The Growing Leader

Mark Cole:

Hey. Welcome back to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and today John Maxwell is going to teach on three essential areas where leaders need to grow and stretch to become the best leader for their people. I’ve got to tell you, I have listened to this lesson multiple times, and I’ve got to tell you, every time I listen to it, it challenges me to lead and grow myself in a better way. I am confident it’s going to do that for you as well. After John’s lesson, my co host Tracy Morrow and I will discuss practical ways that you can apply this lesson to your own life and your own leadership. If you would like to download the free resource we have for you, you can go to MaxwellPodcast.com/Growing.

You can also find the link there to watch this episode on YouTube. We are here again to add value to you, and John’s going to do exactly that. If you are a leader that wants to grow, take note. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:

The great leaders are growing. They have a hunger that makes them rich. A growing leader is a little wiser today than he was yesterday. He never stops learning. He never stops reflecting. He’s not afraid of change because he knows that growth is dependent on it. He is more concerned about getting better than being perfect. He is constantly looking to improve himself and the people around him.

So I sat down and I spent a great deal of time on this lesson because, you know, I wrote the law 15 Laws of Growth. I talk a lot about growth. And let me give you a little bit of my thought process before I teach it today, I thought about the vitality that growth brings. I began to ask myself, what are the areas that a person has got to make sure that they grow in? I suppose we can grow in a lot of areas, but if you’re going to be really good, you got to get it down to a few areas where you say, these are essential to my success and what are they? And so I had the most wonderful day. Margaret and I have a cottage up in Highlands, North Carolina, and it’s in the mountains, and it just lets me get away. And I took my legal pad and I asked myself for an entire day, John, what are the essential elements? What are the essential areas that a person really needs to grow in to be successful? Let me give them to you. Number one is confidence. Confidence.

I love this humorous thought on confidence that I have. Next confidence is the uplifting feeling you have before you truly understand the situation. Hey, by the way, show your hands. How many of you have been there before? You just feel so confident and you feel so good you go. Oops, oops. Okay. Great. Leaders are confident in themselves.

They’re confident in their vision, and they’re confident in people. And the result of that confidence in themselves, their vision, and the people. The result of that is that the people have confidence in their leader. A confident leader gives people confidence. In fact, I’m going to do a whole lesson on this next statement, because when I had my legal pad and I was spending my day just thinking on this, I realized once I made this next statement that I was on to something. And I’ve got to go tap into my mind a little bit more and pull it out. We think of leader sometimes, and we think, oh, they’re so charismatic. And we think of charisma as a personality.

Listen to me very carefully, because what I’m going to say is going to help some of you. Confidence is the core of charisma. When you see a person that has charisma, the core of that ability to be free and open and enjoy their life, the very core of that is that they are confident in themselves. And I remember so well let me tell you a quick story. I remember so well. This would be, Ohama, this would be in the 1970s, and Margaret and I were going somewhere, and so I stopped at McDonald’s. They didn’t have a drive through then. I mean, it’s where you got out of the car and you went in, and I wanted to get something to eat, and I wanted to get a Diet Coke.

And so I went in and I asked for a Diet Coke. And I’ll never forget the girl behind the counter said, we don’t have Diet Coke, we just have Coke. And I said, okay, then I’ll tell you what, I don’t want that. Just give me a cup full of ice. And she looked at me, said, oh, I don’t think I can do that, sir. I mean, she’s looking on her little deal, and there’s no place where you punch cup of ice. I don’t think we could do that. And I smiled real confident to her at her, and I said, yes, you can.

And I’ll never forget she looked at me, she said, okay. And she went over and she got a cup, she got a knife. She was happy as a climb, gave it to me, and I thanked her very much, and off I went. And as I walked back to the car, all of a sudden I realized what confidence does for people. If she can, you can do that. Okay? Never thought of it before. I would wish for every one of you to really become a confident person. Confidence stimulates creativity that discovers answers.

Confidence will stimulate a creativity that will discover the answer. The second thing that you need to grow in confidence will just confidence will change your life. The second area is courage. And I would like you to consider these thoughts about courage today. Courage is the willingness to let go of the familiar. What you have known and what you have done hinders you from being what you could become. Life expands or shrinks in proportion to your courage. Courage is living one’s convictions in the face of fear.

Fear, it can be a speed bump, but it shouldn’t be a stop sign. I was sharing in one of my Q and A’s yesterday that we have fear and we have faith, and the stronger emotion will always win. If my faith is stronger than my fear, which is positive, then I’ll do the things that faith requires. If my fear is stronger than my faith, I’ll always do the things that fear requires. You got to feed your faith. You got to starve your fear. People don’t follow titles. They follow courage.

Boy, do I love that quote. Isn’t that beautiful? Number three. One more. The third area of growth that I would like you to grow in confidence. Courage. Number three decision making. Decision making is so essential to success. So I’m going to give you the five decisions that have formed my life.

This in itself could be a two hour lesson. I’ll just give them to you. Okay? The first category is what I call ministry decision. At the age of 23. This was the quote that I kind of accepted for my life in ministry, I will attempt things so big that if they’re accomplished, only God will get the credit. And throughout my life, I’ve tried to make decisions that were so big that when they happened, only God would get the credit. The second group of vital decisions I have made in my life that have formed me are personal growth decisions. And at the age of 26, I said to myself, I will intentionally grow every day and I will develop my strengths.

Thirdly is partnership decisions. At the age of 30, I basically said this I will first help others get what they want and what they need. Then they will help me get what I need. My wonderful friend Zig taught me that, and partnership has been absolutely huge in my life. The fourth area of decisions that are key I believe in growth is relationship decisions. At the age of 33, I said, I will live in such a way that those who are closest to me will love and respect me the most. My best friends are people who’ve known me the longest and are the closest to me. They know my weaknesses and often are recipients of my shortcomings.

To be unconditionally loved by those who know me well is my greatest joy. I am not a self made man. I am who I am because of those who cared enough about me to touch my soul. Leadership decisions at age 48. I will add value to leader who will multiply value to others. In 1976, I was called to train leaders. Over the years, that calling has evolved and taking shape. Resourcing leaders became an early commitment of mine.

And then the Hatchet Committee determined that my speaking schedule should give priority to the number of leaders that we would have in the audience. Then my publisher, Thomas Nelson, discovered that 60% of my reading audience was in the secular community and immediately sensed God directing me to focus on that market and to be salt and light in the business community. Often people ask me about my legacy. It is in the hands of leaders we have trained. Those hands will live beyond me and reach people that I could not have reached. It is in your hands that I give my legacy. Thank you very much.

Mark Cole:

As leaders, it’s so tempting to feel like we need to do it all. We put this enormous pressure on ourselves to accomplish more today than we did yesterday, to earn more this year than we did last year. And somehow along the way, we still want to be present and more available in our personal relationships. I would suggest something has to give. Doing it all is a myth of leadership. In fact, the best leaders are the ones who delegate, operate out of their strengths, and set others up to do the same. If you want to discover that kind of freedom and that kind of effectiveness, BELAY can help. BELAY pairs busy leaders with highly vetted US based virtual assistants that save them from administrative overwhelm and direct them back to working on what matters most.

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Mark Cole:

Hey, welcome back. Tracy and I are very excited about just teaching this lesson. We were talking just about how John has been so intentional. I’m looking forward to teaching this or really learning to be honest with you as I try to do every podcast, because what John has delivered us today is timeless. I have in my hands, for those of you watching by YouTube, I have the book 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, and I’m holding that and have that today because obviously we want you to make this a part of your library. I want you to make this a part of a reading requirement for an up and coming leader in your influence. I want you to reference this book often. And so we’ll give you a discount.

You can go in the show notes and click the link, use the code podcast and be able to get a discount. But Traci, I believe with all of my heart, the reason John Maxwell at this stage in his life, continues to have more to give is because he is committed to being a growing leader. I know you are. I certainly aspire to be a growing leader as well. It gives us sustainability and it gives us longevity as well.

Traci Morrow:

I agree. And I love when he talks about having a hunger that makes us stretch. And when you hear someone in their 70s talking about having a hunger, it’s inspiring to me to want to continue to have a hunger all the way through. And I love the word that he kicks off this podcast with and when he talks about the vitality that growth brings, because I don’t think we tend to think, well, maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think we think of vitality in your seventy s. I mean, what are we kind of programmed to think of? You hit a certain age, 62, 65, whatever it is that you retire, but vitality in your seventy s of growing still, that just reshapes our brain to think we never want to be someone who stops growing, certainly as our mentor. And he has given us three words that are essentials for growth, and we want to kick it off with confidence. And I’ve got a question about you and a question about your team. When it comes down to confidence, and at this stage in your personal leadership journey, mark, what are you learning personally about confidence right where you’re at today in your leadership journey?

Mark Cole:

Well, I think it’s, as John talked about today, is the importance of confidence. A great leader without confidence doesn’t do great things. In fact, it’s when we lose our confidence that we tend up. John talks often. Tracy, you’ve heard him say this podcast family, you’ve heard him say this. He says, I’m one step away from stupid. And aren’t we all? I mean, isn’t that true? All of us are sitting here, oh, man, yes. I am one podcast away from stupid.

I’m just one channel of listening to the wrong podcast that’s going to send me on a wild goose chase. We’re one decision away from stupid. I think when we lose our confidence, we edge closer to that step because we begin scrambling. We lose our way, we lose our sense of certainty, and then we begin to grasp and we begin to try to find something that will help us gain our confidence back. And I’ve just watched a lot of people you’ve heard of liquid courage, referred to people that over drink, and they get a lot more confident when they’re inebriated. And it’s true, I’ve seen them, I’ve seen liquid courage work. But I’m going to tell you that there is a confidence factor, that when a leader knows, when a communicator knows that they have something to share, it makes them more believable, it makes people follow them better. So I distill it down to a great question and just go, what am I learning? And it is the significance of confidence.

I remember when I first started communicating on John stage, did a lot of communication. Many, many years ago, but I began communicating on John stage and I’m going, that’s a big microphone to hold, tracy, you’ve held that microphone before. That’s a big spotlight to stand in, that’s big shoes to fill. And I can remember walking into those rooms, walking on those stages, my knees trembling, and my content wasn’t as bad as it sounded because of confidence. I remember the other day I was speaking at something in it. I don’t think my content was that good, to be honest with you. But people raved about the way I said what I said because confidence is contagious. And so I would tell you that confidence is contagious, confidence is imperative.

And yet confidence can be lost in difficult times when nothing’s changed except the situations around you that are beyond your control. Can you keep confidence even when circumstances are beyond your control? And it is a hard handle, it’s a hard thing to hold on to when things are spiraling out of control.

Traci Morrow:

And so what do you do? The follow up question before I get to your team confidence question is, what are some things that you do to maintain that confidence when you are on John’s stage and you’re holding his microphone or a situation where it feels spiraling out of control, what is it that keeps you anchored in confidence when you feel a little shaky?

Mark Cole:

The first thing that I’ve got to say is you borrow somebody else’s confidence. I’ve looked at people often that’s doing something for the first time and I go, hey, I have enough confidence for the both of you. Borrow mine, you’re going to be fine. There is just this figurative and yet literal hand on the shoulder that just says, hey, borrow mine, it’s going to be fine. Now, when you tell somebody that to do something that’s very hard for them, that they don’t have confidence in, and you say, borrow mine, you’ve got to circle back and tell them what you enjoyed and why you have the confidence, because they’re just going to think you’re giving them a pep rally. Before you jump on stage or before you jump into a leadership environment, there is a lot of intentionality has got to be put into extending somebody borrowed belief. But when you can do that, that’s the biggest take. The biggest thing that I do to help myself with confidence or to help others.

The second thing that I would say, though traci, is I think it’s a little bit of what John said here when he says confidence stimulates creativity, that discovers answers. I’m always looking for answers. It’s back to that hunger that you mentioned at the top of the show. I’m always hungry for answers, for lessons, for something to take away. And I’ve discovered that even when I don’t do well, speaking, whatever I’m doing, when I don’t do well, if I can walk away with a takeaway, all is well in my world because the win is in getting an answer that will make me better down the road.

Traci Morrow:

I think that is so great. So that ties into two things John said. A confident leader gives people confidence. So that is lending your confidence to someone else and getting that from someone else when you feel a little shaky. But what is key there is rather than being in a moment where you walk off stage or you leave a presentation, or you leave a moment where you feel a little shaky, and instead of circling the drain and beating yourself up with negative thoughts and, oh, I just blew that, that was terrible. The flip is, if you can train your brain as a leader to instead of going negative and going down and beating yourself up, instead remaining hungry for growth, how can I get better? Tell me where I could have done better. If you stay in that hungry space, you’re going to grow forward, you’re going to fail forward to the next time, and you’ll be able to do it better rather than just shutting down. And I think that’s a key.

That hunger is a huge piece of growing forward and not just going downward. Looking down and just seeing where you missed the mark, I think that’s a huge piece of it. And it leads right to my question about your team. Is confidence something that you attempt I know you said that you try to lend your confidence to someone else, but if you have a team member or several team members that struggle with confidence, is that something that you attempt to grow in your team? Or I’ve had team members before who were so capable, but they struggled with confidence, and that can be a real game changer. And at what point do you stop attempting to grow it in them? Or is it something that you attempt at all? Is this something that you can grow?

Mark Cole:

Well, as a leader believing in somebody? If you’ve lost confidence in them and you feel like you have taught them all the confidence that they got, I think there’s two major flags that I see in that. Number one, you can’t trust somebody that you don’t have confidence in. You can’t. If you’ve lost your confidence in somebody, there’s no way they’re going to gain confidence if you’ve lost confidence. So then the question is, how do you help them build the trust confidence back up in your working relationship? So the first thing that I would say is you can never lose confidence in someone if you keep them empowered in a position. You’ve got to keep believing and you got to keep loaning. That’s called leadership. The second thing that I would say is there is a thin line, isn’t there, between confidence and being comfortable.

We get confident often in the predictability, and then it’s not good because growth guarantees change. The only way to guarantee success morrow or better tomorrow is growth today and growth is going to have change. So if our confidence really is being comfortable, we’re not stretching that teammate enough. So I think instilling and providing borrowed confidence to teammates is an infinite job of a leader. You’ve got to constantly be doing that because the day you’re not believing in them, you got a problem. The day that you believe that you don’t have to share with them anymore because they’re comfortable or confident, then probably chances are you’ve allowed them to get comfortable.

Traci Morrow:

That’s good. That’s really good. Okay, let’s move on to number two. The second essential, which would be courage. And he kicks it off by saying that courage is the willingness to let go of the familiar. And I would believe that’s what stops a lot of people is the willingness to let go of the familiar. It makes me think of on the playground when you’re on the monkey bars and you can’t move on until you let go of the bar before you reach for that next bar. And so why do you think, in your opinion, in your experience, in what you’ve seen with the teams that you’ve led, why do you think it is so difficult for a leader to let go of the familiar? And then how do you guide a leader? Maybe it’s even in yourself to know when it’s time to let go versus when do you know how to just call it versus when do you know when to hang on just a little bit more because you’re just around the corner from a breakthrough.

So many times people stop just when they were just about to have a breakthrough. They stop too soon. So when do you know when it’s too soon to let go? And when do you know when to hang on just a little bit longer because a breakthrough is about to happen.

Mark Cole:

Yeah, it’s such a great question and it speaks to the certainty that we want from leadership. We want leaders to say after three months, after three attempts, after three opportunities, boom, you’re going to have it. And yet courage doesn’t work that way. In fact, I would tell you this. Using courage and staying in the game is going to take you longer than you thought and it’s going to cost you more than you thought. So if you want to build a plan around when that person has the courage to move forward, add some time to it. Whatever you think it is, add some time to it. And by the way, probably going to have to add some more time to it because it’s true that while everyone wants certainty, we can’t offer certainty.

There are sometimes we just simply don’t know. What we can do is offer clarity of the next step. We can say that there is a great next step, but I don’t know the final step. And here’s what I have found. Traci is in training and helping people lead and lead from a place of courage. I have found that the process, the personal process that people go through to establish courage is how courage is established, not some three steps and an assignment. It’s really the act of staying the course and staying in there longer than you thought and not giving up when you felt like giving up. I’ve got so many leaders right now that is speaking into me on the power of the journey and the power of the discipline and the tenacity in the journey.

They don’t give me the solutions that said, after 18 months for me, it’ll be 20 months for you. And they never give that. They give words like tenacity, stay in the course, being committed, staying longer than you thought, paying more than you thought. And I think that’s the answer is, are you so committed to it that you are going to stay the course with great courage to see it through?

Traci Morrow:

I heard a lot of action words in there. I think a lot of people get stalled out and they freeze and they wait while they’re waiting for the breakthrough. But the action words that I heard there was the process, the next step, discipline, tenacity, committing, paying more. Because it’s right in line with John’s point where he says life expands or shrinks in proportion to your courage. Courage is in motion. It’s not freezing. For those of you can’t see me in YouTube, I’m frozen on screen. But I think part of knowing that you’re being courageous is that you’re in action, you’re moving, you’re still taking steps forward, and that’s how life is expanding to see, should you be taking that next step? So that is probably going to help to know if you’re ready for the decision making step, which is number three.

And I love this point, this essential that John talks about decision making. And I love this because it is a life changer. It really is the summary of a life that John has lived and continues to live. And it is really a guide for all of us. These are a guide in five areas that have formed, really, who John is, decisions that make up the man, the human being that is John. Because really who we are is made up of a bunch of decisions that we’ve made over and over and over again. And not that we’re perfect, but decisions that are in line with what we believe. And so he talks about five decisions that he formed in his life.

He titled them he titled them ministry, personal Growth, partnership, relationship and leadership decisions. Now, I don’t think that we all need to give those same exact titles. Those make sense for John’s brain, but I think that they are important because they’re in line with who he is as a human, as a leader in all aspects of his life. And so I’m curious, mark, we chatted a little bit before we were rolling just to make sure that I didn’t want to catch you off guard, but can you share some of I mean, you are a man who lives a very intentional life, a life that I respect. You’re somebody who’s, as your friend, as somebody who works closely with you, I can say to our podcast listeners, you’re somebody who is the same in private, in a private conversation that you are in public. And I admire you greatly as a friend and as a mentor. And if you could share some of the processes, I’m sure that you’re in your early 50s. You have not early 50s, early 50s, early.

Can you share some of the processes and decisions so that our listeners can kind of hear what are the decisions that you, Mark Cole, have made that make up you as a human being?

Mark Cole:

Yeah. So it’s interesting because so many of them tracy is John’s and a product of that. There’s two reasons for that. And probably many of our podcast listeners that listen to John, you know, he finished with this rally and cry. You are my legs to my legacy. Help me carry the legacy. I feel that same way about all of our podcast family. You guys are carrying the baton forward.

You’re carrying the ball forward. And I’m extremely grateful for that. So much like many of you, I’ve been so influenced and shaped by John that maybe I would have had different words 25 years ago, but it would fit under these categories. So I’m probably using the categories because what was in me now sounds right in the way that John’s explained it. The other thing that I would tell you is I don’t think it’s an accident that John felt like that I was somebody he wanted to ride off in the sunset with. I think there is a shared sense of confidence, courage, decision making that he and I have. So, again, because of those two things, I don’t think it’s any accident. But let me give you my five.

And the fifth one that I have cracks me up because I love partnerships, but I didn’t include partnership in mine. And John loves my fifth one, so I don’t think it would not be in his top five. So, anyway, here’s they are. One is leadership. I have made a decision that I believe everything rises and falls on leadership. What that means is, when things are going awry, when things are going sideways in my team, in my company, my first question is always, what could I have done? What should I do different to make this better? I never look at somebody else. I don’t look at the excuse or play the blame game. I always look number one at me because everything rises and falls on leadership.

Number two for me is significance. Now, John used ministry. I use significance. I believe life is absolutely about others adding value to others. My third one is relationship. I told you. A little bit of this. Tracy, forgive me for some of you that don’t quite have this frame of reference, but my dad used to always say, mark, the only thing you can take to heaven, the only thing that’s going to outlast is going to be people.

From an early, early age, I learned the power of relationships. I would probably put John’s decision of partnerships under relationships, to be honest with you. And then I too have always been super passionate about personal, just I’m incredibly passionate about it. It went to the next level, being on John’s team. And so I’m extremely grateful for that. Being on John’s team. The final one that I would put, and this is an important one because it was tested, is faith. I made the faith decision.

And John says, often a vision that has not been tested cannot be trusted. And I would say a faith that has not been tested cannot be trusted. Many of us grew up in love with our parents God or our parents faith. And we never really developed that intentional walk. And what happened to me at 30 is I had to really reconcile, was I going to continue choosing faith or was I going to let the disappointing faith of others to drive me from a faith of my own? And fortunately, because the goodness of God not anything on me, I chose the former. The disappointment of somebody else’s faith drove me to get a faith of my own. And I’m extremely grateful for that. So it’s a very personal one to me.

Doesn’t have to be everybody else’s, but it’s a decision. And so I gauge myself, I talk to myself, I watch myself, based off of that decision, to really make faith a part of my life.

Traci Morrow:

Well, thank you for sharing those five with us. And my action steps to our podcast listeners is this. I don’t know where you are at in your life. You might be just beginning, or you might be in the stage where Mark and I are at, or you might be where John is, but I encourage you to look back or look forward and make some decisions for your own. The action step for you is, after you listen to this podcast, is maybe using the model of those Mark Five or John’s Five, because Mark kind of encapsulates John’s five, kind of consolidates some of them, uses different words, different language. But come up, begin today to make some decisions yourself of what you want. Those five or six or three, whatever it is that you want your life to stand for that makes up and describe you as a human, so that as you make decisions in your life that they can fall under those categories. To say sometimes we make decisions in our life that you think, what should I do? And when you have pre-decided things that you want your life to stand for, it’s easy because you run it through that litmus test of what you’ve already decided for yourself.

And then I want you to come back and share it with us, whether it’s on our Instagram MacBook Leadership Instagram page or our podcast notes down below or if you come to YouTube and we would love to see and I know I always go through and look at what you’ve written to us and try to comment and like what you’ve done, but come back and share with us what they are. We would love to know what they are. Give us some feedback, because we would love to know what your five are as you are creating the legacy, not just John’s legacy, but your own legacy.

Mark Cole:

It’s funny you mentioned listener comments. I always like to wrap Tracy with a listener. This this week’s comes from JJ. He listens to the podcast. How leaders make the tough call. I remember that one specifically. And so JJ listening to that. We’ll include that in the show notes, obviously.

But here’s what JJ said. He said, Tracy, he’s talking to you. He said, Tracy, you’ve always got the best questions for Mark to get him to open up. And let me go ahead and say what he said. He said to get him to open up. Truly a big part of your gifting. And so, Tracy, I do agree. And JJ, thank you for the comments.

I think what JJ is saying is you get me to confess all of my bad leadership stuff with your questions, is what I think JJ is saying. Hey, seriously, thank you so much on this. By the way, if you comment on YouTube, tracy really might reply to you, because, by the way, you replied to JJ. You actually gave him a reply there. And so thank you so much for being a part of this community. Thank you so much for listening in today. Let’s go make a difference. Let’s make a powerful, positive difference, because everyone deserves to be led well.

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