The Law of Priorities

Lesson 17 from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

John C. Maxwell

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781400275762
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Decision Making
• Index: Business

Jack Welch took a company that was already flying high and rocketed it into the stratosphere. What did he use as the launching pad? The Law of Priorities, of course.

THE LAW OF PRIORITIES

Leaders Understand That Activity
Is Not Necessarily Accomplishment

Leaders never advance to a point where they no longer need to prioritize. It’s something that good leaders keep doing, whether they’re leading a billion-dollar corporation, running a small business, pastoring a church, coaching a team, or leading a small group. I think good leaders intuitively know that to be true. However, not every leader practices the discipline of prioritizing. Why? I believe there are a few reasons.

First, when we are busy, we naturally believe that we are achieving. But busyness does not equal productivity. Activity is not necessarily accomplishment. Second, prioritizing requires leaders to continually think ahead, to know what’s important, to know what’s next, to see how everything relates to the overall vision. That’s hard work. Third, prioritizing causes us to do things that are at the least uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful.

TIME TO RETHINK PRIORITIES

I know the pain of reprioritizing from personal experience. In 1996, I was living in San Diego, which is one of my favorite places on the planet. San Diego is a gorgeous city, with one of the best climates in the world. If you live in San Diego, you can be on the beach in minutes or on the ski slopes in hours. The city has culture, professional sporting teams, and fine restaurants. It’s a place where you can play golf year-round. Why would I ever want to leave a place like that? I expected to live there the rest of my life. It was very comfortable. But leadership has nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with progress.

Back then I spent a lot of time on airplanes. Living in San Diego, I spent entire days traveling to airline hubs like Dallas, Chicago, and Atlanta just to make connections. Most of my speaking and consulting work was east of the Mississippi River, and the travel was taking a toll. I knew in my gut that I needed to make changes. So I asked Linda, my assistant, to figure out exactly how much time I was spending traveling. What I learned shocked me. In the previous year, I had spent the equivalent of twenty-seven full days traveling back and forth—just between San Diego and Dallas to make flight connections. It made me realize that I needed to sit down and reevaluate my priorities.

If I was going to live consistently with the prior...

Table of contents

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