Book of the Week: Developing the Leader Within You

This week’s book of the week is John Maxwell’s Developing the Leader Within You. This book is one of Maxwell’s older books, but I had it on a list for an upcoming class, so I decided to read this volume on developing personal leadership skills.

Top 5 Thoughts:

  1. “Leadership is influence.  That’s it.  Nothing more; nothing less.  My favorite leadership proverb is: He who thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk” (1).
  2. “The title of my lecture was ‘Take This Job and Love It.’  I encouraged the audience to find something they liked to do so much they would gladly do it for nothing.  Then I suggested they learn to do it so well that people would be happy to pay them for it” (27).
  3. “When I have integrity, my words and my deeds match up” (35).
  4. “As John Hancock Field says, ‘All worthwhile men have good thoughts, good ideas, and good intentions, but precious few of them ever translate those into action'” (165).
  5. When John Maxwell looked at his busy schedule when he turned forty, he reasoned that “I didn’t have any more hours and therefore I couldn’t work any harder: and my future growth in production would be determined by my ability to work through other people” (180).