The Mission of Leadership

Leaders offer growth and development options because they want the best for their people. As leaders, we have a responsibility to build our people and the way our people are built shows up in our culture every day. If we build values of service, integrity, accountability, responsibility, this will show up as values-based, integrous, accountable, responsible service to our customers, clients and one another. 

When everyone knows the mission and is guided by values, wherever they are fulfilling their duties, they carry out the mission based on the same values of their teammates.  When they come back together, they are all serving others based on the mission and values of the organization.

At one point, before John created the John Maxwell Team, which was created to certify his content and carry on his leadership development work, John had decided to retire. 

Then, he had a revelation and wanted to create a team of people to carry out his legacy. The right person at the time was placed in his life to help him do that, and he set out to buy back his intellectual property.

I (Cindy) remember when he bought back rights to his books and resources, what they found was described as horrifying!!  There were 18 people that came along with all of John’s assets and they found that 70% of those 18 people had NEVER read a John Maxwell book. What about the shared values the books, curriculum, and training materials were based on?

These were sales individuals being a brand ambassador of John’s 70+ books at the time and corporate training, having never read a John Maxwell book. You cannot be a brand ambassador of something you’ve never tried. You can’t be a product of the product in this way.

Everything in his model of work was and is based on values. This level of engagement - and the lack of it - shows up in training and development as well.

Sharing the organization's core values with our people is like putting air in your tires.  If you don’t have any or if they blow out you’re going to have a rocky road, potentially damage your vehicle in the process, and not make the destination you were headed for.

Statistics show that 80% of all organizations who do not have the senior leaders involved in sharing and demonstrating core values of the team - to the team - and holding them accountable will fail. 

You have got to have senior leaders engaged in the process alongside their people while being the example. And here’s a big plus…Employees who are engaged in the success of the organization usually enjoy working for their organization, which increases employee engagement!