Imagine being in a room where you constantly have to duck your head to keep it from hitting the ceiling. The only time you feel comfortable in this room is when you are sitting down, because standing up might cause you to bump your head, and hunching your back to move around gets frustrating. For most of us, this will never happen, but if you are above 7 feet tall, this might be your reality in some situations. Now imagine yourself being in an organization or part of a team where you are not able to maximize your potential, or you are not able to attract the caliber of people you would like to have in your organization or on your team, or maybe, your high-quality people are not staying in the organization or part of the team long enough to make a difference. What do you do if you are in this type of situation as the leader of this organization or team?
John Maxwell, in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (1998, 2007), talks about and describes the Law of the Lid. Maxwell states that "leadership ability is the lid that determines a person's level of effectiveness...if your leadership ability rates an 8, then your effectiveness can never be greater than a 7. If your leadership is only at a 4, then your effectiveness will be no higher than a 3." The greater your ability as a leader, the greater your effectiveness can be. According to what Maxwell is saying, your effectiveness will never match your ability because your ability is the lid. Everything starts and stops with leadership, so the effectiveness of the organization or team will not surpass the lid of the leader.
As a leader within an organization or a team, attracting and retaining high-quality individuals requires the leader's lid to be at a higher level than those the leader is looking to attract and those the leader is leading. As leaders, we must always be working toward expanding our lid. There is no perfect person, and none of our abilities will ever reach a perfect 10. But, the more we work toward expanding our lid to the maximum potential, the greater the chance we have that the quality of individuals in our organizations and teams will improve and rise to the level of our lid. Refusing to expand your leadership lid by not choosing to grow and develop in your leadership can lead to your organization or team becoming stagnant and beginning to decline.
These are 5 ways that I choose to expand my lid. I encourage you to find intentional ways to expand yours.
- Reading (The Book of Wisdom, Knowledge, and Truth; Books on Leadership Principles and Character)
- Attending Trainings, Workshops, and Conferences
- Listening to Leadership Podcasts
- Meeting Regularly with Coaches/Mentors
- Reflecting and Sharing Learning with Others
It is not just reading books, attending growth-centered events, listening to podcasts, and meeting with coaches and mentors that promote growth and expand the lid. Information without action is just information. It is the application of the learning that creates the expansion of the lid. We cannot apply what we don’t know, and we will not grow unless we apply what we know. Lastly, the icing on the cake is the reflection and sharing piece. As I reflect on my learning I find great joy in being able to help others by sharing my learning and experiences with them. Being able to help someone can make lid-expanding contagious.
Conclusion:
Do people need to bend down under your leadership, or are they able to stand up tall with room to grow? Everything starts and stops with leadership, and we are the lid of our organizations and teams. Leaders must continue to expand our lid to allow the opportunity for those we serve to grow and produce with excellence. Be patient and give yourself grace as you go through the process to expand your lid. It takes time to see the internal and external results of expanding your lid. The saying written by John Heywood summarizes this process the best: "Rome was not built in a day..." If you are beginning the process of expanding your lid, or you already have a habit of doing it, be intentional about the process. The success of our organizations and teams depends on it.
Additional Comments:
I want to hear from you. Please post your comments and suggestions in the comments section on this page. Thank you for reading or listening to this blog post. Stay tuned for the next blog, scheduled to be posted on Monday, July 7, 2025.
3 comments:
The blog reminds me of the “Peter Principle” that holds that a person who is competent at their job will earn a promotion to a position that requires different skills. If the promoted person lacks the skills required for the new role, they will be incompetent at the new level, and will not be promoted again.If the person is competent in the new role, they will be promoted again and will continue to be promoted until reaching a level at which they are incompetent. Being incompetent, the individual will not qualify for promotion again, and so will remain stuck at this final placement or Peter's plateau.
So, to your point, that to remain an effective (competent) leader one must consistently review their performance as a leader and improve and enlarge their skill set. The 5 methods of expanding your lid, I believe are effective and I would add a sixth which would be to elicit feedback from subordinates (caveat: take it with a grain of salt, keep you ego in check and consider the source).
Vince - I enjoyed listening and reading your podcast. Great job unpacking Maxwell’s law of leadership “lid”. Good relevant examples too and it is true that if a leader’s skills and effectiveness are low, it will impact their ability to attract and retain the best talent. Good list of five ways to increase your lid which all fall under self-development. Great job. What I would ask is how does a leader know or realize they have a low lid?
This is very practical information, Vince, and you have given helpful principles and suggestions that would prove beneficial to leaders and those aspiring to become leaders. Well done.
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