John Maxwell's 5 Levels of Leadership

John Maxwell's 5 Levels of Leadership

    There are a few books and collections of writing that I can admit changed my life.  When I was thinking which of these books most impacted me, the answer was clear.  In this book John outlines the various levels that we may occupy while we are leaders.  He does a great job at starting at the very base level, which is a level where people follow you because they have to, and concludes with the pinnacle of leadership which is a level where you consistently churn out other leaders which is nearly unattainable.  In this book you will find plenty of real-world applications of how to improve your level of leadership, and a good understand of what it means to be a leader and how to improve.  I have included links that would lead you to the location where you could get this book yourself and learn some of the timeless teachings of it.

Who is This Book For?

    This book is for anyone who currently occupies a leadership position that is looking to improve their influence on other people.  This book is also for the amateur leaders that are trying to get a deeper understand of what leadership is and why people lead others.  John does a good job illustrating the various platforms that one can be a leader in, and how his teaching is relatively universal through all platforms.

What I Took from This Book

    While I read the book and watched a live broadcast of him speaking to this book, this is the book that really transformed my leadership.  I am a self-help-book guy, and love to take the opportunity to self-educate when I run into a new task or hobby.  Once I learned that I was the probable candidate to get promoted to a team leader at my place of employment, I began to search out all of the information that I could find on leadership.  After a Youtube search while on my commute to work, I found myself listening to John talk about this book and was immediately entranced.  This was really my introduction to John Maxwell and I have been a huge fan ever since.

    The book itself is easy to read and the concepts are clearly displayed in literary form and fashion.  His teachings are always direct and laced with plenty of anecdotal stories from his life.  I was able to go from a very vague baseline knowledge of leadership to having a clear understanding about the task that I was going to under-take.  Immediately after starting this book I felt enlightened and prepared for my journey.

The Important Concepts

    I still apply some important concepts that I learned from reading “The 5 Levels of Leadership” by John Maxwell.  I especially pay attention to the second level of leadership, where he explains you have arrived at when people follow you because they want to.  This really transformed my view of leadership after my promotion.  I realized that I didn’t want people to listen to me because of some authority or position that I had achieved in my company.  I wanted people to follow me because I wanted to lead them, and I wanted them to want me to lead them.  This allowed me to begin to shift my outlook on leadership and relationships in order to achieve this.  When I realized that this was the case, I was amazed.  I took a lot of time reflecting in real life and thinking about how true some of this is and how easy it is to apply.

What Level am I At?

    Since becoming a leader in my organization, I re-visit some of my thoughts that were originally generated from this book.  I would like to believe I am around the level three to level four leader, as I feel that I have taken a direct role in finding other leaders in my organization.  I understand level five is unattainable, and I would not be so bold to say that I have arrived at the apex of leadership, however, I believe that there is still more to level four that I could accomplish.  I find it fascinating that I so often return to thoughts and concepts from this book, as I have read a lot, but this seems to hold some recurring principles that I visit often.