John Maxwell's #7 Law of Leadership: The Law of Respect

📥 ⁠⁠CLICK HERE⁠⁠ to Download the free Leadership Workbook and submit your question for our Q&A with John and me. People don't follow titles. They follow strength, clarity, conviction, and most of all, character. Respect is earned long before loyalty is ever given. This is the Season One finale of our series on John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, and Law #7 is the Law of Respect: people naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves. That doesn't mean louder. It doesn't mean more dominant. It means people are drawn to leaders who carry substance. John breaks down the six ways leaders earn genuine respect and gives two acid tests that will tell you immediately whether your people truly respect you or whether they're just showing up. His framework for understanding why you can only attract leaders as strong as you are is one of the most clarifying things I've heard in any leadership conversation. I close this one with something I come back to constantly in my own life and in my book Max Out Your Life: real confidence doesn't need to announce itself. It carries itself. People can feel when a leader is secure versus when they're compensating. And the question I want you to sit with this week is the one that closes the season: are you trying to get respect, or are you becoming respectable? There is a world of difference between those two things. Here's what you'll gain from this episode: Respect Is Not Requested. It Is Recognized: Why the leaders who chase respect consistently lose it, and what the ones who command it are actually doing differently. The Six Ways to Earn Respect: John's complete framework for building the kind of respect that makes people choose to follow you, and the one most leaders overlook entirely. You Attract Who You Are: Why the caliber of people around you right now is the most honest reflection of your leadership level, and what to do about it. The Two Acid Tests: The only two questions you need to answer to know immediately whether your people truly respect you as a leader. Real Confidence Carries Itself: Why the strongest leaders don't announce themselves, and how to build the kind of internal identity that people feel before you ever say a word. Before we move into Season Two, John and I are doing something we have never done before. For the next two Thursdays, we are sitting down together to answer your questions from Season One! If you have been watching these laws and something hit you, challenged you, or left you wondering how to apply it in your life or your business, this is your moment. There is still time to submit your question. Click the link HERE right now to get it in front of John and me. Tune in the next two Thursdays for the Q&A episodes, and then get ready because Season Two is coming, and it goes deeper into everything Season One built. 🗓️ 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.

• 1:09John Maxwell?

  21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Series, Law 7, The Law of Respect. People don't naturally follow titles. They follow strength, clarity, conviction, and most of all, character. Respect is earned long before loyalty is ever going to be given. Welcome back to the Season 1 finale of this leadership series on John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. John teaches the timeless principle, and I help connect it to the reality of life, leadership, and business. Today's principle is the law of respect. People naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves. That doesn't mean louder. It doesn't mean more dominant. It means people are drawn to leaders who carry substance.

• 1:51John Maxwell?

  Leaders with courage, with consistency, and conviction. I've seen this in every arena of life. Teams don't give their best just because someone has authority. Families don't just thrive because someone says, "I'm in charge," or "I'm dad," or "I'm mom." Businesses don't grow because a leader demands respect. Respect shows up when people see someone who lives with discipline. They make hard decisions, and they stay steady under pressure. Going back to last week's rep, if your peers don't trust you, they will never follow you. Building that solid ground on trust leads to respect and self-confidence. In a lot of my own teachings, in Max Out Your Life, for example, my book, I talk a lot about the concept of identity and confidence. Real confidence doesn't need to announce itself. It carries itself.

• 2:35John Maxwell?

  People can feel when a leader is secure versus when they're compensating. Respect grows when your life has weight to it, when your words carry evidence behind them. The strongest leaders I know don't chase respect. They become the kind of person who naturally commands it. That's why this law is so powerful. Respect is not requested, it's recognized. Let's hear John Maxwell teach this principle, the law of respect. Law number 7, the law of respect. The law of respect says people naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves. Now, I've got a question I want to ask you, because this law of respect really has huge implications in your leadership life. Here's the question.

• 3:19John Maxwell?

  And in the studio, while I'm asking my friends in the training tapes, I want to ask you the very same question. How many of you would like to lead more people and a higher quality of people at the same time, huh? In other words, how many of you would like to have increased your quantity and increase your quality? Now, if you raised your hand, and they all did here. If you raised your hand, I'm here to tell you that the law of respect will teach you how to do it. And the best way that I can illustrate how the law of respect plays into not only leading more people, but leading a higher quality of people. Let's go back to the hand illustration I used when I talked to you about the law of the lid. If you remember when I talked to you about the law of the lid, I said, "If you're a leadership, if this hand represents my leadership, and let's say it's a 4, and this hand represents my business,

• 4:04John Maxwell?

  so the lid of my leadership will contain or hold down my business. If my leadership is a 4, my business is a 3." You know, it's just, it's just not going to go any higher. It's, it's going to be contained under my leadership effectiveness. Now, when I was teaching that law, I was talking about the size of your organization, and, and that you cannot grow an organization bigger than you are. And that's very true. The law of respect, I'm using the same illustration now. You not only, if the law of the lid will not only allow you to grow an organization bigger than you are, it will not allow you to attract people better than you are. Let me explain.

• 4:43John Maxwell?

  If I'm a 4 as a leader, okay? If I'm a 4 as a leader, the people I attract to me will basically be 3s, 2s, and 1s. Does that make sense? In other words, it's when we teach the law of magnetism, which is another law, which I will teach later on. When we teach the law of magnetism, well, the law of magnetism basically says, "You attract who you are, not who you want." Well, in the law of respect, I'm saying people follow leaders that are stronger than themselves. So in other words, if I'm a 4 as a leader, I'm not going to attract a lot of 7s and 8s. 7s and 8s aren't going to follow me. And, and I have a quote in your note that's just, this is huge.

• 5:28John Maxwell?

  It says, "The more leadership ability a person has, the more quickly he or she recognizes leadership, or its lack in others." Now, that is just, it's just a huge statement. So, so let me explain what I mean by that. Haven't you been in a room where perhaps you were a better leader than the person that was leading?

• 5:49John Maxwell?

  And, and you realized, you realized that you were a better leader. I'm not, I'm not talking about arrogance. I'm not talking about thinking more highly of yourself than you should. It's just the fact that you knew you were a better leader. Now, if you're a 7 as a leader, and you happen to be having to follow a 4, you're not going to want to do that. In fact, that's why there's so much frustration in the workplace. Isn't that true? There's frustration in the workplace because you've got people that are perhaps better leaders that are, that are underneath a lesser leader, and it causes all kinds of conflict. Now, here's the good news. Let's go back to the illustration I used, the hand again. If I'm a 4 as a leader, and I go from a 5 to a 6 to a 7, in other words, I can learn leadership, and I grow. I learn these laws. I apply them in my life, and over the process of time, I become a better leader. If I go from a 4 to a 7,

• 6:35John Maxwell?

  not only do I increase the quantity of my organization from a 3 to a 4 to a 5 to a 6, I increase the quality of people I attract. All of a sudden, if I'm a 7 as a leader, I'm attracting 6s. Now, think about it. As a 4 of a leader, I was attracting 3s. Now, now, what I'm saying to you is I've now doubled the quality of a person that I've attracted. And this is huge. And here's why it is. I was doing a couple of years ago, a national conference for Chick-fil-A. And during a question and answer period, a person raised his hand, and he asked me this question. He said, "John, how do I find leaders? Find potential leaders?" He said, "I want to find potential leaders for my organization." And when I, when I, when I, when he said, "How do I find potential leaders?" I looked at him, and I said, "You have to know what they look like."

• 7:20John Maxwell?

  But let me say something else. You can't attract potential leaders if you're not a leader yourself. Like begets like. So in this law of respect, what I'm saying to you is, as you grow as a leader, you're not only going to increase the quantity as far as the size of your company, you're going to increase the quality, the kind of people that you attract to it. And here's why. People don't follow people by accident, and people don't follow people that are not good leaders.

• 7:50John Maxwell?

  Let me explain it to you this way.

• 7:53John Maxwell?

  When people respect you as a person, they admire you. And it's wonderful to be admired. When people respect you as a friend, they love you.

• 8:06John Maxwell?

  But when people respect you as a leader, they follow you. I remember several years ago, I did a lesson called R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Tell me what you think of me now. I didn't sing or dance.

• 8:19John Maxwell?

  But basically, I was trying to share with people how important it is to have respect. Now, what I want you to understand is, respect is not a given.

• 8:31John Maxwell?

  It's earned. In fact, if you think back at the law of influence, when I taught you about the five levels of influence, I taught you that the highest level was the personhood level, and the key word there was respect. People follow you because you've done so well with so many for so long that you've absolutely gained their respect. Now, you have to gain respect. It's not a given. It's something that has to be earned. So in your notes, let me share with you how to earn respect, how to gain respect from other people as a leader. Number 1.

• 9:04John Maxwell?

  Have a respect for other people.

• 9:07Ed Mylett?

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• 9:50Ed Mylett?

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• 11:12John Maxwell?

  It's very important for you as a leader to be respectful of other people. The best way I can explain it is I observe leadership and observe leaders all the time. And I mark a man or a woman, I mark a leader if they don't respect their people. For example, I think it's a character flaw. For example, if I'm leading and you happen to be the people that I'm leading, you happen to be my people. I think it's a, I look for a leader to have respect for the people with them that, quote, this is not a good phrase, but I'm going to just use it to illustrate, people that are under them. Here's what I want you to understand. When a leader powers up on people beneath them or takes advantage of people beneath them or manipulates people beneath them

• 11:56John Maxwell?

  or doesn't respect people beneath them, I think it's a huge character flaw. In other words, when you have power on people and you misuse that power, I think you have violated your leadership. Does that make sense? And, you know, it's amazing how a person behaves, quote, "when they can get by with it." Did you get that? And when a leader can, quote, "get by with treating people unkindly" or kind of, quote, "running over them" or "taking advantage of them," whatever I see that happen, I always look at that leader and I realize that they have a character flaw.

• 12:39John Maxwell?

  Because the best way to get respect from other people is to give respect to people. And the moment that you and I do that, then respect begins to be returned to us. So step number one, I suppose, really has nothing to do with leadership. It has to do with the golden rule. It has to do with respecting other people.

• 13:02John Maxwell?

  The second way to gain respect is by courage. I have found that in the area of leadership, people will respect you when you make a courageous decision. And I define a courageous decision this. A courageous decision is one that I make because it's right,

• 13:26John Maxwell?

  not because it has a probability of passing or not because it benefits me. It's just a right decision. That's courage. The ability to be courageous and step out and make decisions that benefit your company but don't benefit you, benefit your people but don't benefit you. That's a courageous decision. Thirdly, I think that you earn respect by success.

• 13:52John Maxwell?

  People want to follow successful people. Let me put it this way. Have you ever known somebody who said, you know, I'm just looking for a leader? Have you found a leader that just fails a lot? Man, I would love to. Are you a leader that messes up? I just, you know, do you just kind of get into dead-end streets and kind of blow yourself out of the water? Because, boy, could I attach myself to you?

• 14:15John Maxwell?

  I've never known a person who said, boy, if I could just have, if I could just have a coach that's a bad coach. You know what I'm saying? Boy, if our team could just get a coach that loses all the time, that would be huge for us.

• 14:28John Maxwell?

  No, you've got to have success. Because people want to go to the top, and they want to get with people who can take them to the top. So if you want respect, you've got to get some success under your belt. Number four, consistency. Just the ability to keep on keeping on and day in, day out, be the same. Consistency is huge. Because people want to follow somebody that they not only trust, they want to follow somebody that's dependable.

• 14:55John Maxwell?

  Number five, you gain respect when you add value to others. Oh, I love that. The ability to add value to others, to come alongside of them and really take them to a level that they would not go on their own, that gives you respect. And finally, number six, just pure leadership ability. The ability to lead people effectively is absolutely important in gaining respect. Now, let me just close this law of respect by sharing with you that there are two, what I call kind of like acid tests of respect. In other words, when people come to me and they say, John, do you think I have the respect of people around me as a leader?

• 15:40John Maxwell?

  There are two ways that I can always look. I can look at you, I can look at myself, I can look at anybody in a leadership position, and I can tell you how you could know if you have the respect of your people, and you can go to the bank on these two things. The first test of respect

• 15:56John Maxwell?

  is the response of people when you ask for commitment.

• 16:02John Maxwell?

  They will only commit if they respect you. I have watched it happen time and time again. When you have a group of people and they don't make the commitment necessary, it's almost always a lack of respect to the leader. And the second area, the second test of respect, is the response of people when the leader asks them to change.

• 16:28John Maxwell?

  You show me a group of people that will make big commitments and major changes. I will show you a group of people that highly respects their leader. Because people will not make commitment and not make changes unless they really respect a leader. You don't do that for somebody you don't, you don't make changes, you don't make commitments for somebody that you don't respect. So when somebody comes to me as a leader and says, John, do you think my people respect me? I ask them this very simple question. Do you find the people that you, that work with you, do they make commitments, major commitments? And do they make major changes for the organization to be successful? If so, they respect you as a leader.

• 17:07Ed Mylett?

  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, that is the only way to get your questions in front of John and I for the Q&A sessions coming up in the next episode. Get the guide, join the list, and let's get back to the teaching. To close, people follow leaders they respect, and respect is built when your life demonstrates strength, not just your language. The more substance you carry, the more influence you earn. This week for the rep, ask yourself, am I trying to get respect or am I just becoming respectable? That's a huge difference. Some leaders try to force outcomes with their position or emotion, or worse, they force it with pressure. But respect is built from the inside out. Write down how to gain respect as a leader.

• 17:51Ed Mylett?

  Number one, have a respect for other people. Number two, courage. Make courageous decisions to step out and benefit people over you. Three, success. People want to follow successful people. Four, consistency, dependability. Five, add value to others. Six, pure leadership ability. Test your leadership ability and do some reflecting. As John said for his first two tests, you should write these down. Number one, look at the response of people when leaders ask for commitment. They will commit only if they respect you. Number two, the response of when a leader asks them to change. People will not commit and change unless they respect the leader. As we wrap up this season on this 21 laws of leadership,

• 18:35Ed Mylett?

  I want you to reflect back on each of these episodes. These first seven laws are your foundation of your leadership. Each law is a building block going into the next. As this season will build into season two, where we go into the influence of how to connect, how to build teams, and begin evolving as a leader.