John Maxwell's #7 Law of Leadership: The Law of Respect

0:00Morning decisions. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink? Or sweet vanilla? Smooth caramel maybe? Or white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.

0:18This is the Idea One of My Show. 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Series, Law 7, The Law of Respect. People don't naturally follow titles. They follow strength, clarity, conviction, and most of all, character. Respect is earned long before loyalty is ever going to be given. Welcome back to the Season 1 finale of this leadership series on John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. John teaches the timeless principle, and I help connect it to the reality of life, leadership, and business. Today's principle is the law of respect. People naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves. That doesn't mean louder.

0:59It doesn't mean more dominant. It means people are drawn to leaders who carry substance, leaders with courage, with consistency and conviction. I've seen this in every arena of life. Teams don't give their best just because someone has authority. Families don't just thrive because someone says, I'm in charge or I'm dad or I'm mom. Businesses don't grow because a leader demands respect. Respect shows up when people see someone who lives with discipline, they make hard decisions, and they stay steady under pressure. Going back to last week's rep, if your peers don't trust you, they will never follow you.

1:34Building that solid ground on trust leads to respect and self-confidence. In a lot of my own teachings, in Max Out Your Life, for example, my book, I talk a lot about the concept of identity and confidence. Real confidence doesn't need to announce itself. It carries itself. People can feel when a leader is secure versus when they're compensating. Respect grows when your life has weight to it, when your words carry evidence behind them. The strongest leaders I know don't chase respect. They become the kind of person who naturally commands it. That's why this law is so powerful. Respect is not requested.

2:07It's recognized. Let's hear John Maxwell teach this principle, the law of respect. Law number seven, the law of respect. The law of respect says people naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves. Now, I've got a question I want to ask you because this law of respect really has huge implications in your leadership life. Here's the question. And in the studio, while I'm asking my friends in the training tapes, I want to ask you the very same question. How many of you would like to lead more people and a higher quality of people at the same time? In other words, how many of you like to have increase your quantity and increase your quality?

2:49Now, if you raise your hand, and they all did here, if you raise your hand, I'm here to tell you that the law of respect will teach you how to do it. And the best way that I can illustrate how the law of respect plays into not only leading more people, but leading a higher quality of people, let's go back to the hand illustration I used when I talked to you about the law of the lid. If you remember when I talked about the law of the lid, I said, if your leadership, if this hand represents my leadership, and let's say it's a four, and this hand represents my business, so the lid of my leadership will contain or hold down my business.

3:21If my leadership is a four, my business is a three. You know, it's just not going to go any higher. It's going to be contained under my leadership effectiveness. Now, when I was teaching that law, I was talking about the size of your organization and that you cannot grow an organization bigger than you are. And that's very true. The law of respect, I'm using the same illustration now. You not only, if the law of the lid will not only allow you to grow an organization bigger than you are, it will not allow you to attract people better than you are. Let me explain. If I'm a four as a leader, okay, if I'm a four as a leader, the people I attract to me will basically be threes, twos, and ones.

4:08Does that make sense? In other words, when we teach the law of magnetism, which is another law, which I will teach later on. When we teach the law of magnetism, well, the law of magnetism basically says you attract who you are, not who you want. Well, in the law of respect, I'm saying people follow leaders that are strong themselves. So, in other words, if I'm a four as a leader, I'm not going to attract a lot of sevens and eights. Sevens and eights aren't going to follow me. And I have a quote in your note that's just, this is huge. It says, the more leadership ability a person has, the more quickly he or she recognizes leadership or its lack in others.

4:51Now, that is just a huge statement. So let me explain what I mean by that. Haven't you been in a room where perhaps you were a better leader than the person that was leading? And you realized, you realized that you were a better leader. I'm not talking about arrogance. I'm not talking about thinking more highly of yourself than you should. It's just the fact that you knew you were a better leader. Now, if you're a seven as a leader and you happen to be having to follow a four, you're not going to want to do that. In fact, that's why there's so much frustration in the workplace. Isn't that true?

5:22There's frustration in the workplace because you've got people that are perhaps better leaders that are underneath a lesser leader and it causes all kinds of conflict. Now, here's the good news. Let's go back to the illustration I used with the hand again. If I'm a four as a leader and I go from a five to a six to a seven, in other words, I can learn leadership and I grow. I learn these laws. I apply them in my life. And over the process of time, I become a better leader. If I go from a four to a seven, not only do I increase the quantity of my organization from a three to a four to a five to a six, I increase the quality of people I attract.

5:58All of a sudden, if I'm a seven as a leader, I'm attracting sixes. Now, think about it. As a four of a leader, I was attracting threes. Now, what I'm saying to you is I've now doubled the quality of a person that I've attracted. And this is huge. And here's why it is. I was doing a couple of years ago a national conference for Chick-fil-A. And during a question and answer period, a person raised his hand and he asked me this question. He said, John, how do I find leaders, find potential leaders? He said, I want to find potential leaders from my organization. And when he said, how do I find potential leaders, I looked at him and I said, you have to know what they look like.

6:33But let me say something else. you can't attract potential leaders if you're not a leader yourself. Like begets like. So in this law of respect, what I'm saying to you is as you grow as a leader, you're not only going to increase the quantity as far as the size of your company, you're going to increase the quality, the kind of people that you attract to it. And here's why. People don't follow people by accident, and people don't follow people that are not good leaders. Let me explain it to you this way. When people respect you as a person, they admire you, and it's wonderful to be admired. When people respect you as a friend, they love you.

7:19But when people respect you as a leader, they follow you. I remember several years ago I did a lesson called R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Tell me what you think of me now. I didn't sing or dance. But basically, I was trying to share with people how important it is to have respect. Now, what I want you to understand is respect is not a given. It's earned. In fact, if you think back at the law of influence, when I taught you about the five levels of influence, I taught you that the highest level was the personhood level, and the key word there was respect. People follow you because you've done so well with so many for so long that you've absolutely gained their respect.

8:00Now, you have to gain respect. It's not a given. It's something that has to be earned. So in your notes, let me share with you how to earn respect, how to gain respect from other people as a leader. Number one, have a respect for other people. Hey, guys, I am not new to the gym. Most of you know that. I know my way around a barbell. Some would even say I am a dumbbell. But if I was doing the same four lifts for two years and wondering why nothing was changing, look, turns out the problem wasn't effort. It was the plan. That's when I found ladder. Ladder is an expert strength training plan, not a content library.

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9:49Less stress, less time, more results. Find people that are qualified in the pay category that you want. You need the right person to cut through the chaos. This job is not for you. It's for Indeed-sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show,$75 sponsored job credit to help you get your job, the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. So just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It's very important for you as a leader to be respectful of other people.

10:28The best way I can explain it is I observe leadership and observe leaders all the time. And I mark a man or a woman, I mark a leader if they don't respect their people. For example, I think it's a character flaw. For example, if I'm leading and you happen to be the people that I'm leading, you happen to be my people. I look for a leader to have respect for the people with them that, quote, this is not a good phrase, but I'm going to just use it to illustrate, people that are under them. Here's what I want you to understand. When a leader powers up on people beneath them or takes advantage of people beneath them or manipulates people beneath them or doesn't respect people beneath them, I think it's a huge character flaw.

11:12In other words, when you have power on people and you misuse that power, I think you have violated your leadership. Does that make sense? And, you know, it's amazing how a person behaves, quote, when they can get by with it. Did you get that? And when a leader can, quote, get by with treating people unkindly or kind of, quote, running over them or taking advantage of them, whatever I see that happen, I always look at that leader and I realize that they have a character flaw. Because the best way to get respect from other people is to give respect to people. And the moment that you and I do that, then respect begins to be returned to us.

12:01So step number one, I suppose, really has nothing to do with leadership. It has to do with the golden rule. It has to do with respecting other people. The second way to gain respect is by courage. I have found that in the area of leadership, people will respect you when you make a courageous decision. And I define a courageous decision this. A courageous decision is one that I make because it's right, not because it has a probability of passing or not because it benefits me. It's just a right decision. That's courage. The ability to be courageous and step out and make decisions that benefit your company but don't benefit you.

12:53Benefit your people but don't benefit you. That's a courageous decision. Thirdly, I think that you earn respect by success. People want to follow successful people. Let me put it this way. Have you ever known somebody who said, you know, I'm just looking for a leader? Have you found a leader that just fails a lot? Man, I would love to. Are you a leader that messes up? Do you just kind of get into dead-end streets and kind of blow yourself out of the water? Could I attach myself to you? No. Now, I've never known a person who said, boy, if I could just have a coach that's a bad coach. You know what I'm saying?

13:31Boy, if our team could just get a coach that loses all the time, that would be huge for us. No, no, no. No, you've got to have success because people want to go to the top, and they want to get with people who can take them to the top. So if you want respect, you've got to get some success under your belt. Number four, consistency. Just the ability to keep on keeping on and day in, day out be the same. Consistency is huge because people want to follow somebody that they not only trust, they want to follow somebody that's dependable. Number five, you gain respect when you add value to others. Oh, I love that.

14:13The ability to add value to others, to come alongside of them and really take them to a level that they would not go on their own. That gives you respect. And finally, number six, just pure leadership ability. The ability to lead people effectively is absolutely important in gaining respect. Now, let me just close this law of respect by sharing with you that there are two what I call kind of like acid tests of respect. In other words, when people come to me and they say, John, do you think I have the respect of people around me as a leader? There are two ways that I can always look. I can look at you.

14:53I can look at myself. I can look at anybody in a leadership position. And I can tell you how you can know if you have the respect of your people. And you can go to the bank on these two things. The first test of respect is the response of people when you ask for commitment. They will only commit if they respect you. I have watched it happen time and time again. When you have a group of people and they don't make the commitment necessary, it's almost always a lack of respect to the leader. And the second area, the second test of respect, is the response of people when the leader asks them to change.

15:38You show me a group of people that will make big commitments and major changes. I will show you a group of people that highly respects their leader because people will not make commitment and not make changes Unless they really respect a leader. You don't do that for somebody you don't you don't make changes You don't make commitments for somebody that you don't respect So when somebody comes to me as leaders that John do you think my people respect me? I ask him this very simple question Do you find the people that you that work with you? Do they make commitments major commitments and do they make major changes for the organization to be successful?

16:12If so, they respect you as a leader. If you haven't done it yet, click the link below. You need the 21-page workbook in your hands to track the rep for every law. Plus, that is the only way to get your questions in front of John and I for the Q &A sessions coming up in the next episode. Get the guide, join the list, and let's get back to the teaching. To close, people follow leaders they respect, and respect is built when your life demonstrates strength, not just your language. The more substance you carry, the more influence you earn. This week for the rep, ask yourself, am I trying to get respect or am I just becoming respectable?

16:50That's a huge difference. Some leaders try to force outcomes with their position or emotion or worse, they force it with pressure. But respect is built from the inside out. Write down how to gain respect as a leader. Number one, have a respect for other people. Number two, courage. Make courageous decisions to step out and benefit people over you. Three, success. People want to follow successful people. Four, consistency, dependability. Five, add value to others. Six, pure leadership ability. Test your leadership ability and do some reflecting. As John said for his first two tests, you should write these down.

17:30Number one, look at the response of people when leaders ask for commitment. They will commit only if they respect you. Number two, the response of when a leader asks them to change. People will not commit and change unless they respect the leader. As we wrap up this season on this 21 laws of leadership, I want you to reflect back on each of these episodes. These first seven laws are your foundation of your leadership. Each law is a building block going into the next. As this season will build into season two, where we go into the influence of how to connect, how to build teams, and begin evolving as a leader.

18:06This is the Edmund Mild Show.

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