“People with humility don’t think less of themselves; they just think of themselves less.”
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John C. Maxwell
“When the leader lacks confidence, the followers lack commitment.”
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John C. Maxwell
“How do I fit in my area or department? • How do all the departments fit into the organization? • Where does our organization fit in the market? • How is our market related to other industries and the economy?”
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John C. Maxwell
“Asking and hearing people’s opinions has a greater effect on them than telling them, ‘Good job.’ ”
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John C. Maxwell
“You are today where your thoughts have brought you. You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Failures, repeated failures, are finger-prints on the road to achievement. .”
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John C. Maxwell
“If you keep nonproductive people, the productive ones become frustrated and leave. If you remove the people who don’t add value, then the whole team gets better. It’s just like trimming trees: If you don’t cut the deadwood, eventually the whole tree falls. But if you remove the deadwood, the tree becomes healthier, the healthy branches produce more, and there’s room for productive new branches on the tree.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
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John C. Maxwell
“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.”
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John C. Maxwell
“There are two kinds of people in this world: those who want to get things done and those who don’t want to make mistakes.”
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John C. Maxwell
“One of my favorite stories is about a newly hired traveling salesman who sent his first sales report to the home office. It stunned the brass in the sales department because it was obvious that the new salesman was ignorant! This is what he wrote: “I seen this outfit which they ain’t never bot a dim’s worth of nothin from us and I sole them some goods. I’m now goin to Chicawgo.” Before the man could be given the heave-ho by the sales manager, along came this letter from Chicago: “I cum hear and sole them haff a millyon.” Fearful if he did, and afraid if he didn’t fire the ignorant salesman, the sales manager dumped the problem in the lap of the president. The following morning, the ivory-towered sales department members were amazed to see posted on the bulletin board above the two letters written by the ignorant salesman this memo from the president: “We ben spendin two much time trying to spel instead of trying to sel. Let’s watch those sails. I want everybody should read these letters from Gooch who is on the rode doin a grate job for us and you should go out and do like he done.”
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John C. Maxwell
“what gets rewarded gets done. If you praise and honor the people who epitomize the values of the team, those values get embraced and upheld by other members of the team. There is no better reinforcement.”
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John C. Maxwell
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
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John C. Maxwell
“Write down somewhere in the margins on this page your answer to this question: How have you changed . . . lately? In the last week, let’s say? Or in the last month? The last year? Can you be very specific? Or must your answer be incredibly vague? You say you’re growing. Okay . . . how? “Well,” you say, “In all kinds of ways.” Great! Name one. You see, effective teaching comes only through a changed person. The more you change, the more you become an instrument of change in the lives of others. If you want to become a change agent, you also must change.2 Change the leader—change the organization.”
―
John C. Maxwell
