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Leadership Is Influence: Nothing More, Nothing Less
How to overcome the common myths of leadership.
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Maxwell will be featured as a plenary speaker at the 2005 Catalyst Conference, October 6-7 in Atlanta, Georgia, along with Andy Stanley, Bill Hybels, Louie Giglio, Erwin McManus and Donald Miller. Catalyst is a convergence of 10,000 Next Generation Leaders. For more information or to register, visit www.catalystconference.com. Leadership is influence—nothing more, nothing less. When you become a student of leaders, as I am, you recognize people's level of influence in everyday situations all around you. FIVE MYTHS ABOUT LEADERSHIPThere are plenty of misconceptions and myths that people embrace about leaders and leadership. Here are five common ones: 1. THE MANAGEMENT MYTHA widespread misunderstanding is that leading and managing are one and the same. Up until a few years ago, books that claimed to be on leadership were often really about management. The main difference between the two is that leadership is about influencing people to follow, while management focuses on maintaining systems and processes. As former Chrysler chairman and CEO Lee Iacocca wryly commented, "Sometimes even the best manager is like the little boy with the big dog, waiting to see where the dog wants to go so that he can take him there." The best way to test whether a person can lead rather than just manage is to ask him to create positive change. Managers can maintain direction, but they can't change it. To move people in a new direction, you need influence. 2. THE ENTREPRENEUR MYTHFrequently, people assume that all salespeople and entrepreneurs are leaders. But that's not always the case. You may remember the Ronco commercials that appeared on television years ago. They sold items such as the Veg-O-Matic, Pocket Fisherman, and Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler. Those products were the brainchildren of an entrepreneur named Ron Popeil. Called the salesman of the century, he has also appeared in numerous infomercials for products such as spray-on relief for baldness and food dehydrating devices. Popeil is certainly enterprising, innovative, and successful, especially if you measure him by the $300 million in sales his products have earned. But that doesn't make him a leader. People may be buying what he has to sell, but they're not following him. At best, he is able to persuade people for a moment, but he holds no long-term influence with them. 3. THE KNOWLEDGE MYTHSir Francis Bacon said, "Knowledge is power." Most people, believing power is the essence of leadership, naturally assume that those who possess knowledge and intelligence are leaders. But that isn't automatically true. You can visit any major university and meet brilliant research scientists and philosophers whose ability to think is so high that it's off the charts, but whose ability to lead is so low that it doesn't even register on the charts. IQ doesn't necessarily equate to leadership. |             |
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