragements, and achievements. Day by day your thoughts and acts are being inscribed in your book of life. Hour by hour, the record is being made that must stand for all time. Once the word finis must be written, let it then be said of your book that it is a record of noble purpose, generous service, and work well-done.1

Author, educator, and theologian Elton Trueblood wrote, “We have made at least a start in discovering the meaning in human life when we plant shade trees under which we know full well we will never sit.”