21 Laws of Leadership in the Bible

Learning to Lead from the Men and Women of Scripture

John C. Maxwell

• Publisher: HarperChristian Resources
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780310086277
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Leadership

“Everything I Know About Leadership I Learned From the Bible.”

When bestselling author John C. Maxwell first began teaching leadership to people in the church, they were often surprised. He was clearly young and inexperienced, yet the ideas he conveyed seemed to go beyond what he should know. Later, when he started speaking to a more general audience, people asked, “Where did you learn all this?”

John was happy to let them in on his secret: everything he knew about leadership he learned from the Bible. Not only is the Bible the greatest book ever written, but it is the greatest leadership book ever written. Everything you could ever want to learn about leadership–vision, purpose, strategy, communication, attitude, encouragement, mentoring, follow-through–can be found in the pages of God’s Word.

In this twenty-one lesson study, John guides you through the same bedrock Scriptures that have formed the basis of his life’s work. Each lesson includes:

• The Definition of the Law: a brief description and introduction to the Law
• Case Studies: Three Biblical Studies–including leaders such as Moses, Joshua, David, Elijah, Esther, Mary, Paul, and Jesus–that reveal and illustrate the Law
• Study Questions: reflection and application questions to help you dig into the stories of the men and women in Scripture and learn from them
• Leadership Insight and Reflection: questions to help you assess and improve your own leadership skills
• Taking Action: practical takeaways and direction to help you incorporate each lesson into your daily life
• Group Discussion Questions: questions to help you learn and process the Bible study material with other like-minded people who want to grow in leadership

Leadership is for everyone, because every person who accepts Christ is called to influence others. So learn from the best leaders who ever lived–the men and women in the Bible.

LESSON 1

THE LAW OF THE LID

Leadership Ability Determines a Person’s Level of Effectiveness

DEFINITION OF THE LAW

Success is within the reach of just about everyone. While not every person can receive a 10 rating (on a success scale of 1 to 10), most people are capable of achieving some level of success or effectiveness in their lives. However, everyone eventually confronts a natural “lid” on their effectiveness, and that lid is leadership ability. The reality is that the level of your overall effectiveness can never rise higher than the level of your leadership ability. The higher the leadership ability, the greater the potential. The lower the leadership ability, the lower the impact.

Your leadership ability—for better or for worse—always affects your effectiveness and the potential impact of your organization. That’s because as an individual, you can only succeed so much. There are just so many hours in a day for one person to work. Only when you partner with others and increase your effectiveness as a team can you move your personal success level past that lid.

Let’s say your level of success is a 6 out of 10. That’s pretty good. But like most people, you’d like to grow and raise that level. You have two choices: You could focus all your energy on increasing your personal effectiveness. You could work even harder and longer. And with all of that dedication, you might grow some. But eventually you would fill all of your time and exhaust yourself. A more efficient and fulfilling use of your time and energy would be to focus on growing as a leader.

When you raise your leadership ability—even without increasing your success dedication at all—you increase your success potential by a great deal. When you raise that lid, your influence will grow as a result. More people will want to follow you and work with you to achieve a goal. And more people dedicated to the vision means more time and energy devoted to its success. The more people you lead, and the more positive influence you have on them, the more you will achieve.

Leadership ability is also the lid on organizational effectiveness. If an organization’s leadership is strong, its lid is high. But if it’s not, then the organization is limited. That’s why in times of trouble, organizations naturally look for new leadership. When the country is experiencing hard times, it elects a new president. When a company is losing money, it hires a new CEO. When a church is floundering, it searches for a new senior pastor. When a sports team keeps losing, it looks for a new head coach.

The more you want to achieve, the more you need leadership. The greater the impact you want to make, the greater your influence needs to be. Whatever you will accomplish is restricted by your ability to lead others. Grow as a leader, and you will multiply your—and your organization’s—success. Leadership ability determines a person’s level of effectiveness. That’s the Law of the Lid.

CASE STUDIES

Read these case studies from the Bible and answer the study questions that follow.

1 Aaron and Moses

Exodus 32:1–25

¹ When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

² Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” ³ So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. ⁴ He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

⁵ When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.” ⁶ So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

⁷ Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. ⁸ They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

⁹ “I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. ¹⁰ Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

¹¹ But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. “LORD,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. ¹³ Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ ” ¹⁴ Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

¹⁵ Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. ¹⁶ The tablets were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

¹⁷ When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”

¹⁸ Moses replied:

“It is not the sound of victory,

it is not the sound of defeat;

it is the sound of singing that I hear.”

¹⁹ When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. ²⁰ And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.

²¹ He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”

²² “Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil. ²³ They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’ ²⁴ So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it int...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Ebook Instructions
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Lesson 1: The Law of the Lid
• Lesson 2: The Law of Influence
• Lesson 3: The Law of Process
• Lesson 4: The Law of Navigation
• Lesson 5: The Law of Addition
• Lesson 6: The Law of Solid Ground
• Lesson 7: The Law of Respect
• Lesson 8: The Law of Intuition
• Lesson 9: The Law of Magnetism
• Lesson 10: The Law of Connection
• Lesson 11: The Law of the Inner Circle
• Lesson 12: The Law of Empowerment
• Lesson 13: The Law of the Picture
• Lesson 14: The Law of Buy-In
• Lesson 15: The Law of Victory
• Lesson 16: The Law of the Big Mo
• Lesson 17: The Law of Priorities
• Lesson 18: The Law of Sacrifice
• Lesson 19: The Law of Timing
• Lesson 20: The Law of Explosive Growth
• Lesson 21: The Law of Legacy
• Final Group Discussion Questions
• About the Author