111 of 113 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful Sequel to The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership!, September 6, 2000
John C. Maxwell has written a book here that will deepen your appreciation for The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and encourage you to live those laws in practical, yet spiritually-significant ways. Whether you are a parent, pastor, priest, lay leader of a Sunday School, head of a nonprofit foundation, CEO of a business, or simply work at your career, you will find important insights here from the greatest leaders and failures in the Bible.
The book is organized around the 21 irrefutable laws. Each chapter describes a way to use the material for 5 days during a week. You have a study lesson for 4 days, including a daily meditation question, and then a 5th day for taking action. Each lesson can be pursued in a few minutes. After 5 months, you will find yourself living closer to the ideal as a leader. Think of this as a handbook for implementation that includes all the theory you need, as well. Even if you did not read the earlier book from 1998, you can read, understand, and apply the lessons from this one.
Let me briefly summarize the laws and the Biblical analogies for you:
The Law of THE LID -- Leadership ability determines your effectiveness (compares Saul and David)
The Law of INFLUENCE -- True measures of influence are important(Joshua)
The Law of NAVIGATION -- Chart the right course (Nehemiah)
The Law of E.F. HUTTON -- When the real leader speaks, people listen (Samuel)
The Law of RESPECT -- People naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves (Deborah)
The Law of INTUITION -- Leaders evaluate everything with a leadership bias (Jethro)
The Law of MAGNETISM -- Who you are is who you attract (Elijah)
The Law of CONNECTION -- Touch a heart before you ask for a hand (Rohoboam)
The Law of THE INNER CIRCLE -- A leader's potential is determined by those closest to her or him (David)
The Law of EMPOWERMENT -- Only serious leaders give power to others (Barnabas)
The Law of REPRODUCTION -- It takes a leader to raise up a leader (Moses and Joshua)
The Law of BUY-IN -- People buy in to the leader, then the vision (Gideon)
The Law of VICTORY -- Leaders find a way for the team to win (Josiah)
The Law of THE BIG MO -- Momentum is the leader's best friend (Solomon)
The Law of PRIORITIES -- Activity is not necessarily accomplishment (Peter)
The Law of SACRIFICE -- Give up to go up (Moses)
The Law of TIMING -- When is as important as what to do and where to go (Esther)
The Law of EXPLOSIVE GROWTH -- To add growth, lead followers . . . to multiply growth, lead leaders (Paul)
The Law of LEGACY -- Lasting value is measured by succession (Jesus)
As a lifelong student of leadership (especially among CEOs of public companies), I heartily endorse these principles. They will be very beneficial in encouraging lasting growth that will also nurture the souls of those who serve in these families, religious groups, organizations and enterprises.
Even if you are not a particularly religious person, I think you will find it enjoyable to revisit these well-known stories from the Scriptures. Each chapter refers you to the relevant Biblical texts if you would like to read them directly.
If you are a religious person, you will probably also enjoy using the prayers that are outlined in the chapters to help you find guidance.
To give you a flavor of the book's organization, let's look at the Law of THE LID. For the first day, you focus on the principle that every person has the potential to be a leader. For the second day, you focus on that idea that every leader has lids. On the third day, you think about the idea that some lids can be lifted by leaders. On the fourth day, you concentrate on the concept that some lids have to be lifted by someone other than the leader. Also, few leaders let that happen. Then on the fifth day, you have actions to take in each of these four areas. The ideas are very powerful and the implementation steps are simple and useful.
I heartily encourage you to pursue this book and its lessons! You will find the improvements within yourself and around you to be irresisibly good!
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yeah, it's good., March 19, 2001
By A Customer
You get used to seeing these types of books, which are frequently given as gifts by people who have no idea what you really like or need to read. Which is where I got this. But it's not bad.
Take Hudson Armerding's book "Leadership," and fuse it with Roger Ailes's book "You are The Message: Getting what you want by being who you are" and cut it up into templated nuggets keyed to periodic readings, and something like this is what you might get. The difference, qualitatively, is that Maxwell has really worked his leadership examples from the Bible, and for the most part keeps them in historic context while pulling out lessons for contemporary application. In the flyleaf/back pages, you can see how he is hawking the same things on a web site and on a tape series, to transform these lessons into sermons for ministers who need a little defibrillation.
Having read James MacGregor Burns on "Leadership" some years ago, and being impressed ever since (although bothered by the weird Oedipal analyses Burns applied to guys like Gandhi, Martin Luther and others), Maxwell is refreshingly Biblical without being too preachy. Non-Christian or Non-Jewish readers should be able to see things in here other than some former Bible-college student constantly telling us how he revitalized the three churches he pastored before becoming a fund raising consultant and a leadership conference organizer. The book gets beyond that and stays on point.
This is a sign that Christian business/leadership writing is coming into its own. Looking at a lot of other leadership books which grope for an over-arching metaphor drawn from polar expeditions, evolution (yawn) or other meta-physics, makes you realize that the ancient lessons recorded in the Bible can be just as gripping. I would think other faith traditions could do the same, hopefully also getting past the jingoistic level of "Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun."
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