John Maxwell's #13 Law of Leadership: The Law of the Picture

📥 CLICK HERE to Download the free Leadership Workbook and submit your question for our Q&A with John and me. Forget what you told them this week. What did they watch you do? Law thirteen is the Law of the Picture, and out of everything John and I have covered so far in this series, this might be the one that convicted me the most. Because it doesn't ask what you're saying in the Monday meeting or what you posted online. It asks a much harder question: what is your team actually watching you do when you think no one's paying attention. John's spent over forty years studying this and has put these principles in front of leaders in nearly every country on earth, and this is the law he says confronts people the most. Simply put, people do what people see. Not what they're told. Not what they're taught in a seminar. What they see, day after day, from the person leading them. I've made this mistake plenty of times, both as a father and as a leader in my business. I used to think I could fix everything I wasn't doing with a great speech on a Monday. I was wrong. Once I understood my team wasn't catching my words, they were catching my life, everything about how I lead changed. Here's what you'll take from this episode: The Gandhi story that redefines what it means to lead by example, and why it applies to every parent and every leader listening Why "most things are caught, not taught," and what that actually means for the standard you're setting without realizing it The real reason culture can't be announced from a stage, and what it takes to embody it instead How this law connects back to law nine, the Law of Magnetism, and why the leaders you attract eventually become the leaders you reproduce The identity shift that separates someone who acts like a leader from someone who actually is one, even when the cameras are off This law shaped how I show up with my own kids just as much as it shaped how I lead in business, and I don't think there's a law in this series that will confront you quite like this one does. 📅 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! Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs https://indeed.com/podcast 👉 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.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  This is the Ed Mylett Show.

• 1:08Ed Mylett?

  21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Series, Law 13, The Law of the Picture. Your team is watching what you do far more than they're listening to what you say. One of the great phrases of leadership, especially as a parent, but in a leader in anything, is most things are caught, not taught. And one of the most dangerous things a leader can ever believe is this. My words matter more than my example. They don't. People may hear what you say, but they follow what you live. Welcome back to the special leadership series on John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. In this series, John Maxwell teaches the law and my role is to help bring that principle into the real world. What it looks like under pressure, what it looks like when your actions are speaking louder than your words. Today's principle, in my opinion, may be the most influential law.

• 1:53Ed Mylett?

  The Law of the Picture. And this law is one of the most confronting laws of leadership because it forces every leader to ask a very honest question. Am I modeling what I ask other people to become? Because whether you realize it or not, as a leader, you're always painting a picture. They're always watching you. You're painting a picture of discipline or of inconsistency. And the people you lead are watching that picture every single day. I think we know this with our children, right? They're watching a whole lot more than we think they are. This is true of humanity in general. And you know, next Tuesday on the show, I interview Alex from Ozy, actually. And he told me this great story of Gandhi, and I wanted to share it. A mother came up to Gandhi and asked her if he could get her child to stop eating sugar.

• 2:38Ed Mylett?

  And he said, yes, but to come back in a few weeks. So the mother comes back a couple of weeks later, and Gandhi tells the child to stop eating sugar. When the mother asked why you didn't tell him the first time, Gandhi said back, "Well, I was eating sugar when you asked me first, and I needed to quit it before I told someone else to." If a leader says urgency matters but operates slowly, slowness becomes the real standard. Why? Because the leader is the picture. The team is not just listening to what the leader says the standard is. They're watching what the leader allows the standard to become. That's why leaders cannot announce culture. They have to embody it. Culture's not what you say on stage. Culture's what you see and people see from you and what you do repeatedly. And this is where the law of the picture becomes so powerful. Because the leader's life becomes the visible version of the standard.

• 3:24Ed Mylett?

  Your identity is crucial in painting the picture and the way our identity shapes our behavior. Most people try to change their outcomes without changing how they behave or who they are. But real transformation begins when identity changes. You don't just do disciplined things. You become a disciplined person. You don't just act like a leader when the cameras are on. You become a leader when nobody's watching. That's because people can sense your leadership as performance instead of identity. They can tell. They can smell a phony a mile away. They can feel when you're acting like a leader versus when you are one. And the law of the picture is really about embodied leadership. Not leadership as a speech, of a title, or as a position.

• 4:07Ed Mylett?

  And by the way, I teach this because I've made these mistakes. This is not from some, you know, perch that I'm standing on of perfection. I've made the mistakes of talking one thing and doing another. And I've seen the difference when I aligned my words with my actions. And there's a huge difference. When your identity is aligned with your values, your actions become consistent. And when your actions are consistent, the people around you get a clear picture to follow. I see this law almost as a relative back to Law 9, the law of magnetism. Remember that? The people you attract are often a reflection of who you are as a leader. Your values, your energy, your standards, your discipline, and your character create kind of like a magnet. Once you've attracted these leaders, now we get into developing them.

• 4:50Ed Mylett?

  One of my favorite sayings I've said for years is that so much of a leadership, as I've said earlier, is caught, not taught. This is not just true in our families. It's true everywhere. It's caught even in a country by the tone and the culture a leader can set. And I really believe this. Teams take on the personality and the identity of the leader. People don't just become who they are because of what they're told. They become who they are because of what they see. Your children catch your habits. Your team catches your standards. Your organization catches your pace. The people around you catch your attitude, your discipline, your urgency, your faith, your consistency. And they even catch your excuses. That's why this law is so powerful. Because leadership is not taught through instruction.

• 5:33Ed Mylett?

  Leadership is caught through observation. People catch how you respond when pressure hits. They catch how you treat people when nobody important is watching. They catch whether you keep your word. They catch whether your private life matches your public message. Over time, what they catch from you often becomes more powerful than what they hear from you. That's why leaders must be so intentional about the picture they're painting. Because the people around you are catching something from your life every single day. So if people do what people see, then let me ask you something. What are they seeing when they look at you? Not the you on stage, not the you in the highlight reel, the you at 6:00 AM when nobody's watching. The you when the deal falls apart. The you when the pressure hits. The you on the bad day.

• 6:19Ed Mylett?

  The you when you're tired or frustrated, or when things aren't going your way at all. Because here's the truth. Your team's always watching, always. And whatever they see consistently, that becomes their standard. That becomes their ceiling. This is where, at every level, it really gets dangerous or really powerful, depending on who you are. See, most leaders think leadership is about what they say, give the speech, cast the vision, fire everybody up in the Monday meeting. And I got to tell you something. For years, I thought that was leadership. I thought I could fix all the things I wasn't doing by the speech I'd give on Monday. And I was wrong. Because here's the truth. The picture you paint with your life, that's what speaks louder than any speech you'll ever give. And here's what blew my mind when I first studied this.

• 7:04Ed Mylett?

  That the picture doesn't just influence people. Over time, it reproduces. You literally start duplicating yourself into the people around you. Your habits, your standards, your energy, and your excuses, if you've got. If you're a small business, the right hire can make or break your company. I talk about this all the time on the podcast. Hoping the right people see your job post is not the best growth strategy. Indeed Sponsored Jobs gets you quality candidates when you need them the most. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed while we're sitting here talking. According to Indeed data, worldwide, that's the stat. Spending less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, bottom line, more results.

• 7:47Ed Mylett?

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• 8:29Ed Mylett?

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• 9:11Ed Mylett?

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• 9:16Speaker 02

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• 9:19Ed Mylett?

  John has a great saying that I caught a long time ago. Leaders don't just teach what they know, they reproduce what they are. So the question isn't what kind of leader am I? The question is, am I someone worth reproducing? Because whether you like it or not, that answer is already showing up in your team. This law is so crucial as it shaped my form of parenting with my kids, my leadership in business, and just about everything in my life. So let's hear John Maxwell teach the foundation of this principle, the Law of the Picture.

• 9:49John Maxwell?

  Law number 13 in the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is the Law of the Picture. Simply stated, people do what people see.

• 10:01John Maxwell?

  When I'm asked to teach motivation to leaders, I always start with that truth. That the greatest motivation that you'll ever have for other people is for them to visually see in you what you want to be their behavior. Now, this is a real challenge because this means as a boss, I may tell you what to do, but as a leader, I show you what to do. Again, 89% of everything that you and I know in our life, we saw it visually. Leadership is very visual. There's no such thing as a leader that cannot be seen and is not known. That's not, that's not a possibility.

• 10:44John Maxwell?

  Leaders are upfront, not because they're positional, but because it's a visual work. Now, how we view things is how we do things. Now, that's a perspective principle. You see, I used to make a mistake as a young leader. I'd go to a conference. It really took a lot of notes. It really helped me. I'd come back to my team and say, here's what I learned. And I'd sit around, they want to teach them all I learned, and they picked it up.

• 11:11John Maxwell?

  But they didn't catch it like I caught it because they weren't there. One day I realized if I really want to expand my team, take them with me. Let them see what I see. It's the picture. Let them, let them visualize and feel what, what, what, what I feel. This is absolutely important in, in really developing leaders by bringing them around. And, and the best way I say that is as a leader, I either put you in the seat in front of me and I teach you what I know, or I say, no, no, no, get out of that seat. Here, hey, sit beside me. This is a total different picture.

• 11:54John Maxwell?

  You see, when you sit beside me, we're experiencing things together. We're talking. We're, we're saying, wow, that was interesting. What do you think? Sitting beside me says, let's take the, let's visually take the experience together. When people ask me, John, what is your greatest challenge in leading? Well, that's an easy way to answer. My greatest challenge in leading is me. Leading me is much harder than leading you. When I lead you, I just tell you what to do and I leave the room. When I lead me, I have to do it. Wow. I said one time, if I had to kick the person most responsible for my problems, I wouldn't

• 12:37John Maxwell?

  be able to sit down for a month. You see, the law of the picture doesn't allow me to somehow be visually absent. It says, hey, John, live it. Show it. Be the picture of what you want your people to be on your team. Here's what I know. They'll catch it visually. And whatever they see, that's what they'll do because people do what people see. And that is the law of the picture.

• 13:12Ed Mylett?

  So everybody, John and I get asked often where you could see the two of us speak actually together. And very often we do that for Life Surge, which is a Christian business event where you can come in looking for the spirit and you also learn a bunch of things about business. And John and I are at many of those events actually at the same time and we love speaking for them.

• 13:28John Maxwell?

  Oh, we love doing it together. It's just if you come to Life Surge, you just get, I started to say double trouble, but hopefully you also, hopefully you also get some double help. And Ed and I, we'd love to see you at one of our events.

• 13:40Ed Mylett?

  Absolutely. We'll see you there. That law is so powerful because it reminds us that leadership isn't always just communicating. In fact, it's not that. Even when you're not speaking, your life is speaking, your habits are speaking, your attitude is definitely speaking, your consistency is speaking, your preparation's speaking, your spanners are speaking. Your response under pressure speaks really loudly and the people closest to you are learning from the picture you show them. So the question is not, am I painting a picture? The question is, what picture am I painting? Am I showing people what discipline looks like, what integrity looks like, what courage looks like, what humility looks like, what faith looks like, what excellence looks like? Because in the end, people may forget a lot of what you said, but they'll remember what

• 14:25Ed Mylett?

  they saw in you. Ask yourself, if your team copied your habits exactly, would the culture improve or decline? Are your actions reinforcing your message or weakening it? Audit yourself and make the right steps forward. Remember, leadership is caught, not taught.