John Calvin Maxwell (b.1947) is an author, speaker, and pastor who has written more than 60 books, primarily focusing on leadership. Titles include The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow. His books have sold more than nineteen million copies, with some on the New York Times Best Seller List.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by John C. Maxwell
Values hold the team together, provide stability for the team to grow upon, measure the team’s performance, give direction and guidance and attract like-minded people.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Teamwork
Character creates consistency, and if your people know what they can expect from you, they will continue to look to you for leadership.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Character
Over time, is it easier or harder to sustain your influence within your organization? With charisma alone, influence becomes increasingly more difficult to sustain. With character, as time passes, influence builds and requires less work to sustain.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Character
As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behavior. Begin to act the part of the person you would like to become. Take action on your behavior. Too many people want to feel, then take action. This never works.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Action, Thinking
You don’t overcome challenges by making them smaller but by making yourself bigger.
—John C. Maxwell
We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it’s a continuing choice.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Choice, Attitude
To be accounted trustworthy, a person must be predictable. When you manage your life and all the little decisions by one guideline—the Golden Rule—you create an ethical predictability in your life. People will have confidence in you, knowing that you consistently do the right thing.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Character, Purpose
A leader who produces other leaders multiples their influences.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Leadership
Every worthwhile accomplishment has a price tag attached to it. The question is always whether you are willing to pay the price to attain it – in hard work, sacrifice, patience, faith, and endurance.
—John C. Maxwell
You have to sow excellent seeds to have an excellent life. You must start with sowing excellent thoughts.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Success
Do you value people who won’t benefit you or only those who might contribute in some way to your success? Great team players truly value others as people, and they know and relate to what others value.
—John C. Maxwell
A leader is great, not because of his or her power, but because of his or her ability to empower others.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Leadership
You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Choice
The pessimist complains about the wind.
The optimist expects it to change.
The leader adjusts the sails.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Leadership
If you aren’t making many mistakes, it is sure sign you are playing it too safe.
—John C. Maxwell
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Communication, Entrepreneurs
Remember, man does not live on bread alone: sometimes he needs a little buttering up.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Communication
Sometimes we hold on to our possessions because we fear we might run out – life seems scarce. But when we believe that giving is the way to live, we will produce more in the future – life seems abundant.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Generosity
Don’t buy into the notion that mistakes can somehow be avoided. They can’t be.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Failure
Failure is not a one-time event; it’s how you deal with life along the way. Until you breathe your last breath, you’re still in the process, and there is still time to turn things around for the better.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Failure
The best way to serve the individuals on the team is to see that the whole team wins.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Teamwork
Generally speaking, there are two kinds of learning: experience, which is gained from your own mistakes, and wisdom, which is learned from the mistakes of others.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Failure
The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Growth, Mistakes
Success is not a destination thing, it’s a daily thing.
—John C. Maxwell
A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Growth, Mistakes, Profit, Entrepreneurs
The more credible you are, the more confidence people place in you, thereby allowing you the privilege of influencing their lives.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Leadership
Once our minds are ‘tattooed’ with negative thinking, our chances for long-term success diminish.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Success
Do not take the agenda that someone else has mapped out for your life.
—John C. Maxwell
The Wrong Person in the Wrong Place = Regression. The Wrong Person in the Right Place = Frustration. The Right Person in the Wrong Place = Confusion. The Right Person in the Right Place = Progression. The Right People in the Right Places = Multiplication.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Teamwork
Successful people are willing to do things unsuccessful people will not do.
—John C. Maxwell
Topics: Success
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Denis Waitley American Motivational Speaker
Max Lucado American Christian Author
Earl Nightingale American Motivational Speaker
Mark Victor Hansen American Public Speaker
T. Harv Eker American Motivational Speaker
Elisabeth Elliot American Christian Author
Chuck Swindoll American Christian Pastor
Byron Katie American Speaker
A. W. Tozer American Christian Pastor
Ken Keyes Jr. American Self-Help Author