John Maxwell

And then for three years, I went on a book tour with it around the world because it became a bestseller the first week it came out, and it just stayed there on the bestseller list.

In fact, the 21-year feudal laws of leadership sells as many books today, 20-plus years later, as it did the day the book came out.

You're kidding me.

Well, I love them, but not equally.

The Law of the Lead, which is the first one, Ed, I put it first, and here's why.

If a person buys into the law of the lid, and I want us to talk about it for a moment, if they buy into the law of the lid, they'll buy into the other 20 laws.

That's a fact.

And the law of the lid just says how well you lead determines how well you succeed.

In other words, the reason I began teaching on leadership, I was in my 20s, and I came to the conclusion that everything rises and falls on leadership.

And when I came to that conclusion, I said to myself, if that is true,

that if I can teach myself, if I can teach other people how to lead well, then it'll rise.

Well, now we're taking that lid and it's going up.

And if I don't know it well, of course it can fall.

So the law of the lid basically just says that the most important thing you can do to succeed in life, really learn.

And that's true in business, that's true in government, that's true in ministry.

the ability to learn how to lead because how well I lead not only determines how well I succeed, how well I lead determines how well the people that are on my team succeed.

So let's say that between a one and a 10, I'm an average leader.

I'm a five.

What that means is that my organization will come up to my lid of leadership and it will be a, probably a four, but it cannot be a six or seven because in the history of mankind, no organization has risen higher than the leadership lid.

of those who lead it, it just doesn't happen.