Today I am attending the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast along with the entire Rocket Company team. The following series of posts will be the leadership learnings from the day.

The second session’s next speaker was the wonderful John Maxwell.  John was able to help all leaders in attendance embrace simplicity.

The following are his thoughts:

  • “The business schools reward complex behavior.  But it’s the simple behavior that make you successful in life.” – Warren Buffett
  • Educator takes something simple and makes it complicated.  A communicator takes something complicated and makes it simple.
  • We take a subject like leadership and add to it.  Connectors do the difficult work of keeping it simple.
  • It isn’t easy to be simple.  But it’s effective.
  • It’s easy to be simplistic.  But it’s not easy to be simple.
  • Simplistic is shallow and fast.
  • Complex is deep and slow.
  • Experience is not the best teacher.  We all know people who are getting older but not better.
  • Complexity requires questioning.
  • Complexity says that simplistic is a half-truth.
  • Simple is deep and fast.  Deep and fast is what you want in your leadership.
  • Leadership is influence.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.
  • How do we simply lead – Add value to people everyday.
  • When you add value there is a respect and appreciation.
  • Subtract your leadership landmines.  We all have certain parts of our leadership that can destroy us.
  • Have you tried to make everyone happy?  It doesn’t work.  I’m a leader, not  a clown.
  • Put people first.  Add value to people.  They’ll come back and add value to you.  Serve people.  They’ll come back and serve you.
  • Multiply your strengths by developing them.
  • It is in the things you do well that will give you the highest return.
  • You have something unique about you that is better than all the rest of us.
  • Confidence does not replace skill.
  • You don’t have influence in your area of weakness.
  • Divide your weaknesses by delegating them.
  • A leader is like a quarterback.  They don’t get paid to run the ball.  They get paid to put the ball in the right hands.
  • Our problem is trying to find a leader to solve our problems.  The answer is be the leader that solves the problem.
  • The way to change this country around is for you to start leading.

Would you like to hear how Andy Stanley, Steven Furtick, Louie Giglio, and Mark Driscoll prepare their messages?

All of this happens on Wednesday, May 16 at 4pm EDT.  And best of all, it’s 100% free. Preach Better Sermons is a free, four-hour, online conference focused on helping communicators prepare and deliver messages that matter.  Some of the best communicators in the world will unpack preaching principles you can use right away.

It’s 100% free and since it happens online, there are no travel costs.  Click here to register for the event now.

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