When You Get Kicked in the Rear, You Know You're out in Front

Lesson 4 from Leadership Gold

John Maxwell

• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781400275380
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400275380
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Smart leaders learn from their own mistakes. Smarter ones learn from others' mistakes—and successes.  

John C. Maxwell wants to help you become the smartest leader you can be by sharing Chapter 4,When You Get Kicked In The Rear, You Know You're Out Front, of Leadership Gold with you. After nearly forty years of leading, Maxwell has mined the gold so you don't have to. Each chapter contains detailed application exercises and a "Mentoring Moment" for leaders who desire to mentor others using the book. 

Gaining leadership insight is a lot like mining for gold. You don't set out to look for the dirt. You look for the nuggets. You'll find them here.

WHEN YOU GET KICKED
IN THE REAR, YOU KNOW
YOU’RE OUT IN FRONT

One of the prices of leadership is criticism. When spectators watch a race, where do they focus their attention? On the front runners! Few people pay close attention to the racers who are out of contention. Racers who are viewed as being out of the running are often ignored or dismissed. But when you’re out front and ahead of the crowd, everything you do attracts attention.

As a young leader I wanted to be out front, and I enjoyed the praise of the people. However, I didn’t want to put up with anybody’s “constructive criticism.” Very quickly I learned that I had unrealistic expectations. You don’t get one without receiving the other. If you want to be a leader, you need to get used to criticism, because if you are successful, you will be criticized. Certain people will always find something to be unhappy about. And the way some people criticize others, you’d think they got paid for it!

Being criticized can be very discouraging. One day when I was feeling down, I shared my weariness of criticism with a friend, and his response was enlightening.

“When you’re getting discouraged as a leader,” he said, “think of Moses. He led a million complaining people for forty years and never arrived where he was supposed to go.” Moses faced a lot of complaints, criticism, and just plain whining. Some days as a leader, I can sympathize with Moses. I bet if he had it to do all over again, he would have made a note to self: next time don’t tell Pharaoh to let all my people go.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE CRITICISM?

I love the story of the salesman who was getting a haircut and mentioned that he was about to take a trip to Rome, Italy.

“Rome is a terribly overrated city,” commented his barber, who was born in northern Italy. “What airline are you taking?”

The salesman told him the name of the airline and the barber responded, “What a terrible airline! Their seats are cramped, their food is bad, and their planes are always late. What hotel are you staying at?”

The salesman named the hotel, and the barber exclaimed, “Why would you stay there? That hotel is in the wrong part of to...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT
• CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• WHEN YOU GET KICKED IN THE REAR, YOU KNOW YOU'RE OUT FRONT
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR