The book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell, is
a powerful, definitive statement of the timeless laws you simply must follow if you want to be a great leader–at home, on the job, in church, or wherever you are called to lead. —–Zig Ziglar, Forewords
The Law of Magnetism
Who you are is who you attract. – John C. Maxwell
According to this law, who you attract is not determined by what you WANT, but by who you ARE.
To succeed, leaders need to build great teams, but in order to build great teams, leaders need to know whom they are looking for and what qualities they desire in those people.
Every leader should make a list of the qualities they would like in the people that they want on their team. For example, they may want people who are innovative, teachable, and with a positive attitude.
But as the Law of Magnetism teaches, what determines if leaders attracts people with the desired qualities is not what they want, but who they are.
Many of us have had the experience of feeling attracted to certain teams or organizations because of their leaders or, on the other hand, we have at times felt that we didn’t want to end up in teams whose leader was someone whom we didn’t like because he or she didn’t exemplify the qualities we value.
In short, if a leader wants team members who take the lead and are responsible, he or she also needs to be willing to take the lead and be responsible.
If leaders don’t like what they see on their team, they should check who they are as leaders. There is probably something in their “magnetic field” that is attracting people with a particular behavior to the their team, but this behavior may not be what they are looking for in others. Unfortunately, the leader may be the real cause of the problem.
John Maxwell believes that the people who are drawn to a leader share similarities in some key areas with him or her. These are the 6 key areas where common ground is usually found:
1. Attitude
It is rare for positive and negative people to be attracted to one another. Attitude is one of the most contagious qualities, and people who see challenges as opportunities don’t usually want to hear others who talk about how bad things are all the time. People who have positive energy tend to stay away from people who have negative energy.
2. Generation
People tend to attract people of approximately the same age, and they also hire people similar in age to themselves. This occurs within teams, departments, and sometimes even company-wide. The median age of Facebook’s employees in 2016, for example, was 29. “Just 32 percent of Facebook workers are women, according to self-reported data. Tech is a young man’s game” (see Huffpost)
3. Background
Background similarity means that two people may share a similar education, socioeconomic status, culture, religion with each other, and this situation strongly influence the level of attraction.
People with similar backgrounds are more attracted to each other because the level of common understanding and trust between them is usually higher than the one they have with people from different backgrounds.
4. Values
“People are attracted to leaders whose values are similar to their own…It doesn’t matter whether the shared values are positive or negative. Either way, the attraction is equally strong. Think about someone like Adolf Hitler. He was a very strong leader (as you can judge by his level of influence). But his values were rotten to the core. What kind of people did he attract? Leaders with similar values…” — John Maxwell
5. Giftedness
People don’t want to follow mediocre leaders, but they are attracted to talent and excellence, especially in their area of giftedness. Whenever we are looking to learn and improve, we look for the best. As a leader this means that you need to constantly be improving to attract highly talented people to your organization.
6. Leadership Ability
People naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves. But we also need to factor in the Law of Magnetism, which states that who you are is who you attract. If you are a level 7 leader, when it comes to leadership, you are more likely to draw 5s and 6s to you than 2s and 3s. The leaders you attract will be similar in style and ability to you.
BUY ON AMAZON: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
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