Book OVERVIEW
What is the secret to organizational success? Whether the goal is developing a new product, establishing a new location, launching a new initiative, starting a new team, or improving your existing one, what will determine its success? The leaders! For any team, small business, large corporation, non-profit organization, or government entity, the key to accomplishing today’s goals and achieving tomorrow’s success depends on its present and future leaders.
Few people know more about developing leaders than John C. Maxwell, the bestselling leadership author in history. In the last twenty-five years, he has grown from equipping a handful of leaders in one organization to developing millions of business, government, and non-profit leaders in every country around the world. In The Ultimate Guide to Developing Leaders, Maxwell teaches everything leaders need to know about how to develop leaders in their team or organization.
My Take
John Maxwell is a leadership guru and I was excited to dig into this. Lately I’ve been more interested in learning how to develop leaders, so this book seemed like a perfect fit. For me, it started out as a great read, but as I kept going, it left me wanting more and more application or real-life examples. His general advice that’s to be absorbed by business leaders, organizational executives, pastors, etc. actually makes this book less effective, in my opinion. It’s primarliy theoretical in its approach, which is great for coming away with some great quotes, but, if I’m honest, I don’t think this book helped me grow in leadership development. So would I say this is a decent book? Yes. The ultimate guide? Not so much.
My Top Quotes
“The function of leadership isn’t to gather more followers, it’s to produce more leaders.”
“The biggest communication challenge for many leaders is that most of the time we do not listen to understand. We listen to prepare our reply.”
“Leadership is more caught than taught.”
“The position doesn’t make the leader; the leader makes the position.”
“Good mentors don’t hesitate to have difficult conversations with the people they mentor. They deal with the ‘elephants’ in the room even when others won’t.”
