Maxwell Leadership Podcast: Leadership Landmines (Part 2)

Mark Cole:

Welcome 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, Chris Goede and I continue a series that John Maxwell started last week called the Ten Leadership. Landmines. This week we’re going to be going through Leadership Landmines six through Ten. And then after John is done teaching, chris and I will come back. And as we did last week, we’ll talk about some of the things that we have stepped in, stepped on, stepped around, and give you some application. Now, if you would like to watch this episode on YouTube, please visit MaxwellPodcast.com/YouTube. If you’d like to download the bonus resource for today’s episode, visit MaxwellPodcast.com/Landmines. That’s all for now. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:

Landmine number six. Inconsistency between saying and doing. Inconsistency between saying and doing. Goes back to the fact that a pint can’t equal a gallon if the pint is the example, because it’s worth a gallon of advice. Always has been, always will be. By the way, I didn’t learn this as a young leader. And so therefore, as a young pastor, I would get up and I would preach messages that I didn’t know anything about because I was inexperienced and I was young. But I thought if you just speak it, people will follow. I thought that people followed what people heard. What I didn’t realize is, no, people follow what people see, not what they hear. The first six months, they’ll do what they hear from you because they don’t know you. But the moment they know you, they no longer will follow what you say. They will follow what you do. They’ll follow your example. 89% of what we learn, Stanford research says we learn visually. We learn through our eyes. We learn through watching the patterns of people. And as a young pastor, I just thought if I got up and preached a message, people would listen to it and follow it. After six months, they weren’t listening to my message, they were watching my life. So how do you avoid in your notes? Leadership is visual and example is the key. And when you’re saying and not doing, at best it’s going to be temporary leadership. And when you’re doing and not saying, it’s incomplete leadership, but when you’re saying and doing now, you are into ultimate leadership. Trust me, you want to be a tour guide, not a travel agent. Travel agent sends you somewhere and Bon Voyages gives you a couple souvenirs and blessings and hope you catch your flight. Tour guide says, Follow me, been there, done that. A book that greatly impacted me. It’s no longer in print and I’m so sorry it isn’t, because if it was, I would recommend it very highly to you. But if you ever find it, or if you go to Amazon.com on used books or something, is a book by Fred Smith called Learning to Lead and he has a chapter in there called Incarnational Leader that is worth the whole book. And basically, Fred Smith, this great, great leader himself, basically said that what you say and what you do has to match up for you to be a consistent leader. And until the people see that, they will not buy into you, nor will they follow you, nor will they trust you. Landmine number seven. This one I wish I had time to talk to you about in depth, but I’ll just give it to you and we’ll talk a little bit about it. Advancing in position, but not personal growth. It’s a huge landmine. In other words, we get a promotion, but we’re not growing. Bad, bad news. Look at your notes. It’s okay to be over your head because you grew into the next level. It’s not okay to be over your head because you were given in the next level. Now just stay with me. Put first by the first statement. Put second by the second statement. And I wish I had put this in your notes so it had been more clear, but just stay with me. Just look at these two things I just said. It’s okay to be over your head because you grew into the next level. It’s not okay to be over your head because you were given the next level. In the first statement, you’re over your head temporarily. In the second statement, you’re over your head permanently. In the first statement, you’ll grow into it because growth is a lifestyle. But in the second statement, you’ll lean on the past experiences and luck to pull you through. In the first statement, you will seek mentors and answers, but in the second statement, you’ll avoid mentors and answers. In the first statement, you will grow into that level and then grow onto a higher level. But in that second statement, you’ll stay at that level and bring everything down to your level. Man, do I wish I had time to teach that. This is huge. It’s a terrible thing you do in your company when you give somebody a promotion and they don’t deserve it. It’s a terrible thing you do for yourself. Terrible thing you do for the people in the company. It’s a terrible, terrible, terrible thing. Anybody that goes to a new position is a little bit over their head, but if they are growing into that position, they’ll grow right through it and go on to the next level. But if they were given it, they’ll never get there. They’ll never get there if you give them the position. My favorite statement in the lesson is this next statement my goals do not ensure my future. My growth does. Listen to me very carefully. I’m not impressed with goal oriented people. I can show you more failures. I can show you more people that have written goals on refrigerators, that have done absolutely nothing in life. I am not impressed with dreams and I’m not impressed with goals. Never have been, still am not. It doesn’t take much energy to write a goal down. And if you are goal oriented, if you hit that goal, which will put you in a minority but if you hit that goal, if you’re goal oriented, your tendency will be to celebrate and stay. Celebrate and stay. So I don’t set goals. Never have, don’t plan to. Never set goals for my life. Don’t want to. Why would I set goals? I am on a growth plan and my whole purpose I am not goal oriented. I’m growth oriented. As long as I keep growing, I’ll hit every goal, but I’ll never be impressed with the goal. I’ll just say, well, that was nice. Wrote another book. Oh, I like it. Hold it for 15 minutes, sing Kumbaya, kiss the COVID Put it aside and say, and let’s keep writing, John. Let’s keep growing out of your life, out of what you’re learning. Keep passing on you’re not to be a reservoir, you’re to be a river. Move it, baby, move it, move it. See, as long as I’m growing, I’ll have stuff for you. Nothing’s worse than have somebody you listen to a leader and you sit there and say, I heard him two years ago. I’m hearing him now. Same old message. Different place, same old message. Growth is everything. My greatest passion is not leadership. My greatest passion is growth. Always has been. How do you stay ahead of the pack? You stay ahead of the pack because you keep growing. That’s the only way. The moment you stop and sing Kumbaya, somebody who’s continually growing passes you. And when they pass you, quit whining. They passed you because you stopped growing. In fact, do what everybody else does when they pass you. Get in line and follow their butt for the next several years. Quit whining. Make growth your passion. That’s what it is. Not goals. What are your goals for the next five years? What I want to know is, are you growing? If you’re growing, you’re going to hit your goals. It’s just what happens to a person that is growing within their life. Landmine number eight personal insecurities. Oh, dear god help us. Nothing is worse than an insecure leader. The most dangerous people in the world today are insecure leaders. I’m telling you right now, if you’re insecure, the best thing could ever happen to you is to have no influence on anyone else. I wish you total isolation for your entire life. If we could quarantine you, it would help us all. Personal insecurity. See, here’s what happens. Insecure people usually hurt themselves hang on. Insecure leaders usually hurt themselves and others. That’s what’s sad about insecure leaders. It’s bad enough to hurt yourself, but when you step on landmines and you’re blowing up your people because of your insecurities, you’re a dirty dog. You see, insecure leaders let me give you characteristics of insecure leaders. Number one, they want control. Control is everything to an insecure person. The word empowerment is a foreign word to an insecure person. Number two, they fear public failure. They absolutely do anything not to be embarrassed by doing something stupid in front of others. Number three, they avoid risk they would rather not try and not know. Number four, they are closed in their relationships. Number five, they do not hire tens. Insecure people do not hire good people because they do not want to be showing up. So what they do is they hire a bunch of people that are losers so they look good. You know what I’m saying? Oh, you’re bad. Please join the company. Please join the company. Oh, dear God, you’re lousy, you’re lazy. Oh, this is wonderful. Please let me pay you. Number six, they resist change. Number seven, they fail to affirm and empower others. Number eight, they stay in their comfort zone. Number nine, they view people and situations through their insecurities. That’s one of the things that makes them so bad is they see you through their insecurities and oh, that’s a poor picture. And number ten, they create an environment of insecurity. That’s just what insecure leaders do. That’s who they are. Landmine number nine, failure to make the tough call. In other words, it’s the call you should make and you know you should make. And it will certainly help you and the company, but you don’t want to make it for many wonderful, probably personal reasons. And it’s true. 95% in your notes of the decisions a CEO can make can be made by a reasonably intelligent 8th grader, but the CEO gets paid for the other 5%, so quit sucking your thumb. I was talking to a leader the other day and I asked her, I said, have you ever made any tough calls? He said, Well, I’m sure I have, but I can’t remember them. I said, You’ve never made any. You remember read my lips. You remember every tough call you ever made because every time you think of it, you still groan. If you don’t groan when you think of a tough call you made, you didn’t make one. Each tough call that I’ve had to make in my life have had these things in common. Number one, it required much energy, time and prayer. I mean, it took a long time to make the tough call. Sapped me of energy, took my time, had to go to God, help me, help me, help me. Number two, it demanded a risk. Every tough call I’ve ever made had a risk involved. If there’s no risk in this, you’re not making a tough call. Number three, it was questioned and criticized. I’ve never made a tough call where when I got done, everybody in my company said, oh, what a wise man you are. Now, I’ve made tough calls where they said that was one of the stupidest things we ever seen you do. No, if you make a tough call and get unanimous approval. It wasn’t a tough call. Number four, it cost me greatly. Sometimes it cost me financially, sometimes it cost me sleep. But trust me, it cost me greatly. And number five and this is what I love it lifted my leadership to a higher level landmine. Number ten, failure to develop leaders. Harvey Firestone was so right. It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed. And by the way, I want to say this. When I started pastoring, I didn’t know how to develop leaders. I didn’t develop any leaders in my first church. I didn’t develop any I didn’t develop one. In fact, I went back after they had what was it? They had me come back after what was it, the 25th anniversary when we built the building. And they were thrilled. They said, we had more people here today than we’ve had since you left 25 years ago.

Mark Cole:

Them.

John Maxwell:

And they were all thrilled. And I looked out, you know, I was so sad that day. I didn’t tell them I was sad, but I was sad. I was sad. There’s not one person I developed. There wasn’t any person I trained. There wasn’t anybody I equipped. There was nobody I mentored. There was nobody discipled. I didn’t know how to do any of those things. Therefore, that church that I grew from three to 306 months after I left, it went from 300 down to below 100 because I didn’t develop anybody. So everything I teach on growing leaders and developing people today, I’ve had to learn over the years. College didn’t teach me how to do that. Why would they want to give me something helpful, practical, and life changing? And then I have listed which landmine do I need to be careful and avoid? This is good for you. I listed them there for you today’s. Success, losing touch with my people, betrayal of trust, failure to think realistically, poor timing, inconsistency between saying and doing advancing position but not in personal growth, personal insecurities, failure to make the tough call or failure to develop leaders. And I want to close with this one more thought. I just want to say this. The leadership landmines we’ve talked about in this lesson, one of the greatest ways to avoid those landmines is to get a coach, especially somebody who’s been there and done that, just to walk beside you and you say, hey, here’s a landmine. Watch out. Here, let me help you through this process. Oh, you hit one. Let me walk you through this. Let me help you repair the wounded here. In this whole process as a leader.

Mark Cole:

One of the most tempting things I feel is the need to do it all. You’re probably like that, too. We put this enormous pressure on ourselves to accomplish more today than we did yesterday. I want to earn more than I did last year. And somehow along the way, we want to be present and available in all of our personal relationships. But something has to give. Doing it all is a myth. Doing it all is a terrible myth in leadership. In fact, the best leaders are the ones who know their limits, operate in their strengths, and set others up around them to do the same. If you want to find that kind of freedom, Belay can help see. Belay pairs busy leaders with highly vetted US. Based virtual assistants to save them from the administrative slog and to get that leader back to working on the things that matter most. To help you get started, Belay is offering Maxwell podcast listeners a free download of their ultimate guide to working with a virtual assistant. This resource has everything you need to get started to start growing and to succeed with your new virtual assistant. Just text Maxwell to 55123 to download this resource today. That’s Maxwell to 55123. All right. Like me, let’s get ready to accomplish more and juggle less with ballet. Hey, welcome back, podcast family. I love when we go into a series, so it kind of makes us feel like that we’re coming back. And so all of you that you’re back from last week, thanks for being back. I know, John. Impacts you I could have let John stay Chris on numbers six, seven and eight the entire time. And then he went to nine and ten, and I went, man, we could just go to three part, four part, five part. But you and I, truly, being with John for this long, we have watched him truly step in these landmines, recover, live to tell about it, and then we went and stepped in the same landmines and hopefully live to tell about it. Right? So, anyway, I’m glad you’re here. Glad all of our podcast listeners and viewers are here as well.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, glad to be back. And man, Mark, thanks for as I was thinking about our conversation last week. And by the way, if this is the first time you’re listening to us, man, welcome. Thank you for joining us. However, I want to encourage you, go back, listen to part one for sure, and there is a ton of other podcasts for you to listen to that we have in our database. But go back and listen to part one. And I just want to take a minute and say, man, I appreciate the vulnerability as we have conversations because we’re doing life together. And whether you’re leading yourself, you’re leading other people, influencing people, we’re all going to step on landmines. You and I did limp in here today from landmines that we have stepped on in the past. And so we’re just here talking about real leadership. We’re talking about what we’re dealing with and then specifically from your leadership and your lens, having the privilege to be mentored and served with John for so many years, it was interesting. We were having a conversation, listeners and viewers that have joined us on YouTube. We were having a conversation before we started about landmine number seven, because my lens and the DNA and being in this culture for so long, I automatically when I hear John talk about growth, I go, oh, yeah, we’re talking about personal growth, and we’re going to make sure that the only way I’m going to advance in position is personal growth. And you brought a different perspective, so much so that our team in here was like, man, that was a really good conversation. So I want to talk a little bit about number seven from your perspective and what you took and what you captured from that. I want to start off by saying John gives us a couple of comments in here about being in overhead. I’ll never forget he told me a long time ago, hey, if Chris, it’s okay if you’re in the deep end of the pool and the water is above your head. He goes, Just know it doesn’t matter if it’s one inch above your head or 10ft above your head. It’s above your head. Figure out how to tread water to get up there and grow to that process. But you and I have hired a lot of people on our team. We’ve also worked for a lot of leaders where maybe we’ve seen them advance in position, and it wasn’t the right time for us, maybe for them, and that caused a little bit of chaos in their world, in the culture, and the team in the organization. And you unpacked that a little bit for us. So will you take just a few minutes and talk about what stood out to you at landmine number seven that we could learn from?

Mark Cole:

Yeah. So I get asked often, what do you think caught John’s attention to promote you the first time, the fifth time, the 10th time? It’s been ten different opportunities now that I’ve had a chance to lead in different positions, if you will, to use that word. And I always say this, Linda Eggers, which for those of you that do not know, don’t listen to our podcast often. Linda Eggers is John’s executive assistant. She’s been with John for 20 plus years. He doesn’t call her an executive assistant. She’s his executive partner. And I said 20 years. It’s actually 30 years. Linda, I know you’re listening, but if you would boil it down to how I caught John Maxwell’s eye to lead, it’s because of other people, specifically Linda Eggers. She would say, hey, John, Mark just did this. Hey, John, DA DA DA, we got a new position. What about Mark doing that? And I can truly tell you it was about three or four advancements in John’s organization before John was able to make a firsthand eye view witness of my ability to lead. The reason that I say that in this setting, because I’ve watched so many people, john says it’s okay to be over your head because you grew into the next level. It is not okay to be in over your head when you were given the next level. Here’s what John’s really saying there. And I love the appetite we all have for personal growth. It’s all there. But this is a little bit different in this. When people are clamoring for you, they’re asking for your promotion. It’s a safe bet to advance somebody from the inside because they see what they’re already doing, and they have great hope and attitude and aptitude for you to grow at the next level. They’ll be your greatest supporters. When you have to convince everybody on a team while you are advancing somebody or promoting somebody, and you have to convince it, they’ve got an uphill battle both ways. You know how you say we used to say, I walk uphill both ways to school? Well, you can leadership walk uphill both ways. You got to walk uphill because you’re over your head. You got to walk uphill because most people don’t think you can do it. And I’ve watched too many leaders over promote someone before their time. That killed the trajectory that they were on and killed their influence. Leaders I implore of you, do not promote from within unless the team around the person you’re promoting is asking for a promotion for them because it’s a short shelf life.

Chris Goede:

That’s good.

Mark Cole:

Now, let me say this. I’ve promoted and hired people from the outside, and I told the team in the studio here just a little while ago, when you promote somebody from the outside as a leader, you invite somebody in and they’re over their head. They can lead for a little while based on your reconnaissance on your recommendation, but it’s a short window before they have to start showing, I’m going to grow into this opportunity. And if they don’t, with coachability and a humbleness and a desire to learn, their window of gaining credibility closes fast. And you and I as the leader, if we’re not careful, people will discredit your hire and never tell you about it. They’ll just figure another way out to get it done. And the whole time you’ve got a leader that shouldn’t have been promoted, floundering, a leader that can’t win, floundering, and a team that’s questioning your credibility and not buying in to that leader. So when we come back and we say, john says it’s okay to be over your head as long as you grew into it, we all need to be growing ourself into the next opportunity. Literally. I have never been prepared for any position John Maxwell has promoted me to. I haven’t I don’t have the leadership experience. I don’t have the leadership education. I just have a hunger that shows John, give me an environment and give me the opportunity to grow, and I’ll grow into it. As a leader that gets an opportunity. You’re promoted into an organization, or you walk into an organization with a title, a position, and no earned credibility. You need to figure out about a 9120 day window to find some wins. Because if you don’t get wins in that period, your credibility and your influence quotient is in decline. So I would ask us, as a follow up to this landmine, are you working hard to get the people around you seeing your leadership so they can be the ones that are asking for your promotion? Chris, I’ll use you as an example. You didn’t know this, but I’ve just asked you to take on a much stronger role in business development, in leadership, in sales development in the organization. I will tell you that I heard from five different people I could give you the list right now, five different people that you needed to have this opportunity before I said okay, wasn’t because I don’t believe in you. You were buds, man. We’ve come a long way together. Your business division is killing it in corporate solutions. It wasn’t that you didn’t have a pathway. I wanted people to buy into it because when you got over your head and you are the people that recommend you will come and be your buoyancy, and you want buoyancy when you’re over your head, that’s so good. And people that recommended you will come around you and support you so you don’t have that frantic, I’m drowning, oh, my gosh, I’m over my head because you’ve got support around you.

Chris Goede:

We could stay right here for the rest of this podcast. I want to unpack a couple of things that I heard you say. The first is Mark’s not saying when he’s talking about this, where, hey, look at me, look at me. I’m doing this. I’m doing this. No, what he’s talking about is, hey, get in there, figure out what your KPIs are. Exceed expectations, continue to grow. Look around the enterprise, the organizations. How can I serve? How can I influence? How can I add value? And by doing that, you’re going to naturally grow your leadership and your influence may or may not be to the level you need at the next opportunity. Like you said, we’ve all been over our head. But I heard a statement one time where somebody said, you are being compensated now for what you did in the past. So think about that.

Mark Cole:

Isn’t that great?

Chris Goede:

You’re being compensated now for what you did in the past. We’re not compensating you for the role you have now. I mean, part of it might be, but the main part is you are in that role now. The other thing that I was thinking about that’s from an individual perspective the other thing I was thinking about is when you were talking about this, is we talk about make sure from a culture perspective, we’re slow to hire. Yeah, I think what you’re saying here, too, is, man, let’s make sure we are slow to promote to the point where the team is clamoring. One thing I was thinking about is when I took a little bit of a sabbatical going, I came back. You and I did the exact same thing back in the day. I just came on as an individual contributor, and we got to the point where we needed someone to lead a team, and it was just natural for me to step up and lead a team. That is not a narcissistic statement. That is just saying, hey, be slow to hire. And by the way, leaders, okay? I was talking to individuals just a minute ago. Leaders. Now, if you go about this process, I promise you which this is going to lead into where we’re going. The next point that John talks about landmines, that’s so important. We’ll get to that in just a minute. But I promise you, if you can do this internally, your culture will be protected far greater than having to go externally. Beautiful. And bring somebody in.

Mark Cole:

Totally.

Chris Goede:

We talk about all the time. We read studies organizations. We do consulting and training work with. They’re like, man, we need to do a better job of promoting within so that our culture is protected because we’d rather do that than somebody not be as competent in the role than vice versa. Go find somebody that’s extremely competent but doesn’t get our culture. No matter what your culture is, I promise you your turnover rate will be higher if you’re going externally. And I think what you’re sharing with us is as leaders, we got to be very careful about how we do that. And then as individuals, man, we got to step up. Right. I was talking to my daughter last night about a potential internship in her area of focus. And so her mom and I are super excited about this internship, and we’re helping in some areas in order to make it happen because we believe and I said this, you’ll get a kick out of this. I said this on the phone last night. I said, hey, this is somewhat like John taught us about paying you to read books. She goes, that’s where that came from. She was like, dang on it. We got into a little bit, you know, her personality and her mom and I are and out with some things because of this internship, because we believe that it’s going to set her up for next level. This is what I said to her. I said, man, get in there and do your job, but exceed expectations.

Mark Cole:

Yes.

Chris Goede:

Right. And that’s exactly what you’re saying as individual contributors. Get in there, do your job with excellence, but then what are you doing to exceed now? Beautiful. I just went on a couple of rants. We’re not even on the same topic, but we just want you to know what’s on our heart when we’re talking about landmines. Now, I mentioned to you, I know where we’re going. I. Do want to kind of as we wrap up here and talk about just Mark and living out this leadership and things he’s learned through his leadership. I do want to talk about landmine number ten. I believe in all the work that you and I have done and seen in organizations around the world and leaders and in communities, for that matter, even countries. As we think about the impact, significant impact that we’re having in country transformation, I think it all comes down to where John talks about this last landmine right here. We don’t focus on doing a good enough job of developing. Know, John wrote a book just recently. The Leader’s Greatest Return. And what do business owners do? They’re like, let me see, where does it get the greatest return? What’s the EBITDA at the back of we’re not talking about the EBITDA. We’re talking about investing in and developing people. And by the way, if you do that, you will be able to sustain an organization. You have had a lot of experience as you talked about hiring people, whether it’s working for individuals. Sometimes we’ve done it a little bit faster than we should have. Talk about a landmine. I want to go back to the landmine side of where you had gaps in talent development that really hurt you or the organization as a leader that we can learn from and the importance of it as we think about making sure that we don’t do this going forward.

Mark Cole:

Yeah. You know, one of the big landmines that John and I have developed. And I could give you case study after case study here. Many case studies to where one leader has so much influence and so much optimism about a person or about a position that the reporting leader the leader that is supervising makes the hire based on another person’s perspective rather than their own. And John and I have made this mistake multiple times, Chris, to where I hired John’s candidate rather than my candidate because I respect him so much and because he was so bullish. But see, who works well with John Maxwell may not work as well with Mark Cole. Who works well with Mark Cole may not work well with John Maxwell. And so when you are bringing somebody in that is in a high capacity position or high potential capacity position, you’ve got to make sure that you the leader. Whoever’s going to be supervising that person has the ability to pull out of them the best within them. I’ve hired a lot of people that came to work for me so that they could work for John. And I’ve watched that leapfrog. I don’t blame them. I love John. I love working for him, too. But in an environment to where I’m responsible for developing leaders, you got to make sure that it’s your hire or you will halfway do it on behalf of somebody else. But when you have complete buy in as the supervisor, you have a better chance of developing that leader. And let’s go into why I’m giving you a landmine. So John and I have landmines in the fact that we were trying to reproduce people that he or I didn’t believe in, because there was not a rapport with the person that was designed to bring out the best in them. Number one, when you’re going to develop leaders, if you don’t have a rapport with them, if you wouldn’t hang out with them, if you wouldn’t feel good about your daughter, your son working for them, you are in a landmine situation. That’s why I love our friends at Chick fil A. When they appoint a operator, their last question is, is would I want my daughter, would I want my son working for this operator? If the answer to that is I don’t know or no, you’re trying to develop the wrong kind of person. For me, when I’m developing people, the question to ask is, am I developing someone that is so good that I would want my best employees working for her or him? If I can say yes to that, we’re doing a good job. So landmine number one, or point number one in this landmine is you need to have a rapport of believability in this leader’s opportunity to lead for the long haul in the organization.

Chris Goede:

If you don’t let me jump in real quick, please. I’m thinking about this in my own situation. If you don’t have that belief, you will take the easy way out of not developing that.

Mark Cole:

That’s exactly right. And then blame them for not stepping up. You didn’t give them half chance.

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

Number two is it goes back to landmine number eight personal insecurities. I’ve watched too many leaders not be able to overcome the failure to develop leaders landmine number ten because they never got through landmine number eight. And they go, Man, I can’t develop anybody. No, you are insecure. Get over that landmine. And then I promise you excuse me. Developing others becomes much easier when you put your insecurities aside. And I’ve watched too many times people identify number ten, landmine number ten, failure to develop others as their landmine of greatest struggle, when really it’s personal insecurities good. So get over your insecurities and try to develop somebody that can lead and do things better than you. The third thing I would give you under failure to develop leaders is we try too long and we try too hard to really develop a leader. It’s 20% the leader and 80% the candidate. Because candidates that can stick through it, through the insecurities, through the challenges, through the lack of attention of a senior leader, are the leaders that are built to last. I know if I depended on John Maxwell’s proximity like I have now when I was climbing the corporate ladder at Maxwell leadership team, I’d never be here now. I would never get the proximity. And most people wait for the proximity to get the promotion rather than getting the promotion to get proximity. And I will challenge all of us as leaders. If you are a developing leader that wants to be developed, it’s 80% on you. My responsibility to not step in a landmine is to create people that are dependent on me and therefore I haven’t created a leader. It’s still a landmine because all that did was create followers and I raised the level of their followership, but the leadership responsibility was still on me. That’s why I say developing leaders. 80% is on the candidate, 20% is on the developing leader.

Chris Goede:

I think if you’re listening right now, you’re taking notes or maybe you’re not taking notes, I need you to go back and listen to that because what Mark just talked about was pure gold, even down to the statement. And you could do an entire lesson on this about the proximity versus the promotion and what’s the true root behind that. I think that’s extremely powerful. One of the things that we see here at Maxwell Leadership and I’ll throw this to you close and wrap up for the day is we see organizations around the world. We see leaders that are not being developed. It’s a massive know. We talk about this as a level four influence and leaders. We got to do a better job of this. We got to be intentional about it and there’s ways to do it without creating another thing on your checklist and we can talk about that sometime in the future. But this is pivotal to the success of your growth, your leadership and your organization’s growth. One of the things that John says before I throw it back to you is at the end, he says, man, get a coach.

Mark Cole:

Yeah.

Chris Goede:

And I love that because all of us are going through these landmines or if you haven’t, just hang on because you’re going. So I just want to encourage you that if you’ll visit the show notes that Jake put together for us on there, he’ll have a link to figure out how to get a coach and talk a little bit more about coaching.

Mark Cole:

Because that is extremely we’re going to challenge you podcast. Listen. We’re going to challenge you to get a coach or be a coach.

Chris Goede:

There you go.

John Maxwell:

We’re going to love that.

Mark Cole:

We’ve got 49,000 coaches in 165 countries. We have a coach to help you get coach. We also want to challenge you to be a coach. And so we’ll put that in the show notes, encourage you to join our team. Hey, speaking of our team, we had a anonymous listener to the Communicate Like a Leader podcast that I did live with Roddy Galbraith. It was a brilliant podcast. I loved it. And this listener said passion, purpose and pitch. To be a great communicator, I should be able to connect with the people. I loved how John Maxwell was focused on the people rather than how well he should sound. Always keep practicing. Always keep researching. Always keep listening. Thank you, Maxwell. Leadership, podcast. And thank you, leader and podcast listener, because you are why we do what we do. Hey, find us. Find us on social media. Find us. Wherever you listen to podcasts, subscribe to the podcast. Some of you just pop on here. You haven’t subscribed yet. If you subscribe, we’ll send you a reminder every week and then leave us a comment. Your comments encourage us, but your comments also sharpen us. And we want to be sharper because we want to bring powerful, positive change to the world. Because everyone deserves to be led well.

John Maxwell:

This is John C. Maxwell. I’ve been teaching leadership for over 40 years. We’re gathering in Atlanta for our 10th Live to Lead Leadership Conference Friday, October the 6th, and I want to personally invite you to join us. Live to Lead is about empowering you to live out leadership, not just learn it. World class leaders Kendra Scott and Marcus Buckingham and Ryan Leak will be joining me to impart wisdom, inspire change, and help you lead more effectively. Hey, bring your team. Groups of ten or more receive a significant discount. So let’s grow together. Because leadership isn’t a solo journey. It’s best experienced in community with others. Visit Live2lead.com Today and let’s make leadership a lived experience.