▶▶▶ Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know

Leadership 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know Review

After reading Maxwell's Success 101 and Attitude 101, Leadership 101 offered final advice on how to grow into a good leader. Maxwell offers his advice in an upbeat, friendly way, and he is sure to offer anecdotes for encouragement along the way. I hold a leadership position at work right now; I am the head intern. I am in charge of a group of four interns who turn to me for advice, both personal and professional, but I wondered why my leadership skills went unnoticed by them. I found that Part 2 of the book, The Traits of a Leader, was the most beneficial section for me. It helped me recognize the leadership qualities I was lacking. In this section, I benefitted from the advice on how to prioritize my life, and how to develop trust in my work relationships. It turns out that the reason many of my interns did not follow me as their leader is because I was not prioritizing their duties and I did not trust them to do a good enough job. Once I applied these concepts to my job, I saw a significant change in the way my interns were reacting to me.
While I do not expect to use all of Maxwell's ideas, he breaks them down into ideas that can be personally conceived. I found myself applying his ideas and suggestions to my life, and in a self-help book, there is nothing better than being able to apply the guidelines to my own life. Throughout all three of Maxwell's books that I read, I did not feel patronized or like I was being talked down to. I was able to understand what he wanted me to do because he used plenty of personal examples. If you are interested in ways to apply leadership in your career or your life, this book will give you good insight into how that should be done.