Maxwell's 8th Law: The Law of Intiution

John C. Maxwell's 8th Law, from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Follow Them and People Will Follow You (Nelson Books, 1998), p. 77, says: "Leaders Evaluate Everything With a Leadership Bias."

So what is this leadership bias? As he usually proceeds he elaborates through example without really coming out and saying it But what he means ins their character and experience gives them the bias to read the situation before them and take the most reasonable action.

But the leader sees things that others don't Maxwell argues.

Here's a scene from the movie The Great Outdoors Maxwell narrates on p. 84. Two characters, Roman and Chet, are sitting on the porch of a cabin surrounded by miles of beautiful land, lakes, and trees. Roman asks Chet what he sees when he looks out around him. Chet says he sees a beautiful forest. Roman says he doesn't. Rather, what he sees is: "Underdeveloped resources of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. I see a syndicate development corporation exploiting over a billion and a half dollars in forest products. I see a paper mill and--if the strategic metals are there--a mining operation; a green belt between the condos on the lake and a waste management facility...Now I ask you, what do you see?" Chet says he just sees trees.

Two lessons we should draw from this. Roman sees opportunities for exploiting a pristine environment. He sees a way to make money developing the resources. He sees something that most people wouldn't.

But Chet could see in the trees an opportunity for entrepreneuring a organization to protect the north lands against people like Roman who would seek to destroy it for their own gain.

Cycle back to the last line where Roman asks Chet a second time what he sees. Chet could have said, "I see we need to do something to stop people like you from ruining this beautiful land.

An entrepreneurial developer looks at a field and sees shopping centers and high rise office buildings and mixed-use condos. An entrepreneurial farmer looks at the field and sees stands of corn and sorghum. Many others look at the field and see a field. I guess we could rewrite Maxwell's law as The Law of Vision without doing much damage to it.

That shows that vision is vision. It can be an evil vision or a good vision, and who's to say which is which. Everybody had ideas about it. Development can bring jobs and financial prosperity. Environmentalism can enhance beauty in our lives and bring its own kind of prosperity. We desperately need both in our lives.

Check out Maxwell's book. He goes more deeply than I have time to.

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Entrepreneurship informs all of my professional activities. Entrepreneurial ideas are their life's blood. For my ideas on entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for my ideas on writing and publishing, go to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot.com.