PDF Summary:Leadershift, by John C. Maxwell

Leadership expert John C. Maxwell argues that today’s leaders must abandon traditional management practices and make leadershifts—changes in how they think, communicate, and act as leaders. In Leadershift, Maxwell shares lessons from a lifetime of leading organizations and coaching developing leaders, sharing common leadership mistakes, and providing guidance for becoming a transformative leader who can inspire great things from others. By making Maxwell’s leadershifts, you can maximize your leadership abilities and amplify the success of your team or organization.

In this guide, we’ll explore the leadership changes Maxwell suggests to run an effective organization. We’ll discuss how to improve your leadership mindset, manage a team effectively, earn the respect of others, and inspire new generations of leaders. We’ll supplement Maxwell’s advice with insights from other leadership experts and share additional practical tips for making Maxwell’s leadershifts in your work.

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3. Add flexibility to your plans. Plans are necessary for getting tasks done, but if they’re too rigid, you’ll fail to adapt to inevitable curveballs along the way, and you’ll miss out on opportunities. Because of this, Maxwell recommends you leave room to change your plans. Once you’ve determined your overall goals and course of action, continue to look for options: Anticipate potential problems, adjust your plan, and review it daily.

Escape the Trap of Execution Mode

Maxwell’s 10-80-10 strategy and his suggestion to add flexibility to your plans can help you avoid a problem teams commonly face: getting stuck in “execution mode.” In Leadership is Language, L. David Marquet says we operate in two work modes: thinking and execution. We plan, analyze, and make decisions in thinking mode and carry out plans in execution mode. The problem is that once we commit to a course of action and start working on a task, we rarely pause to reflect on our work or reassess whether plans need to change. As a result, we may fail to see risks, or we may overlook opportunities.

Maxwell’s suggestions not only keep your team creative and open-minded, but they allow it to cycle effectively between thinking and executing their work:

By leaving the last 10% of the task time for brainstorming improvements, you help your team return to thinking mode, providing opportunities not only for innovation but also reflection and learning.

By injecting flexibility into your plans, you also encourage people to exit execution mode and reflect on their course of action. Marquet suggests you also give your team members the power to call for a pause for reflection by giving these pauses a predetermined name (such as a “time-out” or a “mindful moment”) that team members can call out.

Principle #3: Unlock Your Team’s Potential

The first two leadership principles cover mindset changes you should make to lead more effectively. Next, we’ll explore management changes you can make to help your team operate at its highest level. Maxwell writes that leaders must: 1) understand instead of command, and 2) encourage diversity instead of uniformity.

Understand People’s Needs and Desires

First, Maxwell recommends you try to understand team members’ needs and desires instead of simply imposing orders without considering their perspectives. Teams achieve better results when the leader and team members are on the same page about what needs to be achieved and why. However, many leaders mistakenly assume they understand their team’s thoughts without asking them. As a result, team members may feel out of sync with the company’s goals and the tasks they’re assigned. They may complete their work but without full commitment, affecting its quality.

To learn about another person’s needs and desires, encourage people to share their thoughts by asking questions and then thoughtfully listening to their answers. This approach isn’t easy, Maxwell writes, because we can get caught up in thinking about how to express ourselves and how to get the other person to see our point of view. To avoid falling into this trap, remind yourself daily to make listening a priority. Pay attention to when you interrupt people, and ask others to let you know if they feel you aren’t listening to them. When you learn about people’s thoughts and feelings, you help them feel valued, align your expectations with theirs, and uncover the best ways to motivate and lead them.

Understand People’s Needs By Improving Your Emotional Intelligence

Even if you have conversations about people’s needs, you’ll struggle to apply the information you’ve learned productively and constructively if you lack emotional intelligence. The authors of Primal Leadership argue that emotional intelligence is a crucial skill for effective leadership, allowing you to accurately read and respond to any situation in ways that elevate and empower your team. Conversely, leaders lacking in emotional intelligence may struggle to manage their emotions well and may misread the emotions of others, inadvertently undermining their team.

According to the authors, emotional intelligence consists of four skills:

• Self-awareness—the ability to understand your own emotions.

• Self-management—the ability to manage and rationalize your emotions.

• Social awareness—the ability to understand other people’s emotions and consider why they may be feeling a certain way.

• Relationship management—the ability to use your understanding of others to manage your relationship with them.

Build a Diverse Team

Besides asking questions and listening well, leaders can also empower their team by fostering a culture that celebrates diversity instead of homogeneity and conformity. Maxwell writes that a diverse team—one where team members have different backgrounds and perspectives—achieves greater results than teams where everyone thinks similarly. When teams are diverse, one team member can make up for what another lacks in knowledge, perspective, or experience.

Some leaders shy away from diversity because it can generate conflict if people disagree on plans and ideas. But Maxwell argues that conflict often allows teams to generate better ideas. Instead of settling on the first ideas pitched, diverse teams challenge one another’s assumptions and perspectives. In doing so, they generate more innovative ideas and excel at solving problems.

Maxwell suggests you ensure your team environment is a safe space for sharing ideas. To achieve this, encourage people to participate by putting less emphasis on job titles and roles, acknowledging people’s contributions, and sharing responsibilities, task ownership, and rewards.

Harness the Power of Diverse Teams

Other experts agree that, when managed properly, teams with greater diversity can achieve better results. Let’s look at some additional insights on how to ensure that diversity is an asset and not a hindrance to your team.

In Rebel Ideas, Matthew Syed argues that diverse groups are more intelligent than homogeneous groups for several reasons: In homogenous groups, people reinforce one another’s perspectives, share the same blindspots, and become overconfident about incorrect assumptions.

However, Syed argues that diverse groups with dominant leaders who suppress views different from theirs are no more effective than homogenous groups. Thus, for a team to benefit from having diverse members, team members must feel comfortable sharing ideas.

A team environment where everyone feels comfortable expressing their ideas has what other experts call psychological safety. In The Fearless Organization, Amy Edmonson explains that psychological safety offers numerous benefits: It allows team members to learn and grow and exercise creative and innovative thinking. It also helps the team avoid preventable problems because team members raise concerns instead of remaining silent and letting problems go unaddressed. Edmonson writes that psychological safety also improves employee engagement and performance.

Principle #4: Gain Respect With Moral Authority

We’ve explored how leaders should shift their mindset and team management approach to lead effectively. However, as a leader you must also develop your influence over others. To do so, you must gain moral authority—respect and recognition for exemplary personal qualities, values, and actions. Having a leadership position may force people to follow you, but earning moral authority makes people want to follow you.

To develop moral authority, Maxwell suggests you:

1. Demonstrate excellence. Prove to your team members that you’re committed to producing excellent work even with the smallest of tasks. By regularly producing quality work, you’ll establish a reputation for competence and earn others’ confidence and esteem.

2. Be consistent in your actions and values. Be steady and reliable by living according to good character traits like integrity, authenticity, humility, and love. This shows people that you mean what you say, which builds trust and security within your team.

3. Face challenges courageously. Maxwell writes that leaders should be prepared to face difficult realities and to be the first to take action. Recognize that success doesn’t come without sacrifice, and demonstrate bravery and resilience when confronting challenges. By demonstrating courage, you can inspire others during crises and energize them to perform at their best.

The Four Pillars of Moral Leadership

Experts argue that moral authority not only enhances a leader’s effectiveness within their organization, but it also has a positive impact on society. They argue that in our globally linked world, the potential to be a positive or a negative influence has never been greater. Research shows, however, that moral leaders are in short supply: In one study, only 7% of respondents claim their manager consistently demonstrates moral leadership.

Other experts have defined four pillars of moral leadership that closely align with the moral authority behaviors that Maxwell identifies:

1. Let purpose lead: Moral leaders have a meaningful goal that acts as a North Star for them and their team.

2. Inspire and elevate others: Consistency is only one quality of good leadership. Moral leaders also foster an environment where people feel trusted and driven by the mission. They do this by seeing the humanity in others, building deep relationships, and cultivating a culture of trust and interdependency.

3. Embody your values: Moral leaders are not only courageous when facing uncertainty, but moral leaders act according to their values, even when it’s uncomfortable or difficult.

4. Build moral muscle: Moral leaders continually think about what’s fair and just, ask if their actions align with their main goal, and build strong moral values in others by talking about these issues openly and owning up to their actions.

Principle #5: Equip Others for Success

Maxwell writes that the hallmark of effective leadership in the modern era is not a leader's personal achievements, but rather their ability to inspire others to grow and become leaders in their own right. Maxwell suggests two ways to become a leader who inspires a new generation of leaders: 1) Focus on what makes people better, not what makes them happy, and 2) encourage others to make a positive difference.

Focus on What Makes People Better, Not What Makes Them Happy

A common misconception is that to be a good leader, you must please everyone and get them on board with your plans and ideas. However, Maxwell argues that effective leadership is about pushing people to reach their potential, which occasionally means making difficult decisions that might not please everyone. This can be hard because we like hearing affirmation and knowing that everyone is happy with our decisions.

To guide others to become their best, you must balance care with candor. Maxwell writes that leaders tend to either be too caring or too candid. If you’re too caring, you won’t initiate difficult conversations to help people grow. If you’re too candid, you’ll fail to connect with others because you’ll seem unsympathetic. To balance the two, have a genuine interest in what’s best for the other person. This way, you can be supportive but also willing to challenge people to improve.

(Shortform note: What does it mean to be both caring and candid? Kim Scott calls this approach radical candor. In her book Radical Candor, she explains that it has two components: caring and challenging. She defines caring as seeing beyond people’s roles as employees and caring about each as a person. You do this by learning about their motivations and ambitions and taking an interest in their lives outside of work. Scott defines challenging as having tough but important conversations with your employees to help them reach their full potential. She explains that practicing radical candor helps you avoid problems, build trust, and give your employees opportunities to grow.)

Maxwell suggests several ways you can help others to be better through care and candor:

1. Overcome personal discomfort. Many leaders shy away from making challenging decisions because it makes them uncomfortable. To prevent this, ask yourself three questions in the following order to help you prioritize organizational and team well-being over personal ease:

• What’s beneficial for the organization?
• What’s beneficial for team members?
• What’s best for me?

This way, you’ll make decisions based on what’s best for others instead of on what’s easiest or most comfortable for you.

(Shortform note: A common decision leaders struggle with is whether they should bring up issues with others—such as a team member who isn’t meeting expectations. The authors of Crucial Accountability argue that avoiding these conversations can worsen issues and damage relationships, yet leaders often do so because they overestimate the negative impact of speaking up and underestimate the negatives of staying silent. To make better decisions, the authors suggest you consider both your intent in speaking up and the potential consequences. Doing so in addition to Maxwell’s three questions may help you overcome any overblown fears and make hard decisions easier.)

2. Set clear expectations. Have a conversation with each team member to establish expectations from the outset. Start by asking the other person what they expect and then communicate your own expectations. This allows you to avoid assumptions, unmet expectations, and undesirable surprises.

(Shortform note: To unlock each team member’s highest potential, set high, yet achievable expectations for them. In Give and Take, Adam Grant explains that having higher expectations leads to improved performance—a psychological phenomenon known as the Pygmalion effect. This effect occurs because you treat people differently depending on your expectations. If you have high expectations, you communicate more warmly, give people more opportunities to succeed, provide more advice and feedback, and attribute failures to the task and not the person. People respond positively, working harder and producing better results.)

3. Use the 25-50-25 principle to stop chasing consensus. Maxwell writes that when you make any decision, 25% of people will support it, 50% will be undecided, and 25% will resist it. Instead of worrying about how to get everyone in agreement, concentrate on turning the undecided section into supporters, and don’t waste time trying to win over the resisters.

(Shortform note: Delaying decisions to achieve consensus can erode others’ confidence in you. In Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin argue that leaders must be decisive so that your team trusts in your ability to lead. They suggest you become comfortable making imperfect decisions instead of making no decision at all.)

Empower Others to Become Leaders

Maxwell argues that the most profound change you can make in your leadership approach is to become a transformational leader: a leader who inspires others to do better and to make positive differences. By nurturing others to become positive influences, you can amplify your influence and have a greater impact than you could have individually.

To become a transformational leader, graduate from what Maxwell refers to as “climbing ladders” to “building ladders.” He writes that all leaders must start out by climbing their own ladder—garnering personal achievements to gain credibility. However, eventually, instead of focusing on climbing higher in the leadership ranks, you should shift your focus to helping others become leaders.

(Shortform note: In Trust and Inspire, Stephen M.R. Covey agrees with Maxwell on the importance of being an inspirational leader and says you must foster three levels of connection to inspire others. Like in Maxwell’s ladder concept, Covey argues that you must first focus on yourself before helping others become inspirational themselves. Connect with your personal source of inspiration—you can’t inspire others if you struggle to remain inspired yourself. Then, connect with others by practicing empathy and kindness. This makes people more receptive to your influence and also allows you to discover what inspires them. Lastly, connect others to a larger purpose, which inspires people by fulfilling their need for meaning.)

To help others become leaders, mentor them to give them the tools to lead. Maxwell writes that a good mentor is a specialist in their field, has more knowledge and experience than the mentee, is good at asking questions, and is humble. Once you’ve equipped others with the tools to be better leaders, help them uncover and seize opportunities to lead.

(Shortform note: In The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath argue that an important goal for mentors is to spark their mentee’s self-insight—an understanding of their values, abilities, goals, and motivations. Mentors have high expectations but confidence in the mentee’s ability to meet them. They also provide direction by guiding mentees to challenges that will help them grow, and they support them in facing those challenges.)

Maxwell adds that you should not only train good leaders, but also encourage them to become transformational by teaching good values, nurturing small groups where people are committed to becoming leaders, and encouraging them to make a positive impact on the community.

(Shortform note: In Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras write that visionary companies have a leadership loop: They create long-range succession plans so new leaders can take up the mantle whenever necessary. This approach prevents gaps in effective leadership and ensures that the company continues in the right direction. To create these plans, the authors suggest you create formal development programs to identify, train, and promote potential successors who have a firm understanding of the company’s core philosophy.)