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How High Is Your Leadership Lid?

Jan 04, 2021

"Leadership ability determines a person's level of effectiveness." 

--John Maxwell

 Spring of 2014 proved to be a brutal season for me as the CEO of Life Options. We launched our mobile center, which is not like launching a “brick and mortar” pregnancy medical center. Yes, the policies and procedures and the standard of care are all the same, but who knew how the heater on a mobile unit  worked?  Automatic levelers, what are those for? Black water, grey water…what is the difference? We had six very excited drivers, but scheduling them at the beginning was like herding cats. I can’t begin to tell you all of the challenges which surrounded the mobile center.

To make matters worse, I had one staff member who was, let’s just say, less than stellar. This one relationship became strained, but because I felt sure I could train and communicate better, I tried to make it work. That didn't happen.

Then in July our funding tanked. Life Options had experienced severe funding shortages only 3 times in the 10 years prior to 2014. The last time had occurred in 2010.

I remember telling my board of directors that I felt like we were stuck.  Prayers felt like they were unanswered. I would go home at night, exhausted. I quit in my head more times than I like to admit.

Finally, I went into my library to hopefully find a book that might offer a solution to this “stuckness.” One book stood out to me—“The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership,” by John C. Maxwell.
 

I grabbed that book and took it to bed to read. I recognized myself in the first chapter. I had stopped growing and so had Life Options. 

The Law of the Lid is explained in the first chapter of John's book. Essentially, there is a lid on a person's leadership ability and this lid determines his level of effectiveness. The lower a person's ability to lead, the lower the lid on his leadership ability, and the lower his effectiveness. This is shown in the charts from the book below.

The chart on the left shows a competent or productive person without leadership skills. This person can work very hard to increase his or her dedication to success through sheer effort. Effectiveness may increase, say 25%. Let’s say that our leadership is at a level 4.
 
There’s another option. Let’s work really hard to increase our leadership skills to maybe a 7 and look what happens in the second chart. Leadership has a multiplying effect on effectiveness.
 
If the leader doesn’t grow, the organization doesn’t grow. Why do they fire the coach when the football team isn’t winning? If the coach were an extremely effective leader for the team, it would be winning more games.

A person’s impact is only a fraction of what it could be without leadership ability. Your ability to cast vision for your business…to get a team of like-minded people together…to unite those people behind a common vision…to get their goals in alignment with the team goals… to get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus… is determined by how well you lead.

How is your organization growing? Think about your team for a moment--how can you tell they are like-minded ? What are you doing to grow?  Growing and implementing leadership principles in my life and in the organization resulted in immense expansion.  This might be a great goal for 2021--to increase your leadership skills and personal growth. It spills over into every area of your life and improves it. 

Go and grow!

 Jan

Jan McDonald
The John Maxwell Team

For more leadership tips, find me on Facebook @janmariemcdonald

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