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40 More Great Quotes from The Leader’s Greatest Return: Attracting, Developing, and Multiplying Leaders by John Maxwell

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If you are a leader, I highly recommend that you read this book –The Leader’s Greatest Return: Attracting, Developing, and Multiplying Leaders by John Maxwell. You can read my review of this book and his other books here.

Here are 40 more great quotes from the book.

  • If you want to be an effective leader, you must make learning by listening a top priority every day.
  • You can never get the best out of people if you don’t know who they are, where they want to go, what they care about, how they think, and how they want to contribute. You can learn those things only if you listen.
  • When you know why you’ve been put on this earth and you know what you need to be doing, you don’t need anyone to motivate you. Your purpose inspires you every day.

  • If you’re not growing and working at getting better, you have no shot at experiencing the exhilaration that comes from being great at what you do.
  • Every opportunity to work is an opportunity to perfect your craft.
  • Mastery is never fully realized by anyone. We all fall short. But striving for mastery allows us to continually push forward and improve.
  • Everyone desires to be recognized, praised, and appreciated. As you lead and motivate others, never forget that.
  • You can’t be a good leader and lead everyone the same. Good leaders discover what motivates each person and then lead him or her accordingly.
  • It’s easier to criticize people by pointing out their weaknesses than it is to see the potential in them that exceeds their current reality.
  • If you want to go to the higher levels as a leader, try building your reputation on training and equipping people.
  • Good leaders provide a means for people on the team to get where they need to go. Not only that, they help them rise up to who they can be.
  • Strategic leaders who receive the highest return from their people equip and empower them. They position them and mentor them. They teach them how to reproduce leaders. The results compound, providing the leader’s greatest return.
  • The function of leadership isn’t to gather more followers. It’s to produce more leaders.
  • People do what people see.
  • The quality of leaders is reflected in the standards they set for themselves. If leaders adopt a low standard when it comes to teachability, training, and growth, their people will follow in their footsteps.
  • The ultimate goal for all leaders should be to work themselves out of a job.
  • The position doesn’t make the leader; the leader makes the position.
  • Success doesn’t come from protecting what you have. It comes from equipping others to replace you so that you can move on to bigger and better things.
  • Every leader you empower can help empower the people they lead to reach their potential too.
  • The greatest leaders aren’t necessarily the ones who do the greatest things. They are the ones who empower others to do great things.
  • When you empower your leaders to own a job, project, or task, they do everything in their power to bring it to completion.
  • It’s always good to praise effort. But the rewards need to be given to those who produce.
  • When you empower and release your leaders to be creative and innovate, they produce better results.
  • Good leaders use influence, not power, to get things done.
  • Experience isn’t the best teacher—evaluated experience is.
  • The bottom line in caring for others on the team is that it’s crucial to give more than you take.
  • We cannot reach our potential without the help of others.
  • Mentoring helps us go farther, faster, and more successfully than we could ever travel on our own.
  • What is mentoring? I think of it as intentionally investing my best into the lives of others.
  • Mentoring is both caught and taught. The catching part of mentorship is totally dependent upon the credibility of the person mentoring you.
  • If you’re seeking a mentor, look for credibility. If you plan to be a mentor, develop it.
  • We teach what we know, but we reproduce who we are.
  • The ultimate step in mentoring ends with the leader being mentored taking the baton from his mentor and surpassing him.
  • The highest level of growth comes when you develop generations of leaders. When you can develop a leader, who in turn develops other leaders without your direct involvement, it can have a multiplying effect for generations.
  • The future of an organization depends on the development of more and better leaders, not the recruitment of more and better followers.
  • It’s vital to understand that it takes a leader to reproduce another leader. A nonleader cannot develop a leader. Neither can an institution. It takes a leader to know one, show one, and grow one.
  • One of the key transitions to become a reproducer of leaders is to focus less on what you can accomplish personally and more on what you can accomplish through others.
  • Authenticity is the new authority in leadership, not power or position.
  • Every day every leader you work with should ask, “Am I using my gifts for myself or others?”
  • Intentional living turns good intentions into good actions. It makes a person proactive and positive, rather than passive and inconsistent.

Author: Bill Pence

I’m Bill Pence – married to my best friend Tammy, a graduate of Covenant Seminary, St. Louis Cardinals fan, formerly a manager at a Fortune 50 organization, and in leadership at my local church. I am a life-long learner and have a passion to help people develop, and to use their strengths to their fullest potential. I am an INTJ on Myers-Briggs, 3 on the Enneagram, my top five Strengthsfinder themes are: Belief, Responsibility, Learner, Harmony, and Achiever, and my two StandOut strength roles are Creator and Equalizer. My favorite book is the Bible, with Romans my favorite book of the Bible, and Colossians 3:23 and 2 Corinthians 5:21 being my favorite verses. Some of my other favorite books are The Holiness of God and Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul, and Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper. I enjoy music in a variety of genres, including modern hymns, Christian hip-hop and classic rock. My book Called to Lead: Living and Leading for Jesus in the Workplace and Tammy’s book Study, Savor and Share Scripture: Becoming What We Behold are available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon. amazon.com/author/billpence amazon.com/author/tammypence

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