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Saturday Dad Reads Week of July 5
Leadership Laws, Lessons and Out of Control Amusement Park Prices
Welcome to this week’s edition! Here’s what we’ve got lined up:
📕 This week’s Book Summary and Review: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
🧑🦰 Author Bio: John Maxwell
💣️ Dad’s Knowledge Bomb: Leadership Lessons from Major Richard Winters
🎮️ This week’s Dad Rant: Amusement Park Angst
Summary
John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is the second installment in my summer leadership self-study series. As I mentioned in last week’s issue, I build time into my schedule to read 2-3 books on leadership each summer as a way of improving and consistently developing as a school leader.
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership provides leaders with a framework of characteristics, traits, and actions, in this case, “laws” that all leaders possess to one degree or another. Each chapter of the book is devoted to explaining a particular law, illustrating it with an example, and giving a starting point for how a leader might adapt the law to their individual context. All effective leaders need to possess all 21 laws, but they will not do all 21 well. Leaders learn to embrace their strengths and plan for growth using the laws as a guide.
📕 Review
John Maxwell’s name has become synonymous with leadership and leader development over the past few decades. If you ask someone well-versed on the topic for a book recommendation or search for the most popular books on leadership, there’s a 70% chance that at least one or more of Maxwell’s titles will come up.
While the above statement may be true, I remain cautious when it comes to Maxwell and his ideas. Sure, he’s created a business empire, is considered a titan in his field and his publishing success is an indicator that things are more than just “going well.” However, when it comes to leadership, I buy in to a leader, their story, and methodology when there’s results in another field. Not just “leadership for leadership’s sake” as what seems to be the case for Maxwell. There’s no Super Bowl rings or national championships. There’s no former Fortune 500 company emerging from bankruptcy on his strategy. Maxwell’s background is in ministry and his success has been mostly inside the friendly confines of his own business.
Despite my cautious approach, I still found The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership incredibly helpful in my summer leadership study and I learned a lot about myself in terms of my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. I even grew to appreciate Maxwell’s approach in writing this book and his certain caveats to leaders.
In terms of his approach, Maxwell is an engaging writer. Each of the 21 Laws in the book gets its own chapter and is illustrated with an anecdote of a leader who exemplifies that particular law followed by Maxwell’s explanation of the law and its implications for leaders. The chapters are concise and relatively short and Maxwell doesn’t get overly philosophical in his explanations. As a result, you feel as if you’re making gains in terms of your personal growth in a relatively short amount of time.
I also appreciated Maxwell’s caveats to leaders throughout the book, although two in particular resonated the most with me:
The 21 Laws are a framework, not a roadmap. Maxwell is clear that you cannot just take his ideas verbatim and implement them into your context. It simply won’t work because you’re not John Maxwell. Rather, Maxwell encourages leaders to pick and choose from his ideas to create your own leadership style, embracing the laws that fit your strengths and developing those in need of growth.
You won’t do all 21 Laws well. Too often people read development books and think they have to do everything written within perfectly and to the highest degree. That’s an unfair and unrealistic self-expectation which Maxwell underscores by acknowledging his own shortcomings in the 21 Laws and reinforcing the idea that leadership is a process, not a destination.
Lastly, and in closing, I have to acknowledge the three laws that resonated with me: the law of the lid, the law of process, and the law of the picture. The first two go hand in hand because if you stop developing as a leader (law of process), your ability to influence others can never be higher than your leadership ability (law of the lid). People do what people see (law of the picture) and I firmly believe in modeling the behaviors that I want to see for my team. As a leader, I believe these laws to be personal strengths and thanks to Maxwell, have a clearer picture as to the direction I need to develop.
Rating: ☕️☕️☕️☕️
John Maxwell and his organization have become one of the foremost developers of leadership talent around the world. Starting as a Wesleyan minister, Maxwell has taken his talent for writing and speaking along with his core philosophy that “everything rises and falls on leadership” and created a business empire. Not only has he produced multiple books that have ended up on the New York Times bestseller list, but Maxwell has expanded into other media outlets such as podcasting with his “Maxwell Leadership Podcast,” “Executive Leadership Podcast,” “The Book in You Podcast,” and “The Speaker’s Edge Podcast.” His leadership group also maintains a comprehensive website that allows for individuals and organizations to seek out speakers, events, and engage with materials designed for personal leadership growth.
Maxwell’s upcoming book is titled High Road Leadership in which he maintains that leaders must value all people, do right for the right reasons, be accountable, and put people above the agenda.
You can find John Maxwell at maxwellleadership.com
💣️ Dad’s Knowledge Bomb: Leadership Lessons from Major Richard Winters
As I mentioned in the review, each chapter in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership covers a different “law” and each “law” is illustrated with an anecdote about a leader who exemplifies that “law".” The “Law of the Picture” (meaning model for people the behaviors and actions you want them to embody) features the story of Major Richard Winters.
Major Winters was the commander of Easy Company in the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division during World War II. Not only was he a man of exceptional bravery and courage, he was a man of deeply rooted principles. Since reading of his exploits at Normandy, the Netherlands, and beyond in Stephen Ambrose’s, Band of Brothers, I’ve adopted Major Winters as one of my personal leadership idols and have consumed other books by and about him and his leadership.
For this week’s knowledge bomb, I decided to share Major Winters’s “10 Principles for Success.” These are taken verbatim from his book, Beyond Band of Brothers. I find them to be an excellent compass as a leader, educator, husband, and father and think they’re a great teaching tool for us all.
“Ten Principles for Success”
1. Strive to be a leader of character, competence, and courage.
2. Lead from the front. Say, “Follow me!” and then lead the way.
3. Stay in top physical shape - physical stamina is the root of mental toughness.
4. Develop your team. If you know your people, are fair in setting realistic goals and expectations, and lead by example, you will develop teamwork.
5. Delegate responsibility to your subordinates and let them do their jobs. You can’t do a good job if you don’t have a chance to use your imagination and creativity.
6. Anticipate problems and prepare to overcome obstacles. Don’t wait until you get to the top of the ridge and then make up your mind.
7. Remain humble. Don’t worry about who receives the credit. Never let power or authority go to your head.
8. Take a moment of self-reflection. Look at yourself in the mirror every night and ask yourself if you did your best.
9. True satisfaction comes from getting the job done. The key to a successful leader is to earn respect - not because of rank or position, but because you are a leader of character.
10. Hang Tough! - Never, ever, give up.
Dad Rant: Amusement Park Angst
For the uninitiated, Kennywood is an amusement park located just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. It’s a major summertime draw for thousands of people from inside and outside western Pennsylvania, all looking to capture some magic with a “day at Kennywood.” For so many, riding iconic rides like the Racer, Logjammer, and Jackrabbit, provides hours of summertime fun and plenty of memories.
For me, Kennywood is barren hell-scape. I hate it. In fact, I have a strong dislike for nearly all amusement parks, save for one (more on that to come).
My hatred for amusement parks comes from what I believe to be a rational place. When I was 6 or 7, I got talked into going on the merry-mixer at the Turbotville Fireman’s Carnival. The spinning and the speed of the ride scared the absolute shit out of me. From that point on I rarely, if ever got on a ride that was more intense than a merry-go-round. As I got older, I realized that this fear grew out of a deeper fear of not being in control of the situation. However, if I was in control of something’s speed and direction, I was good to go. You give up control when you get on a ride, so I was out. I’ll stand outside the fence and wave and ask you how it was when you exit.
As an adult, my hatred for amusement parks has grown because of how cost-prohibitive they are. For example, for the aforementioned “day at Kennywood,” it would cost over $300 just to get my family of 6 in the gate (best believe we’re parking and walking from the free lots as well). Then, once inside, I’m looking at another $300-450 just to feed everyone for the day (and yes, we’re there for the day with the cost of admission).
Now, there is indeed one amusement park in the world where I am willing to set aside my hatred and penny-pinching and face a little fear. That park is Knoebel’s Amusement Resort in Elysburg, PA. As a parent, this is the place. Ample FREE parking. FREE admission. You buy books of old-school paper tickets that NEVER EXPIRE. The food is reasonable - you can even bring coolers along because there’re tons of pavilions to have a picnic lunch scattered throughout the park. Most of the park is even under shade, making hot summer days more bearable.
Most importantly, I love this place even more because it doesn’t and hasn’t changed since I was a kid. The rides and grounds are meticulously cared for to guarantee that the kids who are there today have the exact same experience their parents did years before.
My family hasn’t been in a few years so it might just be time to make the trek from Pittsburgh for a day at Knoebel’s.
Saturday Dad’s Rating System
I’m not a published author. Therefore, I’m never going to shit all over something that someone poured themselves into. That being said, each book review will be rated on a scale of 3-5 coffees. Here’s what that means:
☕️ ☕️ ☕️ - You’re going to want to get comfortable and fill that cup up 3 times. This one’s solid!
☕️ ☕️ ☕️ ☕️ - You’re going to want to give yourself a few hours of alone time. Fill that bad boy up 4 times and buckle up.
☕️ ☕️ ☕️ ☕️ ☕️ - Send the kids to grandma’s house and call off work. You’re not going to be able to put this one down. Make a whole pot and settle in for the long haul!