Developing the Leaders Around You

John C. Maxwell, a leadership expert who spent over 30 years leading organizations including Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego and the leadership development company INJOY, presents a comprehensive framework for why and how leaders should develop the leaders around them rather than simply accumulate followers. The book's central thesis is direct: A leader's most important task is not personal achievement but the development of other people into leaders who can, in turn, develop still more leaders.

Maxwell opens by establishing that those closest to a leader determine that leader's level of success or failure. He draws on the example of basketball coach John Wooden, whose 10 NCAA championships at UCLA were built on teamwork rather than individual talent, and football coach Bear Bryant, who credited victories to his players rather than himself. Maxwell argues that people are the only truly appreciating asset in any organization, since systems become dated, buildings deteriorate, and machinery wears out. A leader who surrounds himself only with followers must draw on his own resources for everything, while a leader who surrounds himself with other leaders multiplies his influence and ensures the organization can grow beyond his personal capacity.

To illustrate how leadership capacity constrains organizational growth, Maxwell describes arriving at Skyline Wesleyan Church in 1981, when attendance had plateaued at 1,000 for 13 years. He drew a line on a marker board at 1,000 and a dotted line at 2,000, arguing that the staff would have to grow as leaders before the church could grow in size. He repeated this lecture twice more over the following 14 years as the church grew toward 4,000 attendees. The principle, he contends, is universal: An organization cannot grow beyond the capacity of its leaders.

Maxwell then turns to the practical challenge of creating a climate where potential leaders can develop. He argues that leaders must function as thermostats, actively shaping the organizational environment, rather than thermometers that passively register conditions. Momentum, he contends, is the greatest change agent. Leaders must model the behavior they expect and focus on strengths rather than weaknesses, a practice Maxwell calls the "101 percent principle": Identify a potential leader's single greatest asset and pour encouragement into that area. He advocates developing leaders internally through what he calls the "farm team" method, arguing that promoting from within is superior to hiring external candidates because the organization already knows the person's character, the person already understands the culture, and the person has a proven record.

For identifying potential leaders, Maxwell introduces the "Five A's" inventory: Assessment of needs, Assets on hand, Ability of candidates, Attitude of candidates, and Accomplishments of candidates. He provides a 25-item rating scale for evaluating leadership qualities and describes the "Law of Diminishing Expertise," a concept attributed to marketing expert I. Martin Jacknis, which holds that leaders tend to hire people whose abilities fall below their own, creating a progressive dilution of talent as organizations grow. Among the 10 qualities Maxwell seeks in potential leaders are character, influence, positive attitude, people skills, evident gifts, a proven track record, self-discipline, and discontent with the status quo. He warns that character flaws, unlike mere weaknesses, cannot be quickly overcome and will eventually undermine any leader's effectiveness.

Once potential leaders are identified, Maxwell argues they must be nurtured. He introduces the BEST acronym as a framework: Believe in them, Encourage them, Share with them, Trust them. Trust, he contends, is the single most important factor in building relationships. Leaders must offer planned time, hold hope high, add significance to people's work by showing them the big picture, provide security so they feel safe taking risks, and reward production. Maxwell recommends allocating 80 percent of support resources to the top 20 percent of producers.

Maxwell distinguishes equipping from mere training. Training focuses on specific job tasks; equipping is a comprehensive process that includes outfitting people with tools, teaching teamwork, and helping them think like leaders. The equipping process follows a five-step method: The leader models the task, mentors by performing it alongside the trainee, monitors as the trainee performs independently, motivates by stepping back and encouraging, and multiplies by having the trainee teach the task to someone else. Leaders must give their people what Maxwell calls the "Big Three": responsibility, authority, and accountability.

Maxwell draws a further distinction between equipping and developing. While equipping adds leadership by training people for specific work, developing multiplies leadership by focusing on the whole person's growth. Because development requires intensive time, a leader can work with only a few people at this level. Maxwell outlines 12 actions for developing leaders, including creating personal growth plans, giving varied experiences, rewarding desired behaviors through what he calls the RISE program (Rewards Indicating Staff Expectations), and confronting negative behavior constructively. He identifies six levels at which people plateau in their growth, from minimal improvement to the rare ability to handle any job. The hardest decision a developer faces is leaving behind a person who has stopped growing in order to continue investing in those still willing to develop.

Maxwell devotes significant attention to building what he calls a dream team. He identifies 10 qualities of effective teams, including mutual care, open communication, growing together, team fit built on trust, willingness to place team goals above individual interests, and a strong bench that provides depth and flexibility. He then outlines 10 qualities of a dream team coach, including choosing players well, communicating the game plan, providing support as a facilitator rather than a dictator, allocating resources according to performance, and understanding each player's developmental level. Delegation, he argues, is the coach's most powerful tool, and he provides a five-step progression for easing people into greater autonomy.

In the book's final chapters, Maxwell describes the mutual value exchange between leaders and those they develop. He identifies specific ways he adds value to his team: modeling personal growth, casting vision, offering encouragement, and empowering people to take initiative. In return, developed leaders give back loyalty, honest counsel, follow-through on tasks, time freed for the leader to focus on high-priority work, and the multiplication of influence through their own leadership.

Maxwell closes by profiling four people he developed at Skyline Church. Barbara Brumagin, his personal assistant for 11 years, began as a competent follower with no leadership background and grew through daily modeling into a leader who could make decisions in Maxwell's name. Dan Reiland started as a task-focused manager who lacked relational skills; after a pivotal confrontation, he developed into a leader who personally mentored over 100 people. Sheryl Fleisher was a strong but autocratic leader whose task-focused approach alienated colleagues; after shifting to a relational style, she mentored at least six generations of leaders. Dick Peterson, already a first-class leader from IBM, was developed over three years on the church board and then recruited to launch and lead INJOY for 15 years. Maxwell concludes that the true test of leadership is whether the leaders you develop carry on the tradition by producing a third generation of leaders, extending influence far beyond what any single person could achieve alone.