Maxwell Leadership Podcast: 4 Things Leaders Do Well

Mark Cole:
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 excited about today’s episode. And this is. Why do you have those leaders in your life that there was just something about them that even this long after you have been under their leadership, you still remember how they led well. Today, John Maxwell is gonna give us insights into four things that great leaders do well. Now, I don’t know about you, but one of the reasons I produce the podcast and one of the reasons I listen to this podcast and others is because I wanna lead well. I wanna do things that impact people long after they’re done under the authority or under the responsibility of my leadership.

Mark Cole:
I wanna be remembered for doing things well. I wan. I do things well. I want to be effective because I do things well. I know you do too. That’s why you’ve tuned in today and John is going to share with you four insights that great leaders do, and they do it well. Now, after John’s lesson, my co host, Traci Morrow and I will give you some practical ways that can apply this lesson to both your life and your leadership. If you would like to download the free bonus resource for this episode or watch the episode on YouTube and trust me, you want to watch Traci, not Mark, but we’ll give you some entertaining times anyway.

Mark Cole:
Go visit maxwellpodcast.com do well. Also stay till the end for an exclusive offer for our listeners and viewers. Now, here we go. Grab a pen and paper. Four things great leaders do well. Here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
Often people ask me to describe. Describe what leaders do really well. We sometimes know what they are, but what is it that they do that really makes them effective? What is it that leaders do that set them apart from other people? I think that’s the question I would like to share with you. Four things that I have observed and noticed that really good leaders do really well. And what’s so beautiful as I pass this on to you, you’re gonna be able to do these. There’s nothing I’m gonna give you now that’s beyond you that you can’t do that’s kind of like unreachable. So let me give them to you, and then let’s kind of apply it to your life for a moment. Number one, leaders, they live what they say.

John Maxwell:
Gandhi, he made this statement. I think it’s powerful. He said, be the change that you want to see in the world. In other words, if he says, you wanna make the world a better Place as a leader, you make the changes necessary to make the world a better place. In other words, you go first. What do leaders do? They go first. Leaders know the way they go, the way they show the way. This is very essential in your leadership.

John Maxwell:
It’s very essential in my leadership. So when leaders come to me and they say, I want to lead really well, I tell them, just live out the leadership that you want your people to have. It’s easy to teach people what to do. It’s easy to teach leadership. It’s more difficult to show leadership. In fact, I often say that my greatest people ask me, say, john, what is your greatest challenge as a leader? Well, my greatest challenge as a leader, obviously it’s quite simple, is leading myself. It’s much easier for me to come on monthly and tell you what to do as a leader. It’s much more difficult for me to make sure that’s what I’m doing as a leader myself.

John Maxwell:
And so great leaders, they talk leadership, but they walk leadership. And when you start walking leadership, that’s when you really begin to. To be effective in your leadership. So, number one, they really live what they say. Number two is that they constantly lift up their people. Their people look at them and they just basically say, my life is better because of that leader. You see, there are two types of leaders. There’s the type that pushes the people down around him or her so that they can be seen or because they can look better.

John Maxwell:
And so what they do is they have to reduce the people around them so that they make themselves look bigger than life. But what I learned is that when you push people down, guess what happens? Honestly, you go down with them. You have to keep pushing, so you have to keep going, lower yourself. But when you begin to lift people up, you raise them, but you raise yourself. So you want to be a lifter. You want to be a person that where they look at you as a leadership, they just say, my life is better because of that person. The third thing that I think leaders do really, really well is that they love the people that they lead. In fact, I think they love the people they lead more than they love leading the people that they lead.

John Maxwell:
It goes back to the fact that as a leader, you have to ask yourself, why do I lead people? What is my motivation? Why am I in the leadership game? And leaders that love people, they’re contagious. And the people feel that. They feel connected with them, they feel drawn to them, they feel attracted by them. You want to love the people that you lead more than you love leading them when that’s the fact, then you’ll also lead them better, because you’ll always look out for their best interest. You’ll always put them before yourself. You’ll always serve them very, very well. And then there’s one other area that leaders just excel in that kind of sets them apart and stands them apart from anyone else. And that is that leaders lead well in difficult times.

John Maxwell:
They are at their best when the times are at their worst. You see, it’s difficult times, it’s adverse times that leaders are mostly needed. I mean, when things are going well. I mean, how much do you really need a leader anyway? But it’s during the confusing times, it’s during times of adversity that you really need some leader to be with him. And I tell leaders that during the difficult times, the best leadership you can do is to walk beside them. There’s a tremendous security in having your leader not miles ahead of you, but walking beside you. And by walking beside you, there’s a support and a security and a peace and a partnership and relationship that really makes the leadership work and really makes it vital. You know, during difficult times, I think there are three things that leaders really do well that makes them be that leader that gives security to the people.

John Maxwell:
And those three things are courageous. I think people during difficult times rely on the courage of a leader. You know, Winston Churchill during the World War II, when London would be bombed at night, the first thing he would do in the morning when he would literally come out of his bunker is he would go to the bombing spots in London, and he’d have his photographers there, and he would be smoking a cigar, walking among the ruins, waving to the people. And he was basically saying, oh, yeah, they knocked down some buildings last night, but it’s okay. We’re gonna make it. We’re gonna survive. He visually showed courage to the people. I think they need commitment.

John Maxwell:
They need commitment from you that you’re not gonna leave them, that you’re gonna hang in there, that you’re gonna do everything in your power to make sure that they get to the end, that you don’t know what tomorrow’s gonna look like, but you’re gonna be with them tomorrow. And then I think they need clarity. Not clarity about the future, but clarity about your leadership. The fact that it’s an honor to lead them during difficult times and that it’s an honor to experience adversity with them, knowing that it was gonna make you both better in that entire process. So as you begin to think about leading? Well, just think of those four things I shared with you that leaders really do well. They live what they say, they lift up the people around them, they love the people that they lead, and they lead well in difficult times. So for the next month, just look at those four and ask yourself very simply, how well do I do in those areas? And which one, hey, which of the four do I excel in? And which one of the four can I improve in? It’s great to be with you.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back. John says a quote often that is very relevant here. He says, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And Traci, just as John was teaching today, I was sitting here, my mind was whirling about great leaders in my life that I still go back to some of them 25, 30, 35 years ago. And I can tell you, and every one of those leaders that I thought about while John was talking today, they did two or more of these things that John shared today extremely well. So I’m excited. I think you’re a great leader. I’ve talked to people that have followed your leadership for years, Traci, and they would give you high marks on all four of these.

Mark Cole:
And so let’s get into this and talk with our podcast community about how to lead well.

Traci Morrow:
Oh, that’s so nice, Mark. I love this lesson because any person can do these four things. We can start applying what we’re hopefully going to talk about right now and break it down and begin putting that into how we. How we lead and how so that one day people could say that about us. And so let’s jump into this first one. People live what they say and showing and telling, talking and walking. And I just think so many times it’s a lot of lip service. I think we can all Also remember you said just a minute ago that you can remember special, unique leaders in your very young history as such a young, young man that you are.

Mark Cole:
That’s right.

Traci Morrow:
But that embodied two or more of these four. But I think also you can remember some who just kind of barked it or taught it or told you what to do, but didn’t really show it. So why, let’s talk about why do you think point number one is teaching and showing? Talking and walking is so misunderstood with leaders.

Mark Cole:
As you were even talking right there, I thought about this while John was talking as well one month ago today. So it’s decent. December 4th, one month ago, we were going into the final day of election. And so now we have in the United States. Now we know the results of that. We know the tension that has caused, we know the challenges, but this was the day before we would know all the results. And I did this teaching with our team about emotional capacity and I talked about as leaders. And this is from John’s book, High Road Leadership, which by the way, I challenge you to get it right right now in today’s uncertainty and frustration, you want to get a model different than what you’re seeing played out around us right now.

Mark Cole:
I promise you. And in this book, High Road Leadership, chapter six, John talks about the emotional capacity of a high road leader and how you can actually increase your capacity. And Traci, a month ago I was giving these people my belief on how I wanted to lead post the election. Didn’t know then who was going to be the winner. Didn’t know what was going to happen. Here’s what I did know. I did know that how I voted or how other people voted should not determine how we behave. And I would sit here to now and when I tell you, John says that things that leaders do well, they live it out well.

Mark Cole:
The comments of people, both Republican and Democrat after that talk that got into the queue and had the conversation with me went, mark, I feel like this was one of your better lessons because I see you living out what you’re saying. Here’s my point. People are less concerned with your position than they are your posture. People are more interested in what your posture is according to what they believe than they are adapting to what you believe. And leaders understand that. Leaders understand that my posture toward people, especially people that don’t agree with me, is going to demonstrate how I live more than the principles that I say. And if you’ll go back and listen and think about all the leaders that have been impacting to you podcast family viewers Listeners, it’s how they lived. It’s that you could believe what they did more than you believed what they said.

Mark Cole:
And it’s bonus when what they do and what they say match up, but you follow them are not more about what they live than what they say you do. And when that matches up, we got magic. And that’s what John’s saying right here, I believe.

Traci Morrow:
Yeah. And there are so many who just don’t get that. They just operate based on bossing people, telling people what, what to do or how they should believe or how they should act even. But then they act a different way. I think a lot of people would like to behave how you were talking about, but they can’t follow through. They haven’t disciplined themselves enough to follow through on their own. And which leads into number two, lifting up our people. John talks about, you know, encouraging and empowering people being a lifter.

Traci Morrow:
And the first time I ever heard John talk about being a lifter of other people, I just love that term. There are so many other ways that people say it, but being a lifter is such a great visual of what that is. So let’s unpack elevating others in a competitive market because I think there are, on one hand John says do what you can to get out of the people pile. So in other words, make yourself, you know, show up as somebody who stands out in a crowd, get out of that people pile. But also how do you elevate others at the same time while not competing or pushing them down?

Mark Cole:
Yeah. So the best way to illustrate that. And I thought about this today again, when I was John was teaching, I was thinking about people that lifted me in my life. And I’m gonna go back to third grade Mark Cole. So what would that be? Six, seven, eight year old Mark Cole. Eight year old Mark Cole was living the life. Except my hair was starting to turn red because I was born blind headed. Everything was cool.

Mark Cole:
I had my mojo going. I was wonderful. And then in third grade, Traci, when you just starting to notice stuff, my hair turns red. And back 50 years ago, 48 years ago, man, things like I’d rather be dead than red on the head. And the gingeritis, what was going on with redhead people was a very real deal. I’ve told this story one other time that I can remember on the podcast, but my third grade teacher was Mitch Richardson. I think I’m going to keep telling this until one day Ms. Richardson listens to the podcast and reaches out to me because I would love to thank her because 55 year young Mark Cole still thinks about 8 year old Mark Cole in this moment because it was starting to turn red.

Mark Cole:
People were starting to pick on me at third grade and I began to get a low self image. Ms. Richardson found a way to your question. In a competitive market of 24 kids wanting all of Ms. Richardson’s attention, Ms. Richardson found a way to not make it competitive with my people, with the people around me in third grade, but competitive with myself. Because this is what Ms. Richardson did.

Mark Cole:
She started noticing the people picking on me. She started noticing that secretly it was bothering me. So I’ll never forget the last day of the year. Of my third grade year. Ms. Richardson pulled me aside. She says, hey, by the time you come back here in fourth grade to Ms. Pennington’s class, I will have had my child she was expecting.

Mark Cole:
She said, I’ve determined this year that because of you and how awesome I think you are, I’m going to name my son Matthew, because Matthew is right beside Mark in the Bible. And every time I see Matthew for the rest of his life, I’m going to think of you, Mark, because y’all stand together. Let me tell you something that may not mean much to you guys, but let me tell you what it meant to me as a third grader. It carried me through fourth, fifth, sixth, 10th, 12th, college. It’s carrying me through right now. Hey, I don’t know if everybody likes me, but Ms. Richardson thought enough of me that she wanted to call her own son a name that reminded of me. Ms.

Mark Cole:
Richardson knew how to lift me. Not by comparing me with others, not by making me feel superior than others, which is how we try to lift people often, but by making me feel unique and like the best thing in the world. And that’s what real lifters do. Lifters don’t lift you at the expense of others. They lift you because of the potential within yourself.

Traci Morrow:
Imagine a world where we are all looking for ways to lift one another rather than to compete with one another and hold one another down. What a powerful world that would be. I love that story. I love little redheaded Mark. And now as a Grammy who has a little redheaded granddaughter named Eloise, I cannot imagine anyone making fun of a little red, precious redheaded child.

Mark Cole:
Let me tell you something. I hope they won’t do that anymore. The stigma has definitely started a little bit, but, whoa, it was rough back in the day.

Traci Morrow:
It definitely has. People spend a lot of money to get at that beautiful red hair.

Mark Cole:
Yes. And right now I need to spend some money to get it, because it’s all getting great. You’re longing for those days of you’re welcome podcast viewers.

Traci Morrow:
You’re welcome. So moving on to number three, which really that’s what your teacher did, was loving you as well. But that’s something that we can do as we’re lifting. It becomes very easy to lift people when we love people. And so I just think if we could just talk about, you know, serving versus bossing. It’s the mentality of flipping that switch on what it is to be a leader versus what it is to be a boss. You know, we talk often that we were both kind of bossy little kids. And so that was the first indicator that we were probably leaders because they saw us as being bossy as children.

Traci Morrow:
But then really that’s not really what leadership is, is not bossing people around. So let’s talk about serving versus bossing versus actual servant leadership and how that plays out in loving your people.

Mark Cole:
You know, Traci, I love this and let me reference this Gandhi quote that I love to use anytime that I can be the change you want to see in the world. Because I do believe leadership world is evolving. And I think the leadership world evolved when John first started writing about leadership. He tells the story and I was reading him early on as a 17, 18 year old young man. There were a lot of management books, but there wasn’t a lot of leadership books and there were no servant leadership books. It was a new concept. And so many of us that’s lived a few decades like I have, I was going to say we have, Traci, but that would have not been good to drag you into my world of decade leadership. But if you’ve lived for any length of time, you’ve watched the world of leadership change.

Mark Cole:
And so I want to comment on something you said we were bossy. I think there is an authority that comes with believability in one’s capacity to lead. I do believe that. I believe you have to have an authority. But if you use authority to get a leadership position, get rid of it immediately. Because authority won’t keep the leadership position and it certainly won’t grow your influence. I’m not going to debate the fact that when I’m looking for young hypos, high potentials in the organization, I like people that take charge. I like people that put it on their back, strap it on their back and say, we’re going to make it happen.

Mark Cole:
There’s an authority there that is attractive to get leadership. But once you rely on authority, after you have Leadership, you’ve missed the boat. And I think that’s what Gandhi is saying here in the leadership space. We’re seeing people that’s wanting love from leaders, not authority from leaders. We see that. I’ve mentioned politics to the point of nausea already in this podcast, but we see that now. People are wanting that authority, but they’re not wanting authority overused and authority to be used. From a dictator standpoint, people are wanting love and to be embraced.

Mark Cole:
That’s why John says it’s the people that love the people they lead that are the people that do well over time. So absolutely have authority. Absolutely have confidence that you can lead, but don’t rely on that to lead, because the world really does follow people that they feel love them.

Traci Morrow:
So true. So let’s move to number four, which is the final leading in difficult times. And that really is the baseline of confidence. And we’ve got time for a couple questions. The first one I would really love to have you kind of unpack a little bit is how do you think it. How that one develops courage for difficult times? You know, he leads with. That’s one of the three Cs that a leader needs to have. But before that moment hits, how can somebody as a leader who says, you know what? I would like to be that kind of leader in that moment of crisis, in that moment of hardship, how can somebody preemptively prepare to develop that courage for a difficult moment?

Mark Cole:
Boy, preparing for courage, Traci, is such an interesting question and an interesting concept. How do I practice courageous leadership? How do I practice cour. Before difficulty? And I’ve got a couple of things that I will share with you on that. But I must say before I share with you, for me, courage comes after some failure, after attempts, after accomplishments. I get courage a lot more after a win. It just puts something in me. I get courage after I’ve tried it once and realized failure wasn’t so final. I go, okay, wait until final.

Mark Cole:
I’m in again. Let’s go. I get courage through failure or triumph in an incredible way. I mean, it just really helps me. Therefore, I would say courage comes from experience, right? But the guy that doesn’t have experience, the lady that’s getting ready to try something audacious and doesn’t have any experience, that doesn’t help you. How do I practice courage on the front end? And I think there are some things you can do. However, I will, in all disclosure, tell you I’m a lot more courageous after a triumph or after a failure than I am before. So let’s do talk about that because I think a reminder to not take yourself so serious.

Mark Cole:
Failure nor victory defines you. You’re defined in the disciplines of your life, not in the successes of your life, and certainly not in the failures of your life. You’re defined by being in the game, not winning the game. You’re defined by leading through the difficulty, not having led through difficulty. And I would say you’re defined not in being picked to lead, but actually leading whether you’re picked or not. That’s what courage is on the front end. Courage on the front end is also borrowing other people’s beliefs. I mean, John asked me to speak on his stage when I knew I had no business speaking on his stage.

Mark Cole:
And then he would come in afterwards and he would affirm me and talk about how great I did. And then we would go pick apart how terrible I really did. I had to borrow John’s belief many times, not just in communication. I’ve had to borrow it in leadership. I still to this day have to borrow inner circle people’s confidence in me. Just recently, I was getting ready to share something literally to thousands of people. And five minutes, three minutes before I was ready to share, I was unloaded on, you know, the. You know the moments when somebody has an emotional dump truck and they back that sucker up, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

Mark Cole:
And then they jack the bed of the truck up and they put all their emotional garbage on you. I had one of those moments three minutes before I had to speak to literally thousands of people. So you know what? I didn’t. But with my three minutes, I called one of my inner circle and I said, I need two minutes to just cuss like crazy to you. And they said, okay, go for it. And I did. I just let it all out. And I didn’t physically cuss for all of you that are close relationships with my mom.

Mark Cole:
Don’t tell my mom I was cussing. I was mad, man. I just needed. I needed to vent to somebody. Literally. My inner circle member did not even know what I was mad about. I didn’t have time to give context. I just needed two minutes of just letting it fly.

Mark Cole:
And I said, thank you all. I’ll explain later. Talk to you later. And I went and did my talk. I just needed to get all that mess out so I could love on the people that was there. I think courage is understanding. Get unencumbered by the known things that will trip you up so you can walk with confidence to go do what you know that you can do so good.

Traci Morrow:
And that is so true. And I know somebody needed to hear that today. And then lastly, I think let’s just. He talks about commitment, clarity. He talks about Winston Churchill, who was out among the people, kind of smoking his cigar and just being a calming presence. John talks about in those moments how we need to starve our fear and feed our faith as a leader, but also that our people need to see us doing that as an. As a model, as an example to us. Somebody needs to step out in that moment of crisis, in that moment of difficulty.

Traci Morrow:
Somebody needs to show up with a vision, but somebody really just needs to show up and show their commitment. So if you. Let’s just close out for a leader who is. I’m sure with all of our listeners, somebody is in that moment right now, and they’re needing to. Maybe they. They’ve not seen this done, and you’ve just kind of showed them how to be courageous. But talking about showing up and showing them their commitment, bringing their PR presence, bringing clarity to a situation that is probably pretty cloudy. Let’s give them some encouragement on how do they show up to bring that commitment when things are really cloudy and they’re showing up to be courageous, to bring the clarity to the team when things are.

Traci Morrow:
Are unseen Right now.

Mark Cole:
Yeah. Thank you, Traci. And let me say this. It may be you, you know, you right there sitting in front of your computer that’s watching right now. It may be you on the iPad right there. It’s maybe you on the phone doing your exercising while you’re watching Traci and I, maybe you driving down the road, listening. Every one of us needs what Traci says at some point. We need the courage.

Mark Cole:
We need the commitment. We need the clarity to lead well in difficult times. John says it like this. There is a change your world message. There is a change your world moment in every person.

Traci Morrow:
That’s right.

Mark Cole:
There’s a moment coming or there’s a moment here to where you’re gonna need that change the world message to raise its voice and do something great. Every one of us is gonna face something difficult to where we feel the absence of courage, we feel the absence of clarity, we feel the absence of commitment, and we’re gonna have to step up and do something. John in his book, I referenced this just a moment ago. But John, in his book Change youe World, he starts it out not only with a statement, man, everybody has a Change youe World message in them. He also has this statement that hope. It’s A quote from St. Augustine, actually Hope has two beautiful daughters, Anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and courage to do something about it.

Mark Cole:
And that’s me, that’s you. That’s perhaps where you are right now, the first Wednesday of December, and you’re saying, man, I’m just. I just. I have hope. I have hope. I’m angry, but I have hope. I’m angry at the way things are, but I have courage to do something about it. See, leaders lead during difficult time.

Mark Cole:
They don’t get stressed, they don’t step back, they don’t repel. They lean in. In fact, Jake, I want you to do something for me. We have a. We have a digital product called Change youe World. It’s an online course, and I think it’s normally $299. And Jake, I want to get it below 100. I want to get $99.

Mark Cole:
Let our team know this. I want to get it for $99 to you. Because I think some of you right there, right now, you’re frustrated. You’re exasperated. You’re throwing your hands up with frustration at where the world has gone. But leaders step in, not step out during that time. Leaders lead well. Be a leader that leads so well in the transition of 2024-2025 that people are remembering you.

Mark Cole:
Like I remember Ms. Richardson saying, you know what, that Maxwell leadership podcast listener in the difficult times of December of 2024, they led with hope. Oh, they were angry, but they led with hope. The anger only allowed them to engage in a courage to do something about it. We believe this online course will help you with that. Maybe it’s your Christmas present to yourself. A digital online course, $99 discounted from $2.99. That’s ours to you when you’re doing that.

Mark Cole:
We’ll put the link in the show notes. I love this feedback comment from Elizabeth. She listened to the podcast. Redefine the problem and why. I love this. I love this response. Elizabeth, thank you for listening to the podcast, but this is the reason I love it. She’s given us a compliment and then kind of correcting me, like, my mom, too.

Mark Cole:
She said, I love this. I love this podcast. It’s incredible. It has so many incredible gems in. Thank you. And by the way, Mark, please don’t kick the cat. I remember that, Elizabeth. As soon as I said that, I said, oh, Lord, that’s going to come back and get me.

Mark Cole:
And Elizabeth, you brought it back. Don’t kick the cat. That wouldn’t be very smart. Hey, but do. Do this. Bring about powerful positive change because everyone deserves to be led well.

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