Mark Cole:

Podcast listeners, welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole and I'm the CEO of Maxwell Leadership, but today, I'm just a teammate. I'm just a friend with you as we begin to dive into a lesson that will help you. In fact, let me ask you a question.

Do you think great leaders possess the ability to lead anyone and lead everyone? See, the answer may surprise you. Certain factors can limit how far others can go and how far we can take them. Today, and my co-host Traci Morrow in the studio with me are beginning a new series called Leadership Limitations. In part one, John Maxwell will teach the four major factors that determine the limitations of the people you and I lead.

Next week in part two, John will teach on the five factors that determine how far we as leaders can take our people. But first, if you would like to download our free bonus resource, which is a PDF worksheet that accompanies John's lesson, go to maxwellpodcast.com/limit and click the Bonus Resource button. Also, if you'd like to join us today on this episode, we put it on YouTube. Check us out at maxwellpodcast.com/youtube. Okay, here we go. Grab a pen, grab a paper. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:

Where this lesson came from is I was interviewed by Leadership Magazine, which is the largest leadership magazine in circulation wise that I know of. I was interviewed by them to do a cover story on leadership, of which one of the questions they asked me was, "Can you lead everyone?" That was the question. So it got me to thinking, got my legal pad out, and I said, "Okay, let me think this thing through. Can I lead everything?"

Because one of my favorite quotes is, "Everything rises and falls on leadership." And in my beginning of leadership, I was very naive and I thought in the beginning of my leadership that I could lead everyone. I thought everybody will follow, because I've got a great dream and I know where I'm going and I've got confidence, and I mean, why wouldn't they just fall in line, and all of us go up the mountain together?

Why stay at the base camp? Why not go to the top? That's what I thought. But of course, I was very naive. And when I finally got in the process of leading, I realized that there were some people that you either don't lead or you can't lead. And I break this down into two kinds of limitations. There are what I call people limitations and there are what I call personal limitations. So let's deal with the people limitations first.

There are four of those, and then we'll deal with the personal limitations, which are five of those, and I'll bring you through. And one of my goals is as I take you through them, is for you to begin to identify which ones you are strong in and which ones you are weak in. Not for me, but for yourself, to help you to be a better leader.

Okay, let's go. Let's talk about people limitations first. Number one, the first limitation that I believe I have with people is this. I cannot lead people longer than they are willing to follow. And beside that, put the word relationships. In other words, I cannot lead people longer than they are willing to follow and because I realized that the only way that I could ever keep people following me for a long time is because I have developed strong relationships with them. And I put as a quote in your notes, eventually relationships determine the size and the length of leadership.

Now that's a great thought. Let it mellow for you a little bit, just keep it alive in your mind. You see, for a while in leadership, what happens is you get into the door with what I call charisma, but you can't keep charisma boiling enough to keep people following long enough. Does that make sense? It's got to go to something of more substance. It's got to go to something that is more solid, something that's more foundational, so you start off with charisma.

You start off with newness, you start off with passion, you start off with a dream. All those things are great starters, but they won't keep people following you for a long period of time. That's why I put in your notes the strongest relationships equal the longest relationships. Now let me talk to you about some potential problems. Hang on to this next thought.

The weakest person in the relationship controls that relationship. Now, I don't know if you got that. I don't know if you understand that, but I'm here to tell you, I could go home now and say I gave you all that you need tonight. Because until you and I understand that statement, because I'm going to talk to you about four potential problems in a moment of leading people for a long period of time. But what I want you to understand is that in any relationship, marriage, the church, I don't care what it is, the weakest person always controls that relationship.

The strongest person can handle the pressure and handle the stress and can go the second mile and turn the other cheek and have the maturity. The weak person is the one that controls it. Now, there are four potential problems as a leader when you're trying to lead people for a long period of time. Here we go. Here are the potential problems with this weak person. Number one, the leader stops leading because of the weaker one. How many times have we stopped the train, and not kept going where we should be going because somebody wanted a train to be stopped and wanted to rest at the depot? Happens all the time.

Number two, the leader spends too much time with the weaker one. Log your time. Who are you spending it with? Number three, the leader allows the weaker one too much influence. And four, the leader takes responsibility for the weaker one. Now you put those four things together and you're going to have some huge, major people limitations on taking people on a journey. Now, what is the secret? What is the secret to taking people with you and keeping them with you for a long period of time? The secret is in the area of bondedness. Until you and I emotionally bond with people, we will not be able to lead them for long extended periods of time.

Now, all I'm saying in people limitations, very simple. I cannot lead people longer than they're willing to follow. And the keyword there's relationships. Number two, I cannot lead people further than they're willing to go. And that deals with vision. How many times have we tried to take somebody at the top and they didn't want to go to the top? They wanted to put out the fire in the base camp. That's why I put the quote, "Dissatisfaction and discouragement are not caused by the absence of things, but the absence of vision."

Here's what I have found in this area of vision casting and trying to get people further than they want to go. Here's what I've found. It's in your notes. Complacent people drain energy out of others. So that being true and that being that we have complacent people within us, what do we do? Well, three very simple things, then I'll move on. One is keep telling the dream.

Two, keep moving with or without them. And three, keep pointing to your victories. And that is so key. Nothing discourages a discouraging person more than victories that they didn't get to possess. And nothing encourages those who went with you more than looking down at the bottom of the valley where the others are, and they could've been there. Okay, third limitation. Not only can I, number one, I cannot lead people longer than they're willing to follow, and I cannot lead people further than they're willing to go, thirdly, I cannot lead people faster than they're willing to change.

The key word there is growth, that deals with growth, because growth causes change. And the question is, why don't people change? Because they're uncomfortable. The uncomfortableness of change is something we all have to understand. So therefore, I put in your notes this quote, "If change doesn't cause you discomfort, it's not real change."

See, one of the things I hear all the time in this area of change is I hear leaders trying to make their people comfortable with change. And they'll say things, "Oh, it's no problem." Well, it is a problem. "It's going to work out right." Well, it isn't going to work out right. I hear leaders all the time, they'll work with people and they'll say they're taking their group through change and they'll just poo-poo it. They'll just kind of say, "It's no big deal. It's no problem. Don't worry about it. It's not an issue, it's going to be all right."

And they try to psych people through change. Instead of let people emote through change. People don't like change. And the quicker you emote, the quicker you relate. And the quicker you relate and emote, the quicker you get through the change issue. So therefore, in leading people, when you say, "Well, it's causing us discomfort," that's the whole point. It's supposed to cause discomfort. If you're not having discomfort in change, you're not having real change.

Number four, there's one more limitation about people. Now, let's just think about the first three. I cannot lead people longer than they're willing to follow. I can't lead people further than they're willing to go. I cannot lead people faster than they're willing to change. And four, I cannot lead people higher than they're able to climb, and that deals with potential.

So I put a little quote in there of mine, "Leaders match the man with the mountain." Now let me tell you, I've written them in there for you to know them forever. My three weaknesses, I have more than that, those are just three in this area. I have hundreds, if you have time and you have a two or three-week deal that you could spend with me. I have three weaknesses in this area. Number one, believing people can do more than they're capable of doing. Number two, believing people can do it quicker than they're capable of doing it.

It's a major weakness. In fact, my wife Margaret is very quick too. Can you imagine the pressure we put on our kids? I mean, she skipped school. She got out of high school when she was 16, was teaching school when she was 19 out of college, and yo, and I mean, you got two high energy, high, quick thinking people, our kids should've divorced us when they were about four.

But that's a weakness of mine. And my third weakness is believing people can want to do more than they're capable of doing. In other words, what I do is I try to take people beyond their comfort zone, and always have. And when I say it's a weakness, let me tell you, many of our weaknesses are strengths. It's a strength, and it's a weakness. It's a strength in the fact that I've raised many people higher than they would've ever gone if I wouldn't have been beside them. That's the truth. The weakness is that there are many times I have tried to get people to go to levels and do things that they really probably should not have done and I have taken them way beyond where they should go.

Now, here's what I've learned. Very simple. Here's what I've learned. Number one, and this is so simple, you'll all say, "Well, I already know that." Good. Number one, all people cannot climb to the same level. Number two, all people can climb higher than their present level. Number three, and this is so key in leadership, a leader evaluates the person's potential. Your ability to size up people and figure out realistically what their potential is is invaluable gift to you as a leader. Number four, a leader places each person in a position for success.

In other words, when you discover a person's potential, then put them in an arena where they will thrive and do well, and back to my quote, match the men with the mountains, match the women with the mountains. Put them on a mountain that they can climb and achieve, and number five, once success is realized, a leader encourages that person to step up to a higher level. You put some success under their belt and then you encourage them to go to a higher level.

Speaker 3:

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Mark Cole:

Hey, welcome back. I'm reminded about this quote from Exupery. He says this, "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach the people to yearn for the vast and want the open sea." And Traci, I'm sitting here today. I'm so excited. Number one, you're in studio finally.

Traci Morrow:

I know.

Mark Cole:

I'm not looking at you through StreamYard.

Traci Morrow:

I know.

Mark Cole:

And I'm glad to have you. I'm also glad because just recently, you birthed something, we all know Traci-

Traci Morrow:

I had a child.

Mark Cole:

Yes. We know Tracy has six children, but she birthed something you've never birthed before. Your new book.

Traci Morrow:

Yeah, a new book.

Mark Cole:

And we're going to get into it today because I'm very excited about this. And we're going to talk a lot more about the book next week, because I want to hear you pull some things out of John's lesson next week. I'm super excited about it. But I'm really excited about Real Life Marriage, and even before we dig into what John said, tell me what my takeaway's going to be when I listen to you talk about this book the next two weeks and I go and order it, which I'm expecting everybody to go order the book. So tell me a little bit just quickly about this book.

Traci Morrow:

Real Life Marriage is what we're going to talk about today, and that is the things that we got wrong and the lessons that we learned from it and how as two very, very, very different people with very different backgrounds, how we learned to grow together in spite of all of those differences, and how we actually learned to instead of have that friction between one another, we actually learned how much we complimented one another once we learned to stop trying to make it his way, my way, and really find our way together.

Mark Cole:

Yeah. So again, what I hear you say is Stephanie needs to read this book by next week. I'm just kidding.

Traci Morrow:

I did not say that, Stephanie. I did not say that.

Mark Cole:

I'm just kidding. Really, truly, next week, we're going to spend a lot, but John said something in this first point about marriage and relationships. And I want to really dig into this. For a long time, this will be one of my favorite lessons that I've listened to John talk. Because of where I am, I mean, leadership is more about timing many times than it is about content or experience.

And I'm in a time right now to where I feel like I'm answering the question, "Can I get people to relate with me? Can I get some relationships, not my marriage, but can I get some relationships to take the journey with me or have they outgrown me? Or am I outgrowing them?" So I'm really at a place to where this lesson, I just had a long conversation on a plane ride with John yesterday asking this exact question, "John, when do you know if you've outgrown leaders in your life?"

Traci Morrow:

I took it from a little bit different angle and that was I focused so much on relationships that I kept trying to not let us outgrow one another. I kept thinking if we could continue to keep our relationship strong and healthy, that we could grow together and I guess that's where I really started focusing so much on the relationship. And I think you and I had a conversation about this one time because my leadership became so much about the relationship that I started losing touch with what we needed to be doing.

So I'm curious about you. Did you think that you could lead anyone? And did you ever get distracted by nurturing the relationship that you lost focus on where you were actually supposed to be going?

Mark Cole:

I have. In fact, again, going back to this conversation I just had with John yesterday, I feel like I'm there right now. I mean, you look at these four points that John says, the leader stops leading because of the weaker one. I feel like in many of the situations I was debriefing with John yesterday, I feel like I've quit leading and now started consoling or comforting. To his fourth point, the leader takes responsibility for the weaker one. We are not producing in some areas of my leadership team and I find myself taking responsibility as if the lack of production all rests on me.

So that comes from a belief that hey, I can lead anyone, put anybody on my team and I can lead them. And I'm now in the middle of realizing, are there certain people that I just don't have the right capacity or the right leadership system that will bring out the best of them?

Traci Morrow:

So I'm curious in that conversation with John, because this is me too, is it that you thought you could lead everyone or that you thought you could relate with everyone? And being mentored by John, we have learned how to relate with pretty much anyone and we can connect with them because we so highly value them. But is it relating with them, or is it leading them? And it's two different things.

Mark Cole:

It's two different things. I've said often on the podcast, even in episodes, Traci, that we've got to dig in together, that one of the greatest mentoring lessons that John's ever given me, it took him 18 months for me to finally start changing behavior. I got the concept for a while, then I started repeating the concept, but it didn't affect my behavior until about 18 months because I'm so deeply relational and therefore, I relate with everyone.

I can feel everyone's challenges. I can understand why one leader didn't produce yesterday because his dog was upset.

Traci Morrow:

Absolutely.

Mark Cole:

I relate so much that I had to answer the question, and here's the mentoring lesson John gave me, do you want to be loved or do you want to lead? And the answer's both.

Traci Morrow:

Correct.

Mark Cole:

Well, what do you mean, do I want to love or do I want to lead?

Traci Morrow:

That's right.

Mark Cole:

And I knew that you would appreciate that, because that's it.

Traci Morrow:

Yes. I-

Mark Cole:

But there are times when a person needs to be led, and not related to where they are, but related to the potential of where they can be. And some people, going to the next thing, some people don't want to get to their potential.

Traci Morrow:

That's right.

Mark Cole:

They have elected that a life easily lived is a life best lived, and that's not true. Everything worthwhile's uphill.

Traci Morrow:

That's right.

Mark Cole:

And some people have looked at the raw potential within them and said, "No, thank you. I like where I am." As a leader, I want to keep relating with them and say, "Ah, that's okay. I get it. I'd want to sit back and not do nothing with my life either." No leader would ever say that.

Traci Morrow:

No, no.

Mark Cole:

So you've got to understand there are some people that won't go where you want to go. I just did the Maxwell Leadership Podcast Espanol with Juan Vereecken and John Maxwell, and we were talking about empowerment in this lesson. And Traci, in that lesson, the three of us were talking with our MC, or our host rather, and we started talking about when a leader empowers someone that does not produce, they have empowered the wrong person. And as a leader, we've got to understand there are sometimes that our relatability is stopping us from leading people to their potential.

Traci Morrow:

Yeah, yeah, and as you were saying that, not to just harp on this one because he has so many great points, but I want to say for me as a woman who is a mom of many kids, I have a mother's heart. So what I found is I do tend to have more... I have that empathetic, mothering nature. But the truth is, if I'm honest with myself, I do have that tension with my own children who are adults.

I do go into that mentoring, where I'm really raw and honest with them in a way that I don't necessarily go to with people who are not my children. I give them the mother's heart, but I don't give them the hard words that I do give to my kids with love. So that is also the part that I have had conversations with you and with John, where my kids do love me, but I also lead them when they come to me for mentoring.

So that has been a lesson for me that I'm also working on, that I can't just give the love, but also part of loving someone well and relating with them well, what John does and what I see even you doing well that I'm in the process of learning, because this lesson is what I'm in the process of learning is to have the hard conversations. So it's interesting to me to hear that you're still having those conversations with John-

Mark Cole:

Oh, awesome.

Traci Morrow:

... because I see you steps ahead of me, so it's interesting that you're still-

Mark Cole:

But I'm leading now. So again, in this podcast that I just did, the worst thing that could happen in the idea of explosive growth is that those around you are explosively growing more than you as a leader, or you as a leader are explosively growing beyond the leaders around you. Either one. Because if explosive growth is only happening in one dimensional in a leadership team-

Traci Morrow:

True.

Mark Cole:

... you're going to get out of balance. So what happens? Right now, the responsibilities are by nature exploding the amount of growth that I need to do. And my concern is I don't see the explosive growth happening with everyone around me.

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My mother, 93 years old, just an incredible, driving leader. My mom was not a nurturer. Now my mom was my mom, but my mom was not my nurturer.

Traci Morrow:

Interesting.

Mark Cole:

My mom was my driver. By the way, in our household, Stephanie is absolutely a driver. Well, so am I, so we got to make sure our kids are getting nurtured, right? Because I love this female perspective that you give me, this motherhood perspective that you give me because I don't understand that. But I do understand the nurturing side of over-nurturing a person on my team, because I'm a relater, and I over-nurture them to the place of comfort rather than to the inspiration to grow.

And sometimes a nurturing person, mother, in the case of your example, not my mother and I love her, that was not nurturing. It was kick your butt, let's go, let's get going.

Traci Morrow:

Interesting.

Mark Cole:

There's a lot to do.

Traci Morrow:

Yeah, all different.

Mark Cole:

We're all different. But there is in a relater an overcompensation of nurturing to the point of making people comfortable rather than uncomfortable in what they need to be doing with their life, and I think that's what John's dealing with right here.

Traci Morrow:

Yeah, and I know John can relate and I know somebody on the podcast is listening and can totally relate to that. And probably on the flip side, someone is listening and is a driver and has maybe missed the connection. What I love is that flip side is there's always... The flip side of, man, maybe I'm missing a little bit of that empathy.

Okay, so let's jump to number two where John said, "I cannot lead people farther than they are willing to go," which is vision. He said a whole bunch of great things in there, suggestions for leading complacent people, which is very difficult to do. I can relate to so many things that he said there but when he talked about his suggestions for leading complacent people, keep telling the dream and keep moving with or without them, pointing out the victories.

I feel like especially after what we just talked about, keep moving with or without them is especially difficult to do. I mean, if you want to answer on that or if you had something else-

Mark Cole:

I do want to.

Traci Morrow:

Okay, good. Because that blows my mind.

Mark Cole:

It does. And right before, we do not, very rarely do we, even with Traci in session today, and I'm so excited. Have I said that yet? But we very rarely, we try to give this to you raw. So I knew before we cut on, after we finished listening to John together, I knew what couple of these points were going to be very hard for you and I because of our relater tendencies. But one of the things that I was realizing, we recently had our first ever IMC in Cancun for Espanol, for Spanish speaking people.

Traci Morrow:

Love it.

Mark Cole:

It was brilliant. 1,300 people there. It was brilliant. The amount of energy and excitement in that room, Traci, was staggering. And I was asking John, "How do I know if the leaders in the team that are not directly connected with the momentum in the Spanish community are catching the momentum?"

And without knowing that I was going to be in studio working on this content, here's what he said. He said, "When you're telling him the dream and you're saying hey, this is what the dream looks like, all of you, all of my leaders, this is what it looks like, are they leaning in and saying, "Help me get it?" Are they defending their lack of foot chasing the dream?"

Traci Morrow:

Oh.

Mark Cole:

He said number two, "When you-

Traci Morrow:

Interesting.

Mark Cole:

... repeat the victory, are they moving with you? Are they hesitating on you?" And he said, "When that's the case, Mark, are you going to stop moving? Are you going to slow down? Are you going to keep moving and see what happens?" And Traci, the relater in me went, "What did you just say?" And the leader in him said, "That's exactly what I just said."

Sometimes if people are dragging on the vision, when you begin to... because I'm not telling the vision anymore, I'm showing the vision. Cancun is showing the vision I've been chasing for two years. And John said, "Now, they're not resistant because they can't see it. They just saw it. Now they'll be resistant because they don't want to go." It's a vision problem. It's an action problem and you got to make sure the team's moving with you.

Traci Morrow:

That is the brilliance of John, and I have just so much hope for us because he is such a relater, and we are such relaters. And to see that he can do that and that he's mentoring us, he's mentoring all of us on the podcast to do that, you can be a relater and connect in that way and still continue to move on. It's like permission for us. Okay, there's two more points. And one of them was about change and one of them was about potential. So we can land on either one of those. Which one would you like-

Mark Cole:

Let's do potential.

Traci Morrow:

Okay, let's do that.

Mark Cole:

Let's do potential, because we talk a lot-

Traci Morrow:

Let's do it.

Mark Cole:

... on here about growth, but let's talk about potential.

Traci Morrow:

Okay, that's great. So he talks about his weaknesses and the three things that he did about... and man, can I relate to those weaknesses, in believing that people are capable of doing more than they actually are doing, that he believes they can do it quicker, and that they will do more than they're actually capable of. So then he talked about the things that he learned from those things and how he turned that into his behaviors.

So I'm just curious about you. You have to have related to those same three things and have those same three weaknesses about believing in people because you are such a believer of people. So what point in your career, maybe are you still in that place right now? Or how can you unpack that for people who are believing and hanging onto team leaders that maybe they either need to release, not because they choose to release it, but because their behaviors, you need to keep moving forward with the vision and they're still hanging back and defending why they don't want to move forward?

Mark Cole:

Yeah, I love this. And again, if time permitted, and we are about out of time, but if I looked at John's statement, that managers see all people the same and leaders see people and lead people differently, and I think what we're talking about right here is John says, "Not all people can climb to the same level." Well, my heart wants to see everybody as a 10, which means everybody should achieve the same wonderful things in life.

If this person has these privileges, if this person has this accomplishment, then everybody should have it. And if they don't, we need to try to figure out how to help them. And a leader never thought like that, because a leader knows it's the leader's responsibility to know the potential inside of a teammate and to lead them to that potential, not to the leader's expectation. And I'm learning right now, Traci, that often, I'm leading people according to my expectation, not according to their potential. And the day that I realize that, because I want all of our team to get to the same peak at the same time doing the same thing.

Traci Morrow:

So let me pause you really quick. What you're talking about is the 10 on their forehead is their value, not necessarily their potential.

Mark Cole:

Their potential. That's exactly right.

Traci Morrow:

And that's what we get confused-

Mark Cole:

We do.

Traci Morrow:

And we need to detangle that. Absolutely, no matter whether they have a potential of a two in their life based on everything that's happened in their life and what's happened to them and their experiences so far-

Mark Cole:

And let them be the best at achieving their two-

Traci Morrow:

Best at 10 too.

Mark Cole:

... and still feel the value of being a 10 with a two potential.

Traci Morrow:

Someone needs to hear that today. Me.

Mark Cole:

See, that's why John says, "You do not have to earn my love. I see your value, but you have to earn my time."

Traci Morrow:

That's right.

Mark Cole:

Because he's going to put time as a leader into the potential of the individual, not into the worth of the individual.

Traci Morrow:

That's so good.

Mark Cole:

The worth is there. You're there. You don't have to qualify for your worth, you've got your worth, but you do have to qualify and work toward and for potential. John made a quote right here, and I'm going to close with this right here. He says, "Leaders match the man with the mountain." Oh my-

Traci Morrow:

So good.

Mark Cole:

... goodness. I keep trying to match the mountain with the men. I keep trying to look at the people on my team and say, "Oh, you can reach my mountain, my vision with me. I know you can." Rather than look at them and say, "What mountain can you achieve or what place on the climb is going to be the place that really is good for you to accomplish?"

And I think that's our challenge this week, leaders, is to really challenge ourself on what we're doing with the leadership limitations in our life. The people you're leading have capacity. They also have limitations. And that scares us, because we want to see everybody with the same amount of potential. It's just not true. For those of you that are faith, it's not Biblical. There are 30 talent, 60 talent, there's 35, there's one talent, two talent, five talent people. There's 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold people that we need to understand as a leader.

It's our responsibility not to classify people according to worth, value. It's our responsibility as a leader to classify them according to potential.

Traci Morrow:

Oh, so good.

Mark Cole:

The size of the mountain that they need to go.

Traci Morrow:

That's right.

Mark Cole:

Man, we could talk so much more. Jake's about to kill us and wring our neck. I do want to remind you, we're going to talk more about this next week, but I want to remind you, I'm so excited for you.

Traci Morrow:

Thank you.

Mark Cole:

Real Life Marriage, go pick it up right now. Wherever you buy books, that's where it is. Want you to go get that. I want you to make this available. You're going to hear more about this next week. I want to have a conversation with my friend, Janine. She listened to the podcast, The Three Es of Developing Leaders. Now, by the way, a link to order this book will be in our show notes today. A link to The Three Es of Developing Leaders will be in our show notes. But this is what Janine said.

She said, "I love this concept of exposing yourself to hard things. It's a natural tendency to want to provide a protected environment of growth." That's what we've been talking about today, Janine. "But too much protection doesn't allow the individual or the student or the child to grow exponentially from the experience of hard things." Mic drop. Janine, if I would've read your comment before Traci and I would've started, this would've been a much shorter podcast.

Hey, for all of you, thank you so much for being a part of our podcast community. Thanks for providing comments like Janine, thanks for getting somebody else signed up to listen to this podcast with you next week. Here's why. I want you to help me increase our podcast community because everyone deserves to be led well.