The Law of Solid Ground

Lesson 6 from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

John C. Maxwell

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781400275656
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Operations

If only Robert McNamara had known the Law of Solid Ground, the War in Vietnam, and everything that happened at home because of it, might have turned out differently.

THE LAW OF SOLID GROUND

Trust Is the Foundation of Leadership

How important is trust for a leader? It is the most important thing. Trust is the foundation of leadership. It is the glue that holds an organization together. Leaders cannot repeatedly break trust with people and continue to influence them. It just doesn’t happen.

As a nation, we have seen our trust in leaders go up and down during the last several decades. Watergate certainly took its toll on the American people’s confidence in leadership. Trust in President Richard Nixon became so low that he had no choice but to resign; he had lost his ability to influence. Bill Clinton was a remarkably gifted leader, but questions of trust undermined his leadership. The corporate scandals of the 1990s shook people’s confidence in business leadership. Reports of sexual harassment at the military academies undermined confidence in leadership in the armed services. And the incidents of abuse in the Catholic Church disillusioned many people with its leadership. Leaders cannot lose trust and continue to influence others. Trust is the foundation of leadership. That’s the Law of Solid Ground.

IT WASN’T THE DECISIONS—IT WAS THE LEADERSHIP

I personally learned the power of the Law of Solid Ground when I was the senior pastor of Skyline Church in the San Diego area. In the fall of 1989, we had several new programs starting at the church, preparations for our exhausting Christmas show season were in full swing, and I was traveling quite a bit as a speaker. It was very hectic. Because I was so busy, I let my choleric nature get the better of me and made a big mistake. I very quickly made three major decisions and implemented them: I changed some components of the Christmas show, I permanently discontinued our Sunday evening service, and I fired a staff member.

What’s interesting is that none of my three decisions was wrong. The change in the Christmas program was beneficial. The Sunday evening service, though enjoyed by a few of the older members of the congregation, wasn’t serving a need that wasn’t already being met better elsewhere. And the staff member I fired had to go, and it was important that I not delay in dismissing him. My mistake was the way I made those three decisions. In an organization made up of many volunteers, decisions need to be processed correctly.

Because everything in the church was going so ...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• THE LAW OF SOLID GROUND
• NOTES
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR