Maxwell's Laws of Leadership

The Law of Influence

Human beings are social animals, we never stopped influence each other. The structure of business, community, society requires a true leader to be an influential person. He doesn’t necessarily have a leadership position or a title, but he has the ability to attract and motivate followers while influencing them.

According to psychologist Harry A. Overstreet observed, “The very essence of all power to influence lies in getting the other person to participate.” The law of influence is about obtaining followers, which makes it the basis for leadership. True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence.

Parents are parents not simply because they gave the birth, but they also become the most powerful leader or the most influential people in your life. I can still remember the scene that in a rainy day, a woman is riding a bike when her son sits on the backseat with an umbrella. It rains very heavily. I was the one who sat in the back. My mom ferried me every school day riding a bike about fifteen years ago. It was probably more about mother love than leadership. But just imagine, as a small kid, I didn’t really understand why I had to go to school every day even if the weather was so bad, and we didn’t even have a motorcycle.

That’s how my mom did to lead me in the right direction when I didn’t know much what I was doing. I don’t remember how many times she has mentioned her regret when she was a student and also a daughter of a college professor. That was an extremely terrible time in the history, she always says. “That was the one of biggest shame of the nation, and our childhood was unfortunately covered by the shame.” She had the chance to go to school as a student, but after school, she had to help out the farm work every day. And as said, she did not understand very well about what she was doing in school. Her dad, my grandfather, a college professor was busy surviving in the Cultural Revolution....