An axiom is a principle, established rule or self-evident truth. I open my new book Mighty: 7 Skills You Need to Move from Pandemic to Progress with the twenty-five axioms I live my life by which I want to share with you.
I hope this list inspires you to write down and document your own set of life lessons.
Brian Dodd’s Twenty-Five Leadership Axioms
The following are Brian Dodd’s Twenty-Five Leadership Axioms as found on pages V and VI in Mighty: 7 Skills You Need to Move from Pandemic to Progress:
- Jesus Christ is the greatest leader who ever lived.
- The Bible is the greatest leadership book ever written.
- Excellence becomes average when it’s all you have.
- Never confuse exposure with experience. Never confuse experience with excellence and expertise.
- The greatest quality a leader can cultivate is personal holiness.
- Focus on transformation over transaction.
- Prioritize people over policies and procedures.
- Never institutionalize or celebrate quitting.
- You can never have enough leaders.
- Leadership development is about developing the skills, talents, and abilities to accomplish a task or assignment given to you by God. Leader development is about becoming the type of person who can accomplish a task or assignment given to you by God. They are two completely different skills.
- The most important meeting a leader has each day is his or her personal quiet time with God. Quiet times with God should be the first thing that happens every day because it gives you the framework to put the day’s events in proper context rather than reacting to them.
- Books are easily the greatest return on investment a leader can have.
- The most insulting thing you can do to another person is be late because you are communicating your time is more valuable than theirs and they should just have to wait for you.
- Pastors are not communicators. They are preachers who deliver a message from God to a specific group of people at a specific point and time in human history about the specific issues of their lives.
- You cannot have creativity with creation. Messed up hair, skinny jeans, a low v-neck, scarves, and tattoos are not creativity. They are style.
- Nothing changes a human heart like the Word of God.
- The only successful leadership model is servant leadership.
- Your level of expectation determines your level of preparation.
- A person who can’t say, “I’m sorry; please for give me. I was wrong,” doesn’t understand grace.
- You’re never more like Jesus as a husband than when you apologize to your wife and take the blame for something you did not do so the relationship can be restored. Because that’s what Jesus did on the cross.
- We all sit down to a banquet of consequences from the decisions we’ve made.
- Everyone is interesting because God wants to tell the wonderful story of His Son’s love for the world through each and every human life. You just have to take the time to find out what that person’s story is.
- Success is determined by what you do each and every day when no one is watching.
- The only difference between anger and danger is a “D”.
- If you chase two rabbits, you won’t catch either one.
OK, I now have two requests for you. First, make your own list of twenty-five axioms for you to live your life by. Second, I hope you purchase several copies of Mighty: 7 Skills You Need to Move from Pandemic to Progress by clicking HERE or on the image below where you will see my axioms fleshed out on a much deeper level. The extra copies are for you to give away to other leaders so you can read and discuss the book together.
My latest eBook is available for download. The Top 65 Leadership Quotes Of 2022 Part 1 is a resource every leader should have. Great quotes bring clarity and put into words who we intuitively feel as leaders. They give us wisdom and insights which advance the mission and vision of our organizations. This eBook includes thoughts and insights from leaders like Warren Buffett, Nick Saban, James Clear, Dawn Staley, Jurgen Klopp, Jerry Seinfeld, and even Ted Lasso. This resource will take you about 10 minutes to read but a lifetime to apply. You will want to stop and ponder the implications of each quote. Click HERE or on the image provided for immediate download!