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Book Review: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

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The subtitle of Maxwell’s book is “Follow Them, and People Will Follow You.”   Each time I read that, I hear a rejoinder in my head: “Don’t follow them, and people won’t follow you.” Revised and updated in 2007 for the 10th anniversary of The 21 Irrefutable Laws, this book is rightly regarded as a foundational piece of the leadership literature.

As the title indicates, Maxwell presents 21 laws of leadership, all of which are free-standing and yet buttressed by one another. You can learn a lot simply by reviewing the 21 laws with Maxwell’s brief explanation of each:

1.  The Law of the Lid: Leadership Ability Determines a Person’s Level of Effectiveness
2.  The Law of Influence: The True Measure of Leadership Is Influence — Nothing More, Nothing Less
3.  The Law of Process: Leadership Develops Daily, Not in a Day
4.  The Law of Navigation: Anyone Can Steer the Ship, but It Takes a Leader to Change the Course
5.  The Law of Addition: Leaders Add Value by Serving Others
6.  The Law of Solid Ground: Trust Is the Foundation of Leadership
7.  The Law of Respect: People Naturally Follow Leaders Stronger Than Themselves
8.  The Law of Intuition: Leaders Evaluate Everything with a Leadership Bias
9.  The Law of Magnetism: Who You Are Is Who You Attract
10. The Law of Connection: Leaders Touch a Heart Before They Ask for a Hand
11. The Law of the Inner Circle: A Leader’s Potential Is Determined by Those Closest to Him
12. The Law of Empowerment: Only Secure Leaders Give Power to Others
13. The Law of the Picture: People Do What People See
14. The Law of Buy-In: People Buy into the Leader, Then the Vision
15. The Law of Victory: Leaders Find a Way for the Team to Win
16. The Law of the Big Mo: Momentum is a Leader’s Best Friend
17. The Law of Priorities: Leaders Understand That Activity Is Not Necessarily Accomplishment
18. The Law of Sacrifice: A Leader Must Give Up to Go Up
19. The Law of Timing: When to Lead Is as Important as What to Do and Where to Go
20. The Law of Explosive Growth: To Add Growth, Lead Followers — To Multiply, Lead Leaders
21. The Law of Legacy: A Leader’s Lasting Value is Measured by Succession

My favorite law, the umbrella under which all of the other laws fall, is the Law of Process. Leadership can’t be developed in a day or a week. Instead, it grows and becomes refined through a lifetime of self-management, skills acquisition, and relationships:

If you continually invest in your leadership development, letting your ‘assets’ compound, the inevitable result is growth over time. What can you see when you look at a person’s daily agenda? Priorities, passion, abilities, relationships, attitude, personal disciplines, vision, and influence. See what a person is doing every day, day after day, and you’ll know who that person is and what he or she is becoming.

Often, when I speak to newer lawyers about leadership development, someone in the group will ask why a new graduate or a lawyer in the first few years of practice should be concerned with leadership development, since they’re at the bottom of the totem pole. My answer is three-fold.

First, it’s critical to lead oneself and develop a strong foundation in self-management. Second, usually even “bottom of the totem pole” lawyers soon have an opportunity to lead something, whether it’s a document review team or a subcommittee. And third, as Maxwell writes, “champions don’t become champions in the ring — they are merely recognized there.” If a lawyer waits until a leadership position is on the horizon to begin developing good leadership skills, the position may never present itself, or if it does, the lawyer will lack the necessary skills to thrive in that position. (Incidentally, point 3 is well illustrated in Maxwell’s first law, the Law of the Lid.)

What’s in it for lawyers? Although each of The 21 Irrefutable Laws is important for leadership development, perhaps none speaks to the profession in quite the same was as the Law of Explosive Growth. That law holds that leaders who develop leaders create an organization that can achieve explosive growth, since “for every leader they develop, they also receive the value of all of that leader’s followers.” Imagine the potential for enormous and sustainable growth in a law firm in which leaders are developed.

Read one chapter a week and apply what you learn. Without question, you will grow as a leader, and you’ll see the difference in your day-to-day life and practice, with clients, and in whatever leadership roles you may hold.

6 options for anger management

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Lawyers who are or aspire to be leaders must learn to self-manage.  Especially when stressed or under pressure (and who isn’t, at least part of the time?) it’s easy to let self-management slide in the face of provocation.  Some attorneys I know offer a blanket apology to staff and colleagues — something like, “I’m feeling stressed, so please excuse me if I blow up or yell at you or throw things, ok?”  I don’t recommend that approach; it’s been than nothing, I suppose, but it’s actually announcing that bad behavior is coming, apparently largely unchecked.

Let’s be real: attorneys are often faced with statements, actions, arguments, behavior, etc. that is galling in the extreme. It’s a common practice in litigation among some to make an effort to find their opponents’ hot buttons; push the button and out pops an ugly, crazy person – not someone a jury would respect or believe. (Same goes for witnesses, too.)  So how can you handle it when faced with provocation that would make the Buddha quiver with rage?

1. Keep your attention on the motivation behind the provocation. Is the person who’s enraging you doing it intentionally, or is it a by-product of words or behavior that he likely thinks perfectly appropriate? If it’s the former, don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he succeeded. If it’s the latter, consider whether displaying annoyance would stop the behavior or simply let your opponent know that he’s found a soft spot.

2. Breathe. This is great advice for just about any situation, but it’s especially good for dealing with anger. You can react, which implies knee-jerk emotional feedback made without any reflection, or you can respond, which implies feedback that follows a pause and analysis/reflection to determine the best way to address the provocation. It’s far better to respond than to react. There’s no reason why you can’t fall silent for a few seconds (which may feel interminable to you and your opponent) while you work through your options.

3. Speak softly. Most of us tend to raise our voices when we speak in anger. Therefore, it’s disarming to do the opposite and to speak more quietly. The effect is to appear reasonable and controlled (especially helpful if your opponent is ranting and raving and appearing to be out of control) and to force your opponent to listen carefully to hear what you have to say. I am informed that in Japanese culture, when two parties are arguing, the one who raises her voice first loses. It’s a difficult tactic for many of us to master, but if you can speak softly in the face of provocation, you will stand a much better chance of controlling your anger.

4. Vent. Express your anger in some forum that poses no risk of exposing it. Writing can be helpful, but especially if you write an angry response to an email, be sure that you don’t accidentally send it!

5. Exercise. That’s physical venting. When feasible, it’s a great idea to get up and take a walk instead of marinating in a situation that makes you angry.

6. Selective release of anger. Sometimes, it’s absolutely appropriate to express your anger at the person whose behavior has caused it. But consider the consequences of such an expression. Will you disrupt a relationship? Do you stand to lose ground? Will your expressed anger cause the person to react in a way that will cause you even more trouble? And when you do choose to display anger, consider doing so through your words only but continuing to speak in a low, even tone of voice. That will reinforce the gravity of your words.

And, despite our best efforts at these tactics, all of us lose our tempers sometimes. Especially in time of frustration and stress, it’s easy to let it slip, despite best efforts. When that happens, don’t be afraid to apologize and admit to being human.

What’s the difference between leadership and management – and why does it matter?

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In listening to conversations about leadership development, I’ve noticed a tendency that at first I attributed to a slip of the tongue. People say things like, “So good management – I mean, leadership – requires [this that and the other].” Some people even suggest that management and leadership are really the same thing and that “leadership” sounds more enticing, so more lawyers (both at the associate and partner/management levels) are willing to play along.

I completely disagree.  Management is an important skill. “Management” derives from the Latin manu “hand” and from the Italian word maneggiare, meaning “to handle.” One who manages defines a goal or adopts a goal defined by someone else, creates a process or an approach to accomplish the goal, and uses rewards and consequences to get team members to do what’s necessary to get there. A manager typically determines how to reach the goal and requires the subordinates to work according to that plan. Often in a law firm, management is a “horizontal” approach, meaning that managers fall into a defined group and those

managers oversee the work of subordinates.

Leadership does bear some similarities to management, especially because leadership may exist in a variety of styles, some of which bear particular resemblance to management. “To lead” derives from the Old English word lædan, meaning to “cause to go with one” and which in turn derives from liðan, “to travel.” One who leads is acting on a goal that has been defined as the organization’s goal, and the attainment of that goal is generally most effective when the members of the organization have mutually adopted the goal. A leader works with the organization’s members to call forth their best efforts to reach the goal and generally leaves some latitude in how the members choose to approach their tasks. Leadership may also be considered as a “vertical” approach, in which a leader works with subordinates to develop their own abilities so that they may ascend to leadership as well.

Much has been written on the distinctions between management and leadership, and I certainly won’t seek to recapitulate that work. However, simply looking at the derivation of the words – “to handle” as opposed to “to cause to go with one” – gives a sense of the differences.

So, what does this mean in practice? Recognizing that management and leadership draw on different skills opens the opportunity to decide which set of skills to apply in any given situation. Under some circumstances, management may be necessary to accomplish a set of tasks quickly and in compliance with a particular expectation, perhaps in pulling together a comprehensive case outline for a status conference. Other situations may benefit from leadership, such as setting the strategy for a matter when a team seeks to accomplish a particular goal for a client and each member may have insights or creative ideas of how to do so.

Test this yourself. For the next couple of weeks, when you’re supervising others in some ways, consider whether management or leadership would be most effective. Make a few notes in your journal or on your computer about the situation, what factors cause you think that management (or leadership) will create the best results, how you choose to manage (or lead), and what results the team realizes. This planning and reflection should take less than 10 minutes total, but the insight you’ll gain will be significant.

(This post was drawn from an article published in this week’s Leadership Matters for Lawyers, a weekly e-newsletter that provides articles and resources designed to boost readers’ leadership abilities and practice. Please click on the box below to view past issues and to subscribe to Leadership Matters to Lawyers.)
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