The Law of Sacrifice

Lesson 18 from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

John C. Maxwell

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781400275779
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Operations

He was one of the nation's most vocal critics on government interference in business. So why did Lee Iacocca go before Congress with his hat in his hand for loan guarantees? He did it because he understood the Law of Sacrifice.

THE LAW OF SACRIFICE

A Leader Must Give Up to Go Up

Why does an individual step forward to lead other people? For every person the answer is different. A few do it to survive. Some do it to make money. Many desire to build a business or organization. Others do it because they want to change the world. That was the reason for Martin Luther King Jr.

SEEDS OF GREATNESS

King’s leadership ability began to emerge when he was in college. He had always been a good student. In high school, he skipped ninth grade. And when he took a college entrance exam as a junior, his scores were high enough that he decided to skip his senior year and enroll in Morehouse College in Atlanta. At age eighteen he received his ministerial license. At nineteen he was ordained and received his bachelor’s degree in sociology.

King continued his education at Crozer Seminary in Pennsylvania. While he was there, two significant things happened. He heard a message about the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, which forever marked him and put in motion his serious study of the Indian leader. He also emerged as a leader among his peers and was elected president of the senior class. From there, he studied for his PhD at Boston University. It was also during this time that he married Coretta Scott.

SEEDS OF SACRIFICE

King accepted his first pastorate in Montgomery, Alabama, at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1954 and settled into family life when his first child was born the next year in November. But that peace didn’t last long. Less than a month later, Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat on a bus to a white passenger and was arrested. Local African American leaders arranged a one-day boycott of the transit system to protest her arrest and the city’s segregation policy. When it was successful, they decided to create the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to continue the boycott. Already recognized as a leader in the community, King was unanimously elected president of the newly formed organization.

For the next year, King led African American community leaders in a boycott with the goal of changing the system. The MIA negotiated with city leaders and demanded courteous treatment of African Americans by bus operators, first-come, first-served seating for all bus riders, and employment of African American bus drivers. While the boycott was on, community leaders organized carpools, raised funds to support the boycott financially, rallied and mobilized the community with sermons, and coordinated legal challenges with the NAACP. Finally in November 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the laws allowing segregated seating on buses.¹ King and the other leaders were successful. Their world was beginning to change.

The Montgomery bus boycott was a major step in the American civil rights movement, and it’s easy to see what was gained as a result of it. But King also began paying a personal cost for it. Soon after the boycott began, King was arrested for a minor traffic violation. A bomb was thrown onto his porch. And he was indicted on a ch...

Table of contents

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