“If you don't contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you're not thinking.”

Thirty years ago, being a leader was all about being a soloist, being the one who can do everything on his own and doesn’t need a backing orchestra. Today leadership is much more akin to being a conductor: the one who directs everyone in the right direction so that the symphony is harmonious.

The Focus Shift: Soloist to Conductor

Leadership, by definition, means challenging others to go beyond their comfort zone, and people don’t like to be uncomfortable.

The Relational Shift: Pleasing People to Challenging People

<ul><li>To learn something new. Ask yourself, “When’s the last time I learned something for the first time?”</li><li>To try something different. Ask yourself, “When’s the last time I did something for the first time?”</li><li>To find something better. Ask yourself, “When’s the last time I found something better for the first time?”</li><li>To see something bigger. Ask yourself, “When’s the last time I saw something bigger for the first time?”</li></ul>

The 4 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself

The leaders of tomorrow are the leaders who connect today: they are trustful and talkative, they listen, they ask questions, and they have answers. Become one of them, become a connector.

The Communication Shift: Directing to Connecting

There are three kinds of people in the world: <ul><li> those who merely do a job</li><li>those who want to have a career</li><li>those who have a calling. </li></ul>Great leaders can only be born out of those in the third category. So, it’s not about becoming a leader just because you want to emulate your idols: it’s because you can’t be anything else and your skillset is suitable for the job. By definition, your calling is never merely about you, but about the whole world as well.

The Passion Shift: Career to Calling

This is the ability and willingness to make a leadership change that will positively enhance organizational and personal growth.Leadershift is the act of nimbly adapting one’s leadership in the midst of rapid change.

Leadershifting 

You need to redeploy your attention and interest toward the latter: as important as goals are, growth should come before them. The four areas you need to focus on the most are the following: attitude, leadership skills, developing strong relationships, and equipping others to carry on without you.

The Personal Development Shift: Goals to Growth

<ul><li>“How high can I go?” was the question of the ladder-climbers of the greedy 80s. Then it evolved to something a bit more human as “How high will others go with a little help?” </li><li>These ladder-holders recently became ladder-extenders, and started positing themselves the question: “how high will others go with a lot of help?” </li><li>We need to make the final step and become ladder-builders. The new question leaders should adapt as an objective is: “Can I help them build their own ladder?”</li></ul>

The Reproduction Shift: Ladder-Climbing to Ladder-Building

Diversity, according to Malcolm Forbes, is “the art of thinking independently together.” And it is the hallmark of a great leader.

The Improvement Shift: Team Uniformity to Team Diversity

In a fast-changing world, maintaining best practices should be balanced with creating, and leaders should teach their employees to stop thinking in terms of “I do what I have always done” and start accepting as a motto the “creative zone” adage: “I attempt to think what I have never thought before.”

The Abundance Shift: Maintaining to Creating

<ol><li>Continually learn, unlearn and relearn. Update yourself constantly.</li><li>Value yesterday but live in today. Focus on current challenges, and leave the past glories to the past.</li><li>Rely on speed but thrive on timing. </li><li>See the big picture as the picture keeps getting bigger. Never fool yourself that you’ve learned everything there is to know about a subject.</li><li>Live in today, but think about tomorrow.</li><li>Move forward courageously in the midst of uncertainty. Being a leader is all about risk.</li><li>Realize today’s best will not meet tomorrow’s challenges. Upgrading, upgrading, upgrading.</li></ol>

The 7 Fundamental Leadershift Practices

The 21st century is the age of virtuous leadership. The mere position of leader doos not grant one authority: we are more inclined to leave our jobs if our leaders are not morally authoritative as well. Strive for moral authority, “the recognition of a person’s leadership influence based on who they are more than the position they hold.”

The Influence Shift: Positional Authority to Moral Authority

Unlike trained leaders who both act and teach following by-the-book guidelines, transformational leaders encourage and inspire people around them to become more through their very existence. So be the change you want to see in the world.

The Impact Shift: Trained Leaders to Transformational Leaders

“The first definition of planning that I ever learned was this: planning is predetermining tomorrow’s results today.”

Great leaders don’t become leaders because they want to get something, but because they know they can give something. Great leaders act before others, and they do more than others. Great leaders face their uncertainty and doubt, and they move through it to pave the way for others.

The Cost Shift: Perks to Price

“You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

Internationally recognized leadership expert John C. Maxwell teaches readers how to shift their leadership to keep innovating, improving, and influencing others in today’s fast-paced world. Change is so rapid today that leaders must do much more than stay the course to be successful. If they aren’t nimble and ready to adapt, they won’t survive. The key is to learn how to leadershift. In Leadershift, John C. Maxwell helps leaders gain the ability and willingness to make leadership changes that will positively enhance their organizational and personal growth. He does this by sharing the eleven shifts he made over the course of his long and successful leadership career. Each shift changed his trajectory and set him up for new and exciting achievements, ultimately strengthening and sustaining his leadership abilities and making him the admired leadership expert he is today. Among those leadershifts are the Adaptive Shift from Plan A to Option A, the Production Shift from Ladder Climbing to Ladder Building, and the Influence Shift from Positional Authority to Moral Authority. Maxwell gives specific guidance to readers about how to make these shifts in their own lives. Each one requires them to change the way they think, act, and ultimately lead so they can be successful in a world that never remains the same.

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Career

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Personal Development

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Books

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Leadership & Management

Dive into a masterclass that reveals the shifts you should make over the course of you career to keep innovating, improving, and influencing others to the highest levels of success in today’s unprecedented business climate.Change is so rapid today that leaders must do more than stay the course to be successful. If they aren’t nimble and ready to adapt, they won’t survive. The key is to learn how to leadershift.John C. Maxwell helps leaders gain the ability and willingness to make leadership changes that will positively enhance their organizational and personal growth. He does this by sharing the eleven shifts he made over the course of his long, successful leadership career.In Leadershift, Maxwell shares some of the leadershifts including…<ul><li>Adaptive Shift from Plan A to Option A,</li><li>the Production Shift from Ladder Climbing to Ladder Building,</li><li>the Influence Shift from Positional Authority to Moral Authority and more!</li></ul>Leadershift gives specific guidance to readers about how to make these shifts in their own lives.Each one requires them to change the way they think, act, and ultimately lead so they can be successful in a world that never remains the same.To go forward, we need to move faster. And as leaders, we need to stay ahead, we need to see more than others, and we need to see before others.

John Calvin Maxwell is an American author, speaker, and pastor who has written many books, primarily focusing on leadership. Titles include The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader. His books have sold millions of copies, with some on the New York Times Best Seller List.

The Focus Shift: Soloist to Conductor

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