The Law of the Lid

 I suppose the two books that have had the greatest influence on my life would be the Bible and John Maxwell's book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. When the book was first released Maxwell went on a tour promoting the book. I attended one of his conferences. The first law he addressed was the Law of the Lid. He said that this lid determines a person's level of effectiveness. But, not only does this law impact the individual's effectiveness, it also determines the effectiveness of any organization this person might lead.

As an example, if a leader has a leadership lid of a three, an organization or team he or she might lead can never rise above a two in effectiveness because at that point it will bump up against the lid of the leader. This is true no matter if the organization is a business, a company, a church or even a family. However, if that leader can increase his or her leadership lid up to an eight, the organization can also rise to a seven in effectiveness.

When he finished discussing this law I was upset. In fact, I never heard what he said about the next two laws. At the time I was pastoring a church and managing a small business our family owned. Neither were doing well. I had been frustrated with both believing that if the employees of the business and the members of the church would work harder we could do better. Maxwell was saying both instances were my fault. I was the leader. I became upset because I knew he was right. At that time I committed myself to grow as a leader, and years later I have never stopped trying to improve my leadership.

Two things happen when the leader has a low lid of leadership. One, he or she will only attract people with even lower levels of leadership. A person who might have a lid of a six will not come to work for a leader with a lid of a three. In a church setting, a pastor with a leadership lid of a three will not attract lay leaders with a leadership lid of a six. He or she will only attract those with lids of 2 or less. This is not the way to grow an organization.

The second thing that will happen is those already in the organization with higher leadership lids than the leader's will leave. This takes away the good leaders already in the organization, and these leaders will be replaced with persons with less leadership ability.

I have spent much of my adult life involved in the business world and the church world. I have owned two businesses since retiring from a factory job. For more than 40 years I have served in ministry, fourteen of those in judicatory leadership within our denomination. Time and again I have seen both businesses and churches call leaders with very poor leadership skills and then wonder why their organizations suffered and failed to grow.

Much of my ministry has focused on smaller churches. I have often tried to help them understand if they were to break out of their decline they needed to call healthier pastors with greater leadership gifts than they were used to. I'm not sure I was ever successful.

Here's just one example. A once thriving church called asking if I would recommend a certain pastor to serve their church. They were in the process of calling a new pastor. The previous years had seen a significant decline in their attendance. I told the caller I would not recommend that person to serve any church as he had nearly destroyed every church he had served. The following week I received another call from a different member of that church asking the same question about the same candidate. Again, I explained that they did not want this person as the pastor of their church. Of course, they called him. Within about three years the church closed its doors.

Pastors, no matter where you are on the leadership lid scale, you can improve. You can grow as a leader, and as you grow so will the church you serve. Business owners, you can also grow as a leader which will see your organization grow as well. Parents, you also can grow in your parenting skills which will improve your marriage and provide your children with growth opportunities in their own lives. Leaders must never stop growing.