Leadershift Book Summary - Leadershift Book explained in key points

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Leadershift summary

Name: Leadershift
Rating: 4.5 (229 reviews)
Author: John C. Maxwell

John C. Maxwell

The 11 Essential Changes Every Leader Must Embrace

4.5 (229 ratings)

20 mins

Topics

Leadership

Table of Contents

Leadershift
Summary of 7 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? Discover the secrets of true leadership in today’s world.

The world is changing more rapidly than ever. This means two things for leadership. First, it means that leaders are needed more than ever. Sure, in times of stability we can survive with just managers. But when facing the unknown, we need strong leaders to guide us through uncertainty. Second, a changing world means that leaders themselves need to stay agile.

Today’s secret to enduring success as a leader is the ability to be nimble and agile, and to leadershift: to make leadership changes that will boost not just the leader’s growth, but that of his or her organization.

These blinks will take you through the personal leadershifts the author, John C. Maxwell, has made throughout his career that have helped him make a positive impact on his organizations and on the world.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

what dancing the tango has to do with leadership;
why focusing on growth is more important than hitting your goals; and
how a modest farmer called Claude helped Maxwell understand influence.

Great leaders bring out the best in everyone, rather than seeking to shine themselves.

Too many would-be leaders, like Maxwell himself early in his career, think mostly of themselves. Focused on their own goals and aspirations, they don’t realize that being a leader is not about what you can do for yourself; it’s about what you can do for others.

To be a true leader, you need to make the mind-set shift from me to we.

A great way to think of this is in terms of an orchestra. Many would-be leaders are stuck in the mind-set of the soloist – the elite performer whom everyone else serves. True leaders behave more like the conductor, focusing on how they can help everyone else produce a great result. After all, as South Korean cellist-turned-conductor Han-Na Chang says, conducting offers the opportunity to draw limitless potential from an entire group of people.

Key to making the shift from soloist to conductor is ensuring that you truly understand the people around you. One evening in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Maxwell was speaking on leadership, he was invited to watch two hundred people dance the tango, in perfect rhythm and harmony.

His host explained that the secret to the exquisite perfection on show was for each dance pair’s leader truly to understand his partner; to be able to lead effectively, you need to know what it’s like to be led. Well, the trust, cooperation and mutual understanding required to make the tango look beautiful are just as important in the world of work.

So just like any good conductor or tango lead, you should be focused on helping others to shine. You can do this by making sure you have the right attitude toward your people and your relationship to them. Center your leadership around their needs. Listen to them first, before you expect them to listen to you. Work out what your people do well, and compliment them on it. If you set out a big picture for your organization, make sure they are in it. And don’t just tell them your vision – invite them to help you achieve it.

These actions are simple. But they’ll only work if they’re backed with an intentionality that says, “My focus is to help others shine.” And none of this is to say that you shouldn’t focus on your own growth. You just need to do that in the right way. Let’s take a look at what that right way is.

Developing a growth mind-set is a better approach than focusing on hitting simple goals.

When Maxwell was a young church leader in a small town in Ohio, he set himself a goal of making his church the largest in the state. He doubled the size of his congregation in a single year. And by 1975, his church was recognized as the fastest-growing in Ohio.

But after celebrating, he started to reflect on his achievements. And what he realized was that the personal growth he had experienced along the way – his experience and understanding of leadership – was much more important than hitting his numerical goal of growing church membership. That led to another key leadershift: from a goal mindset to a growth mind-set.

Great leaders don’t simply climb up the ladder; through mentoring, they build ladders for others to climb.

You probably know one or two supposed leaders who are self-focused. The question at the forefront of their minds is, “How high up the ladder can I climb?” True leaders, however, make the shift from climbing up the ladder themselves to thinking about how they can build ladders for others.

Now, it’s certainly true that climbing the ladder successfully yourself is a prerequisite if you want to help others do the same. A good rule of thumb, according to Maxwell, is to aim to be in the top ten percent of your chosen field. That’s the magic zone in which you’ll stand apart from the rest. Get to that top ten percent, and you can safely assume that you have a lot to offer others.

Connecting with people achieves better results than simply directing them.

Maxwell witnessed the benefits of leadershifting from directing people to connecting with them when he visited the locker room of the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers basketball team, coached by Pat Summitt, a legendarily successful coach.

When the players came in at half time, instead of talking to Summitt straight away, they huddled around a whiteboard on which were written three questions: What did we do right? What did we do wrong? and What should we change? Only after the team had discussed and agreed upon its answers did Summitt come and talk to them. She heard them out, reflected on their answers and made a few observations before sending them out onto the court for the second half of the game.

Making the shift to valuing diversity will bring greater value and richness to your leadership and life.

When Maxwell was a young man, in Circleville, Ohio, there was absolutely nothing diverse about his environment. His community was almost completely white. The leaders in his protestant church were white men. They looked alike, and they acted alike. As a young pastor, conformity to tradition was drilled into him.

But over time, he came to realize that the most important lessons and insights often come from outside your own group. He learned this from his first discussions with a Catholic priest, who reinforced Maxwell’s faith, despite coming from a different denomination; and, later in life, from his move to Atlanta, a city rich in African-American culture and far removed from Circleville.

Embracing moral authority rather than positional authority is the pathway to great leadership.

As Maxwell often says, leadership is influence. But where does a leader’s influence come from?

Well, in his first weeks as pastor of a small church in Indiana, fresh out of college, Maxwell learned that influence doesn’t come from the position you hold. By the rules of the church, he was its leader. But as his first meeting of the church’s board kicked off, a respected farmer and church member, Claude, took command. Claude asked Maxwell to open the meeting with a prayer, and Maxwell then said almost nothing until Claude politely asked him for a closing prayer at the end of the meeting.

The best lives have meaning, so embrace the leadershift from career to calling.

According to a famous proverb, in the Middle Ages, a passerby came across three craftsmen at work and paused to ask them what they were doing. The first said that he was laying stones, the second that he was building a wall. The third? He replied, with a sense of pride, that he was creating a magnificent cathedral.

Some people do a job. Others have careers. And still, others are lucky enough to have found their callings in life. The members of this last group are the lucky ones, who have found something greater than themselves to pursue. As Presbyterian author and minister Frederick Buechner wrote in his 1973 book Wishful Thinking, they have found a place where their deep gladness intersects with one of the world’s deep needs.

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What is Leadershift about?

Leadershift (2019) helps leaders and would-be leaders develop the ability and desire to make the changes in their leadership that will positively boost not just their growth, but that of their organizations. It shows how, with the right mind-set and the most up-to-date thinking, we can all achieve great things as leaders.

Best quote from Leadershift

When you interact with others as a leader, what is your mind-set? Is your intention to correct them or connect with them?

—John C. Maxwell

Who should read Leadershift?

Leaders who want to keep up to date with current leadership thinking
Anyone who wants to learn how to influence

About the Author

John C. Maxwell is a pastor, businessman and a New York Times bestselling author described by Business Insider as the most influential leadership expert in the world. His books, including titles such as The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, have sold millions of copies, and his training organizations, which include the John Maxwell Team and EQUIP, have trained millions of leaders.

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