John C. Maxwell: Developing the Leader Within You

John C. Maxwell is an internationally known speaker, leadership expert, coach and author who have written over 20 books. "Three of Maxwell books such as The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader and Developing the Leader Within You have each sold over a million copies" (johnmaxwell). In the book Developing the Leader within You, John Maxwell discusses 10 traits that a person needs to focus own to become an effective leader in any leadership role. He gives a sensible course of action that any person can put into practice right away.

In the book "How to Develop the Leader Within You" Maxwell's purpose is to get people to see that leadership is not just a natural born skill but it is a learned talent. John teaches 10 principles, influence, priorities, integrity, creating positive change, problem solving, attitude, people, vision, and self-discipline and staff development. Immediately, if you apply these skills he believes you will become a more effective leader. The writer will cover only three of the principles, which are influence, attitude and problem solving which she incorporates everyday in the classroom with junior high students.

What is Leadership? The writer defines leadership as the ability to get others to complete assignments. For example, when she worked for Sprint there was a monthly quota to meet in new phone activations. The store Manager held meetings on the first of every month to inform employees about how many activations they each needed to meet their monthly quota. Once the task of meeting quota is achieved, the manager/leader has gotten the team to complete an assignment.

John Maxwell states that if you asked 10 people to define leadership all would give you a different definition. After five years decades of observing leadership within his family and many years of developing his own leadership potential, Maxwell has concluded that leadership is influence. That is it, nothing more or nothing less. His favorite leadership proverb is "He who thinketh he leadth and hath no one following him is only taking walk". (Maxwell, 1993)

"We never know who or how much we influence. The most effective way to understand the power of influence is to think of the times you have been touched by the influence of a person or event. People such as teachers and big events like 911 have left leave marks on all our lives and memories" (Maxwell, 1993, p. 3). For example, teachers have one of the biggest influences on students throughout their educational careers starting as early as kindergarten until high school. As a teacher, you must realize the influence that you have on students. Your words can determine the course of action a student makes in their educational choices.

For instance, when the writer was in second grade she had difficulties learning division as quickly as other students. While the educator was checking