The Law Of The Lid

Law #1 of John Maxwell's The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is:

The Law of the Lid: Leadership Ability Determines a Person's Level of Effectiveness.

This law tells us that, in order to be able to influence and affect others, you have to have the ability to lead them. For example, if your current level of leadership ability [on a scale from 1-10] was a 4, then you would not be able to be effective above a 3. This is because your ability to lead will put a lid on or limit your potential effectiveness. He gives the example of the McDonald's fast food chain. Dick and Maurice McDonald worked very hard to build a very successful single fast food restaurant. They even had inquiries from others in the country on how to improve their own restaurants. They were great managers. But, when it came time to expand and start a franchise operation, they were not very successful, opening just 10 more restaurants. They were great managers, but not great leaders. Their level of leadership allowed them to succeed up to a point. Sure, they still attained success, but it was limited, there was a lid put on it by their thinking and ability to lead. When they partnered with Ray Kroc, who had a much higher ability to lead, he eventually bought the rights to the franchise and opened 100 McDonald's in the first 4 years [and 400 more in the following 4 years].

This concept is reflected in Maxwell's following statements:

-"The higher you want to climb, the more you need leadership. the greater the impact you want to make, the greater your influence needs to be."

- "To change the direction of the organization, change the leader...Personal and organizational effectiveness is proportionate to the strength of Leadership."

Applying the Law of the Lid to Your Life

1. List some major goals [that will take at least a year to accomplish]. Identify those that will require other people to accomplish. For those, your leadership ability will greatly impact your effectiveness.

2. Assess your leadership ability to get an idea of your baseline leadership ability. [There is a leadership evaluation in Appendix A of the book].

3. Ask others to rate your leadership skills: your boss, spouse, 2 colleagues at your level and 3 people you lead. Ask them to rate you from 1-10 on: (a) people skills, (b) planning and strategic thinking, (c) vision and (d) results. Average the scores and compare to your assessment.

-Is your leadership skill better or worse than you thought?

-If there is a gap, why do think that is?

-How willing are you to grow in the area of leadership?

Reference:

Maxwell, John. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Chapter 1- The Law of The Lid. Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN; 2007