John Maxwell's #10 Law of Leadership: The Law of Connection

📥 CLICK HERE to Download the free Leadership Workbook and submit your question for our Q&A with John and me. People don't follow you because of what you know. They follow you because they feel like you actually see them. Welcome back to our series on John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Law #10 is the Law of Connection, and it might be the most important one yet: leaders touch a heart before they ever ask for a hand. In this episode, John breaks down why so many leaders want loyalty without ever building the relationship that earns it, and I bring it home with what connection actually looks like when you're leading your team, your family, or yourself. Here's what you'll gain from this episode: Understand the Real Root of Resistance: Learn why most pushback from your people isn't really about direction, but disconnection, and what to do about it. The Locomotive Principle: John's unforgettable story about trains, and why hitting people with your vision is not the same as connecting with them. Know Yourself Before You Try to Know Anyone Else: Discover why leaders who haven't connected with themselves internally will never connect with anyone externally. The Nine Ways to Connect: John's practical, step by step list for building real relational trust with the people you lead. The Herb Kelleher Story: A classic example of the Law of Connection in action, and what 16,000 employees said about the leader who made every one of them feel known. I've led enough people to know that the ones who stay with you aren't staying for your strategy. They're staying because you saw them first. This one will change how you walk into every room you lead. This is part of a brand new series releasing every Thursday where John Maxwell and I are walking through all 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership together, one law at a time. Click the link below to download the free 21 page workbook so you can follow along, track your growth, and submit your questions for our upcoming Q&A sessions with John. 🗓️ New law dropping every Thursday so make sure you're subscribed so you never miss one. Click HERE to Subscribe to my email list to MAXOUT your life (all value, no fluff) Thank you for listening —Please Share it and get the word out! 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈 → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ INSTAGRAM➡️ FACEBOOK➡️ LINKEDIN➡️ X➡️ WEBSITE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00John Maxwell?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 AM to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 PM. And my third day, 6:00 PM to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45John Maxwell?

  Over 20 years in business, over 12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff, borrow better.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  This is the Ed and Myron Show.

• 1:10John Maxwell?

  21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Series Law 10, the Law of Connection. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Probably heard that before. Connection opens hearts before leadership can ever move hands. Welcome back to this special series on John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. John teaches the principle, and then I help bring it into real life, where leadership is not just about strategy, but about people. Today's law is the law of connection. It's a biggie. John teaches that leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand. That means before people truly follow you, trust you, or give you their best, they need to feel that you understand them, value them, and generally care about them. This law is so important because many leaders are trying to move people

• 1:55John Maxwell?

  without first connecting with people. They want buy-in without relationship, and that doesn't happen. They want loyalty without empathy. They want performance without trust. But people are not machines. They're human beings, and human beings respond most deeply to when they feel seen. I've seen this in leadership, in business, and in relationships. A lot of resistance is not really resistance to direction. It's resistance to disconnection. People don't want to feel used. They don't want to feel talked at. They don't want to feel like the only thing that matters is when they produce. Great leaders understand influence deepens when people know your heart. In The Power of One More, in my book, I come back repeatedly to the power of people and transformation. None of us grow in isolation. Life change often happens inside relationships

• 2:39John Maxwell?

  where trust, belief, and truth can be received. That's why connection matters so much. When people feel connected to you, they become more open to your leadership, your connection, your encouragement, and your vision. This law is about more than charisma. It's about relational intelligence. It's about slowing down enough to truly understand the people you lead. Because leadership becomes far more powerful when people feel that you care about them before you ask something from them. Pour into them before you take from them. That's why this law is so important. Leadership gets stronger when people feel your heart, not just your strategy. Let's hear John Maxwell teach the principle, the Law of Connection. 10th law of the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is the Law of Connection.

• 3:22John Maxwell?

  And the Law of Connection says, leaders touch a heart before, and maybe you need to underline that word, "before," they ask for a hand. In other words, when you really understand the Law of Connection, you realize that you have to touch a person emotionally and relationally before they'll ever begin to do things in a physical sense with you. You've got to touch their heart before you ask for their hand. This is a tough law for a lot of leaders. Because leaders are action-oriented, and a lot of times, leaders don't want to mess with the relationship stuff. They don't want to mess with the connection and stuff. They just say, "Look, here's where I'm going, and I want you to go with me, and let's go." And they don't want to do what I call the homework

• 4:06John Maxwell?

  and the preparation needed for relationships. But let me just say this to you.

• 4:12John Maxwell?

  I think to a great degree, relationship is leadership.

• 4:19John Maxwell?

  Let me put it this way. People won't go along with you if they cannot get along with you. You don't want to take a trip with somebody you don't like. You don't want to take a long journey with somebody that you don't get along with. And everyone of us knows what it's like to work with somebody that we don't get along with. And you know, the good news is that you can work with them. The bad news is you don't want to take a vacation with them. Isn't that right? How many of you know at least one person that you don't want to take a long trip with? Oh, yeah. How many of you are seated beside that person right now? Don't raise that hand.

• 5:01John Maxwell?

  Those second questions I ask you are always IQ questions. Keep your hand down. We all know what it's like. Everyone of us knows what it's like to have to work with people we don't care for. And that whole relationship, it just doesn't match. Now, here's what I'm saying. Leaders understand that they've got to connect with the heart before they can ask the hand. Going back to when I was doing the Law of Influence, going back to that for a moment, the second level in the Laws of Influence or the Laws of Leadership, the second level was the permission level, and that is, people do things with you because they like you.

• 5:40John Maxwell?

  So you have to begin to become likable. Starts with your appearance. Starts with your face. Don't you just look at some people sometimes and just say, "I don't care to meet them"?

• 5:56John Maxwell?

  Haven't you been on an elevator? Somebody gets on the elevator, and you just look at them. They don't say a word. They haven't said one word. They haven't said a word, and you know one. They just get on the elevator and just look at me and just say, "Oh, thank God I'm not going home with them."

• 6:10John Maxwell?

  It amazes me, especially leaders who have to be in the people business, it amazes me how many of those leaders aren't good with people. And I just want to go up to them and I say, "You don't have a shot at this. You're never going to be successful as a leader because people don't relate to you, not connected with them." That's why, what, four or five years ago, I wrote a book called Becoming a Person of Influence. And I wrote the book, Becoming a Person of Influence, and people look at it and they say, "It's a relationship book." Because I talk about 10 ways to influence people. Well, it is a relationship book. You know what it really is? It's a soft leadership book. It teaches you how to influence others and relate to them. Because again, if you do not touch your heart, you will not be able to ask for a hand.

• 6:56John Maxwell?

  Now, this is an area that I love, because I love communication and I love connecting. And just let me try to get real practical with you and help you walk through this area of connecting with people. And I would want you to know, before I give you the list, I would want you to know that I think connecting with people is a leader's responsibility. A lot of times, I'll run into leaders, and they'll say to me, "Well, my people, you know, my people aren't coming along." And when I was a kid, I used to go down to General Electric, where they had the shipping area, where trains were coming in and unloading stuff, and they're picking up stuff. And I'd love to just go out there and sit and watch the trains come in and couple and uncouple the cars and the whole deal. And you know what I always noticed?

• 7:38John Maxwell?

  I always noticed that the locomotive always was responsible to back up and couple with the other cars. I never one time saw a boxcar running around the track, saying, "Man, where's the locomotive?" I know, no, no, no, no. If you're the leader. And by the way, when they would come back and they would hit those cars, that didn't mean that they connected with those cars. They didn't connect with those cars just because they hit them.

• 8:05John Maxwell?

  Just as you don't connect with people just because you had a meeting. They had to learn to couple those cars.

• 8:15John Maxwell?

  Once in a while, I'll run into a leader and say, "Well, I had a meeting with them." "Well, we had lunch." Hello.

• 8:23John Maxwell?

  You've got to connect. You have to couple. So how do you connect with people? Number one.

• 8:32John Maxwell?

  Connect with yourself. The first thing to do is to be able to connect with yourself. Let me just put it this way. If you have never connected emotionally with yourself, you'll never be able to connect emotionally with someone else. You have to know yourself, you have to accept yourself, you have to love yourself. You can't love someone else if you don't love yourself. You can't relate to others if you can't relate to yourself. If nobody's home internally, there'll be no one home externally. Connect with yourself.

• 9:00Ed Mylett?

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• 9:44Ed Mylett?

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• 10:29Ed Mylett?

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• 11:05John Maxwell?

  Number two, share with openness and sincerity. What I have found is that it's just best to be open and sincere with people. It develops a sense of trust. Number three, live your message. Very simple. What you ask your people to do, do it. In fact, a leader should never ask his or her people to do something that that leader is unwilling to do themselves. Remember, be a tour guide, not a travel agent. Don't send people, take people. Live your message. Flesh it out. They ought to be able not only to hear your words, they ought to be able to see your life. And let me tell you something.

• 11:49John Maxwell?

  Hearing your words and seeing your life ought to be the same. And when what you say and what you do, when your behavior and your words match, it's just tremendous what you can do as far as leading and developing people. Number four, know your people. Very simple. You cannot lead people until you know them. You have to know what the keys to their life is. You have to understand what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are. You've got to spend... And the only way that you can know your people is to spend time with your people. That's why leaders walk slowly through the crowd. What was it, many, many, many years ago? Management by walking around. Boy, that became huge, didn't it, across America?

• 12:34John Maxwell?

  But it's just a trick. It's a great concept, still is. Walk slowly through the crowd. Spend time with your people. Understand them. Get to know who they are. Know their strengths, their weaknesses. If I could stop right now and ask you as a leader, what are the key points of the people that you lead? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What do they do well? What do they love? What do they buy into? What don't they buy into? What are their values? If I could ask those kind of questions, would you be able to give me answers? Or would you just be given kind of shots in the dark on your people? See, leaders understand that you don't lead everybody the same way. People have different strengths, different giftnesses, different desires, different goals. And the great leaders understand the only way you can lead people effectively

• 13:18John Maxwell?

  is by knowing them well, so know your people. Number five, communicate on their level. Don't communicate on your level. Come down to where they are. Understand what they're thinking. The expression I have is, put the cookies on the lower shelf. Let everybody have one. Don't be an educator. An educator takes something simple and makes it complicated.

• 13:44John Maxwell?

  Be a communicator. Take something complicated and make it simple. Get it down to their level so they can understand it and grab hold of it. Number six, give yourself totally to the people and the message. Whatever your vision is, whoever your people are, keep yourself to both. Don't be a leader that buys into the vision and not the people. A leader that buys into the vision and not the people will be a leader who has a vision only for himself or herself. And don't be a person that buys into the people and not the vision. The good news is you have great relationships, but you aren't going anywhere. Buy into the vision and the people. Both are essential. Number seven, believe totally in the people and the message.

• 14:30John Maxwell?

  Believe totally in the message, in the vision, and the people. Here's what I love, and I think it's very true. It's wonderful when the people believe in the leader, but it's even more wonderful when the leader believes in the people.

• 14:45John Maxwell?

  Be a leader that believes in your people. Number eight, share how the vision or the message has touched you. The only way that anyone else will buy into the lesson, the message, the vision, the mission that you're on, the only way they'll ever buy into it is if you say, look, here's what it's doing for me. Here's the areas of change I'm bringing to my life to bring this vision to pass. Always let them see how it has positively affected you before you ask them to let it positively affect them. And number nine, offer direction and hope. Come alongside of them and offer direction and hope. And remember this, leaders are dealers in hope. Somebody comes up to you and say, what are you? You say, I'm a hope dealer.

• 15:31John Maxwell?

  A classic example of the law of connection is Herb Callahan, the CEO of Southwest Airlines. Several years ago, I think it was in USA Today, I read these following words, and I want you to see them because this is classic law of connection. Thanks, Herb. This was paid for by his 16,000 employees on Boss's Day. Thanks, Herb, for remembering everyone of our names, for supporting the Ronald McDonald House, for helping load baggage on Thanksgiving, for giving everyone a kiss, and we mean everyone, for listening, for running the only profitable major airline, for singing at our holiday party, for singing only once a year,

• 16:17John Maxwell?

  for letting us wear shorts and sneakers to work, for golfing at the Love Classic with only one club, for out-talking Sam Donaldson, for riding your Harley-Davidson into Southwest headquarters, for being a friend, not just a boss. Happy Boss's Day from each one of your 16,000 employees. That's the law of connection.

• 16:44Ed Mylett?

  So if you haven't done it yet, click the link below. You need the 21-page workbook in your hands to track the rep for every law. Plus, this is the only way to get your questions in front of John and I for the Q and A sessions coming up in a few weeks. Get the guide, join the list, and let's get back to this teaching. Connection builds trust, loyalty, and influence. When you connect with people, they become more open to your leadership because they know they matter to you. Effective leaders know they must touch people's hearts before asking them for a hand. The stronger the relationship and connection between individuals, the more likely the follower will want to help the leader. As a leader, take the initiative to build relationships. To start, go back and write down the tips John gives you on how to connect with people. Number one, connect with yourself. Number two, share with openness and sincerity.

• 17:29Ed Mylett?

  Three, live your message. Four, know your people. Five, communicate on their level. Six, give yourself totally to the people and the message. Seven, believe totally in the people and the message. And eight, offer direction and hope. I would then ask yourself, do people feel like they're known by me or led by me? The rep is to intentionally connect with at least three people this week on a deeper level. Ask better questions. Slow down enough to hear the answer. Look for what matters to them, not just what matters to you. In your family, maybe that means putting your phone away and being fully present. In your business, maybe that means asking a team member

• 18:12Ed Mylett?

  how they're really doing instead of just what they're producing. And then ask some follow-up questions, by the way. Ask the second and third question. Then pay attention to what changes. Connected people become more open, more loyal, more willing to follow. Leadership gets lighter when connection gets stronger.