Developing the leader within you    John C. Maxwell, America's expert on leadership, is found of the INJOY group, organizations dedicated to helping people maximize their personal and leadership potential. each year he influences the lives of more than one million people through his seminars books and tapes

Everything will rises and falls on leadership.

The effectiveness of your work will never rise above your ability to lead and influence others. You cannot produce consistently on a level higher than your leadership. In other words, your leadership skills determine the level of your success

99 percent of all employees want to do a good job. how they perform is simply a reflection of the one for whom they work.

Management and leadership. Management is the process of assuring that the program and objectives of the organization are implemented. Leadership, on the other hand, has to do with casting vision and motivating people. People don't want to be managed. They want to be lead.

1. The definition of Leadership: Influence

Leadership is influence. Leadership is the ability to obtain followers. Most people define leadership as the ability to achieve a position, not to get followers. Those who possess the status of a leader often experience the frustration of few followers, and those who lack the proper titles may not see themselves as leaders and therefore don't develop their leadership skills.

Everyone influences someone. that means that all of us are leading in some areas, while in other areas we are being led. No one is excluded from being a leader or a follower. Not everyone will become a great leader, but everyone can become a better leader.

The Five Levels of Leadership

2. The key to leadership : Priorities

Success can be defined as the progressive realization of a predetermined goal.

Efficiency is the foundation for survival. Effectiveness is the foundation for success.

The Pareto Principle (20/80 principle) : 20 percent of your priorities will give you 80 percent of your production if you spend your time, energy, money and personnel on the top 20 percent of your priorities.

Life is too short not to be fun. our best work takes place when we enjoy it. When you are making a success of something, it's not work. It's a way of life. You enjoy yourself because you are making your contribution to the world.

Planned neglect. All true leaders have learned to say "No" to the good in order to say "Yes" to the best. The reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first.

Time deadlines and emergencies force us to prioritize. when is our most efficient time in our work? The week before vacation!   Under normal conditions, we are efficient. Hen time pressure mounts or emergencies arise, we become effective.

3. Integrity: The most important ingredient of leadership

A person with integrity does not have divided loyalties (duplicity), nor is he or she merely pretending (hypocrisy). People with integrity are "whole" people. they can be identified by their single-mindedness.

People with integrity have nothing to hide and nothing to fear. "A person of integrity is one who has established a system of values against which all of life is judged"

Integrity is not what we do so much as who we are. And who we are, in turn, determines what we do.

Integrity binds our person together and fosters a spirit of contentment within us. It will not allow our lips to violate our hearts.

 89% of what people learn comes through visual stimulation, 10% through audible stimulation and 1% through other senses. what they hear, they understand, what they see, they believe. what people need is not a motto to say, but a model to see.

Image is what people think we are. Integrity is what we really are.

Integrity builds trust. Authority is not the power a boss has over subordinates, but rather the boss's ability to influence subordinates to recognize and accept that power. Leaders lack authority because they lack integrity. If my people understand me, I will get their attention. If my people trust me, I will get their action.

Integrity has high influence value. People's minds are changed through observation and not argument. people do what people see.

Integrity means living it myself before leading others. we cannot lead anyone else father than we have been ourselves.

Peter Drucker, The final requirement of effective leadership is to earn trust. otherwise there won't be any followers. Trust is the conviction that the leader means what he says. Effective leadership is not based on being clever; it is primarily on being consistent.

Followers expect four things from their leaders: honesty, competence, vision and inspiration. You will only become what you are becoming right now.

4. The ultimate test of leadership: Creating positive Change

I have discovered that leaders resist change as much as followers do. The result? Unchanged leaders equals unchanged organizations.

To be a leader you must preserve all through your life the attitude of being receptive to new ideas. The quality of leadership you will give will depend upon your ability to evaluate new ideas.

The leader as a change agent. In order to change people leader needs to know two important requisites; knowing the technical requirements of the change and understanding the attitude and motivational demands for change. a change can make sense logically, but still lead to anxiety in the psychological dimension.

Why people resist change?

People change when they hurt enough they have to change, learn enough they want to change, receive enough they are able to change.

The evolutionary process of change. Change can be seen as either revolutionary or evolutionary. It is usually easier to present change as a simple refinement of "the way we have been doing it" rather than something big or new.

Innovators 2%, Early adopters 10%, Middle adopters 60%, Late adopters 20%, Laggards 8%

Creating a climate for change. Human behavior studies show that people do not basically resist change; they resist "being changed" how to create an atmosphere that will encourage others to be changed. Unless people are changed, change will not happen.

5. The quickest way to gain leadership: problem-solving

Your problem-solving skill will always be needed because people always have problems. The size of the person is more important than the size of the problem.

People need to change their perspective, not their problems. The very element that offers resistance to flying is at the same time the condition for flight. Obstacles are condition of success. without problems or obstacles life loses its creative tension.

My problem is not my problem. There is a world of difference between a person who has a big problem and a person who makes a problem big.

The right attitude. Positive thinking is how you think about a problem. Enthusiasm is how you feel about a problem. Positive thinking does not always change our circumstances, but it will always change us. when we are able to think rightly about tough situations, then our journey through life become better.

Whereas policies are set up for a particular function in a specific area, principles are guidelines for everyone and are more general.

Never allow others to think you always have the best answers. This will only make them dependent on you.

6. The extra plus in leadership: Attitude

Charles Swindoll, The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. attitude, to me, is more important than facts. We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. Life is 10% what happened to me and 90 percent how I react to it. we are in charge of our attitude.

Leadership has less to do with position than it does with disposition. Great leader understand that the right attitude will set the right atmosphere, which enables the right responses from others.

Our attitudes are our most important assets. our attitude may not be the asset that makes us great leaders, but without good ones we will never reach our full potential. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Expectation. our expectations have a great deal to do with our attitudes. And these expectations may be totally false, but they will determine our attitudes

How we handle our feelings. There is a great difference between how we feel and how we handle our feelings. Our attitudes cannot stop our feelings, but they can keep our feelings from stopping us.

We are responsible for our attitudes. our destinies in life will never be determined by our complaining spirits or high expectations. Life is full of surprises and the adjustment of our attitudes is a lifelong project.

It is not what happens to me that matters but what happens in me. Happy person is not a person with a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes. God choose what we go through. We choose how we go through it.

The one thing you cannot take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one's freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given circumstance.

The leader's attitude helps determine the attitudes of the followers.

Motivation is not going to strike you like lighting. The whole idea of motivation is a trap. forget motivation. just do it. do it without motivation. then motivation will follows.

Motivation is like love an happiness. It's a by-product. when you are actively engaged in doing something, the motivation to keep on doing it sneaks up and zaps you when you least expect it.

Attitudes are nothing more than habits of thought and can be acquired. an action repeated becomes an attitude realized.

7.Developing your most appreciable assets: People

The one who influences others to follow only is a leader with certain limitations. The one who influences others to lead others is a leader without limitations. The more people you develop, the greater the extent of your dreams.

Principles for people development. my success in developing others will depend on how well I accomplish each of the following.

Making the right assumptions about people. My assumptions about people largely determine how I treat them. why? what I assume about people is what I look for. what I look for is what I find. what I find influences my response.

Make people your priority. people are our greatest resources. therefore, take time to know and care about them. this means being responsive in conversation. stop talking and develop the are of really listening. quit thinking of what you will say next and begin to hear not only what they say, but how they fell.

You can impress people at distance but you can only impact them up close.

8.The indispensable quality of leadership: vision

All great leaders possess two things: They know where they are going and they are able to persuade others to follow. 

what you see is what you can be. couple a vision with a leader willing to implement that dream and a movement begins. People do not follow a dream in itself. They follow the leader who has that dream and the ability to communicate it effectively.

You see what you are prepared to see. we all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.

Leaders can never take their people father than they have traveled. Like leader, like people.

Personal ownership of a vision. "If you want to know the temperature of your church, put a thermometer in pastor's mouth" The success of a vision is determined by its ownership by both the leader and the people.

a person without experience sees a vision idealistically. a person with experience learns that people buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

every golden era in human history proceeds from the devotion and righteous passion of some single individual. There is always one man who knows his God and knows where he is going.

Great visions are bigger than the person. a vision should be greater than the person who has it.

Corporate ownership of a vision. a vision is a clear picture of what the leader sees his or her group being or doing. communicating a vision is one of the most frustrating areas of leading an organization.

Dogmatic talker. many visions aren't realized because of strong, dogmatic people. To be absolutely certain about something, one must either know everything or nothing about it. most of time, the dogmatist knows nothing but conventionally says something.

Census takers. some people never feel comfortable stepping out of the crowd. True leaders are always in the minority because they are thinking ahead of the present majority.

Paint the vision picture. a great teacher never strives to explain his vision. he simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself. Great leaders explain their vision by painting a picture for the people. Never paint the vision without placing yourself in the picture.

The leader with vision believes not only that what he envisions can be done, but that it must be done.

9. The price tag of leadership: Self-discipline.

I define discipline in the beginning of life as the choice of achieving what you really want by doing things you don't really want to do. after successfully doing this for some time, discipline becomes the choice of achieving what you really want by doing things you now want to do.

The process for developing personal discipline

Hard work is the accumulation of easy things you didn't do when you should have

what you are going to be tomorrow, you are becoming today.

Indiana Univ. basketball coach, "the will to succeed is important, but I will tell you what's more important. it is the will to prepare. It is the will to go out there every day training and building those muscles and sharpening those skills".

Welcome Responsibility

Integrity demonstration. Integrity in a leader must be demonstrated daily in a number of tangible ways.

Become character driven instead of emotion driven

Louis L'Amour, famous best-selling writer, "start writing, no matter what. the water does not flow until the faucet is tune on.

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, gift. By contrast, good character is not given to us. we have to build it piece by piece, by thought, choice, courage and determination. This will only be accomplished with a disciplined lifestyle.

It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the intentions are: if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent success. Only basic goodness gives life to technique.

10 The most important lesson of leadership: Staff development

Those closest to the leader will determine the level of success for that leader

A picture of a winning team

Five principles for picking people

Cautious man

Common strengths Outstanding Leaders share

Dreaming. never let go of a dream until you are ready to wake up and make it happen

Goal-setting. a goal is a dream with a deadline

Influencing. the very essence of all power to influence lies in getting the other person to participate.

Personal Organization. organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it's not all mixed up.

Prioritizing. He is a wise man who waste no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is wiser still who, from among the things he can do well, choose and resolutely follows the best.

Problem-solving. the majority see the obstacles: the few see the objectives; history records the successes of the latter, while oblivion is the reward of the former

Risk-taking. risks are not to be evaluated in terms of the probability of success, but in terms of the value of the goal.

Decision-making. your decisions will always be better if you do what is right for the organization rather than what is right for yourself.

Creativity. there is always a better way. your challenge is to find it.

Hiring/Firing.  there are only three rules of sound administration: pick good people and tell them not to cut corners; and back them to the limit.

Evaluation. the person who knows how will always have a job; but the person who knows why will always be the boss.