Albert Einstein once made a wonderful point about his theory of relativity: He only came up with it once, but it kept him in pipe tobacco for years.
Einstein realized what more leaders need to discover: that a major breakthrough can launch an organization from good to great, so great leaders always push for that breakthrough.
Breakthroughs occur when we continually:
1. Meet needs (which allows us to stay in the arena)
2. Improve ourselves and our team
3. Succeed. It’s a fact that there is no success like success
Pushing for a breakthrough generates a leader’s best friend – momentum. Momentum makes your work or your mission easier to accomplish than anything else. I often tell leaders that momentum is worth three staff members. In fact, if some leaders would get rid of the right three staff members, they might instantly get some momentum.
Momentum is the great exaggerator for both the good and the bad. When you have no momentum, things look worse than they really are. And when you have momentum, it makes things look better than they ever seemed to be.
So you’ve got to push for the breakthrough – from build-up to breakthrough, from good to great. Good is build-up; great is breakthrough.
But there’s a temptation that comes with a breakthrough and the momentum that comes with it – the temptation to ease up and celebrate the victory. You just kind of want to sit back and say, “Wow! Aren’t we good?” It just feels good to know you’ve achieved something. And while it’s OK to celebrate the touchdowns, we have to remember that the next play in the game just might get us beat.
In fact, dancing in the end zone is exactly the opposite of what you should do. When you have a breakthrough, that’s when you spend more time, more energy and more money. Once you have that ball rolling, the compounding effect is so huge you don’t ever want that ball to stop.
Instead, the time to ease up is when things have slowed down. When you don’t have momentum and when you don’t have a breakthrough – when the train already has stopped – get off and take a rest. You weren’t going anywhere anyway!
But once the train gets going again, don’t get off. When you’ve got momentum and the breakthrough, it’s dangerous to jump off. You could hurt yourself. You could hurt your organization.
So if you want to go from good leadership to great leadership, keep pushing toward a breakthrough. And when momentum arrives, either because you are near the goal or because you’ve broken through, don’t ease up. That’s when you push the pedal to the metal.
monthly e-newsletter: Leadership Wired available at www.INJOY.com.
John Maxwell grew up in the 1950s in the small Midwestern city of Circleville, Ohio. John's earliest childhood memory is of knowing that he would someday be a pastor. He professed faith in Christ at the age of three, and reaffirmed that commitment when he was 13. At age 17, John began preparing for the ministry. He attended Circleville Bible College, earning his bachelor's degree in 1969. In June of that same year, he married his sweetheart, Margaret, and moved to tiny Hillham, Indiana, where he began his first pastorate.
While serving in his second church, Maxwell began to study the correlation between leadership effectiveness and ministry effectiveness. On July 4, 1976, while preaching at a service commemorating America's bicentennial, John sensed that God was calling him into a ministry to pastors. Within days after that event, pastors began to contact him, asking for his assistance in nurturing their churches. Over the next four years, on an informal basis, John helped scores of fellow pastors. Then, in 1980, he was asked to become Executive Director of Evangelism for the Wesleyan denomination.
Though his time at Wesleyan headquarters was productive, John soon realized that his deeper desire was to help pastors from numerous denominations. He knew that desire would be unfulfilled if he were to stay at denominational headquarters. As a result, in 1981 John accepted the call to return to the pastorate, this time at Skyline Wesleyan Church in the San Diego, California area. But he did so with the church's blessing to pursue his vision. The Skyline congregation allowed him to continue mentoring and assisting pastors even as he led them to new levels.
In 1985, as he continued to equip and encourage other pastors, John took the next crucial step in leadership development. He founded a new company called INJOY and created the INJOY Life Club, featuring a monthly tape for leaders. The fledging operation, established in the corner of a garage, was soon bursting at the seams. The INJOY Life Club tapes were received with great enthusiasm, and the number of subscriptions quickly increased from hundreds to thousands. Simultaneously, the demand for other resources and seminars exploded. Pastors from coast to coast were responding, and their desire for help was even greater than John had anticipated.
As the years passed, INJOY began demanding more and more of John's time. In 1995, he resigned from his position as senior pastor at Skyline following a very fruitful 14-year tenure. The church had tripled in size and its lay ministry involvement had increased ten-fold. Dr. Maxwell is in great demand today as a speaker. Through his bestselling books, audio and video resources, and major conferences, he communicates directly with more than one million people every year. He is frequently asked to speak for organizations such as Promise Keepers and Focus on the Family, but his greatest joy and desire is to help pastors become better leaders.
Because the need for leadership development knows no borders, John established EQUIP, a non-profit organization which trains leaders in urban communities, academic institutions, and within international organizations. EQUIP is also spearheading a movement which has enlisted more than one million pastoral prayer partners who covenant to pray specifically for those who shepherd God's flock.
John continues to seek new opportunities to help churches and church leaders. He knows that one thing is constant: the only hope for the world is salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, who gives life abundantly.
