Leading with Certainty: Mastering the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

[00:00:00] Hi, welcome to Bookey, which unlock big ideas from world best tellers in audio, text, and mind map. Please download Booky at Apple Store or Google Play with more features, get your free mind snack now. Today, we will unlock the Book the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership for you. In 1937, two brothers opened a small drive in restaurant in Pasadena, east of Grandale in California.

[00:00:29] Instead of entering the restaurant, customers could drive into the parking lot around the diner, order from a waiter who walked up to the window, and then enjoy their food in the car.

[00:00:40] The restaurant was a huge success. The brothers then made a series of adjustments, including relocating, expanding the front of the restaurant, updating the menu, and changing the cutlery. Their business was booming.

[00:00:56] The brothers are Dick and Morris McDonald. Their restaurant was McDonald's.

[00:01:02] When McDonald's became one of the most profitable restaurants in the country, they began to promote the McDonald's business concept and developed into a restaurant chain.

[00:01:12] However, their restaurant chain ended up in trouble because their limited leadership skills and narrow vision hindered the further development of the enterprise.

[00:01:21] Their leadership was like a lid on their chances of success. Maxwell points out that the lid determines the amount of water in the pot, just as leadership determines a person's potential.

[00:01:33] This is what he calls the law of the lid.

[00:01:36] Unlike the McDonald brothers, a man named Ray Crock had better leadership skills, and eventually built McDonald's into a national and global enterprise.

[00:01:46] He bought the McDonald's franchise and used it as a model to open other restaurants.

[00:01:52] Then, he started building the team and the organization, recruited new people with leadership skills, and constantly moved.

[00:02:00] the company forward. Thus, Maxwell argues that individual success without leadership, like the

[00:02:06] McDonald Brothers, can only achieve limited results. The higher a person wants to climb,

[00:02:13] the more leadership he or she needs. To make a bigger impact, you need more leadership.

[00:02:19] Leadership can multiply results. That's why Maxwell has been teaching leadership for decades.

[00:02:28] Maxwell is a world-renowned expert on leadership and interpersonal relationships,

[00:02:33] author of the 360-degree leader and success is a choice. The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership

[00:02:40] is one of his best sellers. It describes the 21 rules of leadership, including the law of

[00:02:47] the lid we just mentioned. Here, we'll discuss other rules from different angles in three parts.

[00:02:55] Part one, good leaders improve themselves. Part two, good leaders lead.

[00:03:01] Part three, good leaders optimize the organization. We know that leadership is very important,

[00:03:09] but do you really know what leadership is? When it comes to leadership, people tend to have a

[00:03:15] misconception that all leaders have leadership skills. As long as the person has a big title

[00:03:21] or is given a leadership position, he or she is a leader. However, this does not mean that this

[00:03:28] person has leadership abilities. Let's take the example of Abraham Lincoln.

[00:03:33] Decades before becoming president, Lincoln had organized a group of young men to fight in the

[00:03:39] Black Hawk War, where he held the rank of captain. However, he knew nothing about leading troops

[00:03:46] into battle and could not remember even the simplest military procedures. Once he led a

[00:03:51] march of more than 20 men through a field and needed to direct them through a gate to another

[00:03:56] field. However, he did not know how to

[00:03:59] to give the order to change the horizontal line into a single line. As he neared the

[00:04:05] gate, he called out, "This company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again

[00:04:10] on the other side of the gate." It was this lack of leadership that caused Lincoln's influence

[00:04:16] over the rest of the militia company to Wayne over time, and when other officers were promoted,

[00:04:21] he was demoted to private. "From this, we can see that if you cannot effectively influence

[00:04:27] people, they will not listen to you, and as a consequence you are not a leader." This

[00:04:33] is the law of influence. A true leadership position cannot be assigned or delegated. It

[00:04:40] comes from influence. In other words, leadership is about influence. An influential person,

[00:04:48] even if he or she is not a leader, is still a person with leadership. Morris Sachi, CEO

[00:04:54] of Sachi and Sachi, possesses this influence. When the board fired him, several senior

[00:05:01] executives followed him, many of his biggest clients stopped working with the company,

[00:05:06] and the company's stock price plummeted. This is the result of the law of influence. Although

[00:05:13] Sachi lost his title and position, he was still the leader. Therefore, if you want to

[00:05:19] be a real leader, you must strive to enhance your influence. In terms of increasing your

[00:05:25] influence, Maxwell suggests finding an organization to volunteer for and trying to become the

[00:05:31] leader. It could be a school, a soup kitchen, or a community service project. Then, learn

[00:05:39] how to lead through influence. A good leader is not only influential, but also trustworthy.

[00:05:47] This is the law of solid ground that we are going to explore now.

[00:05:52] One fall, while Maxwell was serving as the senior pastor in a church in San Diego, he

[00:05:57] was so busy with work that he made three

[00:06:27] Many major decisions without consulting other leaders and quickly put them into practice.

[00:06:05] In an organization comprised of volunteers, making decisions was supposed to follow its

[00:06:10] proper process.

[00:06:12] But under the impression of earlier successes, Maxwell believed it was okay for him to take

[00:06:17] a shortcut.

[00:06:18] As a result, other staff had gone easy and began to question him.

[00:06:23] Maxwell then realized that he was violating the law of solid ground.

[00:06:29] The law of solid ground states that character makes trust possible, and trust makes leadership

[00:06:34] possible.

[00:06:36] General H. Norman Schwarzkopf once said, "Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character.

[00:06:43] But if you must be without one, be without strategy.

[00:06:47] People don't trust people with questionable character.

[00:06:51] People will follow you only if you have good character."

[00:06:54] Maxwell points out that trust is like change in a leader's pocket.

[00:06:59] At the beginning of a leadership position, everyone has a certain amount of change in

[00:07:03] their pocket.

[00:07:05] Every time a good decision is made, you earn more change.

[00:07:10] Every time a bad decision is made, you pay out some change.

[00:07:14] With one mistake after the other, the change in the pocket will eventually run out, and

[00:07:19] trust may never be restored.

[00:07:21] The U.S. government is an example of the effects of paying out change.

[00:07:26] From the Vietnam War to Afghanistan War, one scandal after another undermined the public's

[00:07:32] trust in their leaders, leaving Americans distrustful of politicians today.

[00:07:37] On the other hand, if you make a mistake only once in a while, you can keep the change in

[00:07:42] your pocket, and trust is preserved.

[00:07:46] Maxwell, for example, regained trust by realizing his mistake and apologizing immediately.

[00:07:53] To put the law of solid ground into practice, leaders should demonstrate capability, like

[00:07:59] and good character. Maxwell believes that the most important thing is to improve one's own character, mainly by being honest, sincere, and principled.

[00:08:09] Honesty is telling the truth, not even if it is a white lie.

[00:08:14] Sensarity is to treat everyone sincerely, not playing tricks, and not pretending to be something you are not.

[00:08:21] Being principled means strengthening one's own principles and adhering to doing the right thing.

[00:08:28] Trust is the foundation of leadership, and allows people to accept the leader.

[00:08:33] People's acceptance is very important for leaders to achieve their goals.

[00:08:38] When you set a goal, do you worry about whether the people your leading will support your goal?

[00:08:44] Many people think that if their goals are good enough, people will automatically follow them.

[00:08:50] In fact, this is a misconception.

[00:08:53] People accept the leader first, and then their goals.

[00:08:57] This is the law of buy-in.

[00:09:00] Mahatma Gandhi's lifelong leadership of Indian independence is the perfect example of the law of buy-in.

[00:09:07] After earning a law degree in Britain, Gandhi went to work in South Africa, where he worked as a court lawyer for 20 years, defending the rights of Indians and other minorities who were discriminated by South Africa's apartheid government.

[00:09:21] Upon his return, he began leading demonstrations and strikes across India, and was elected president of the All India Home Rule League.

[00:09:30] Unlike the usual violent means of resistance to the colonial regime, Gandhi used nonviolent means and inspired people to fight for freedom.

[00:09:40] In the face of the brutal massacre of more than 1,000 civilians by British forces in Amritsar in 1919, people still chose to embrace Gandhi's idea of not fighting back.

[00:09:51] Since they had embraced him as their leader, they adopted his goal, and though it was a long and painful process, they worked to beat him.

[00:10:01] Together to finally achieve the goal of Indian independence in 1947.

[00:10:05] So how do you get people to accept you as a leader?

[00:10:08] Let's see how Maxwell did it.

[00:10:11] When Maxwell first started leading a church, he wanted to build a new auditorium, but more

[00:10:17] than 65% of the congregation wanted to build a new activity center.

[00:10:22] If Maxwell imposed his own goals and plans on the congregation, he would have weakened

[00:10:27] his own leadership.

[00:10:29] So instead of doing that, he suggested researching all the issues about building the activity

[00:10:34] center and not start until they had a complete understanding of the plan.

[00:10:39] The proposal was well received, and as the research began, Maxwell took care to answer

[00:10:44] each employee's questions, to make sure they fully understood his ideas, and to share his

[00:10:49] ideas, hopes, and dreams about the work of the church, all while building a close relationship

[00:10:55] with church leaders.

[00:10:57] As a result, the congregation began to believe in his leadership and eventually realized

[00:11:02] that building the activity center was not in the church's best interest and that building

[00:11:07] a new auditorium, was the key to its future growth.

[00:11:11] This concludes part one.

[00:11:14] We have learned that a real leader should be an influential person.

[00:11:18] To be a true leader, you need to be seen as trustworthy.

[00:11:22] To get people to accept your goals, they have to accept you first.

[00:11:27] These pertain to the law of influence, the law of solid ground, and the law of buy-in.

[00:11:34] By following these rules, you are stepping up to the next level of leadership.

[00:11:39] Let's look at the rules you need to master to lead.

[00:11:42] Today we are just sharing limited content.

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