John C. Maxwell – Top 5 Leadership Books & Tips
John C. Maxwell is an internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker, and author who has sold over 19 million books. When it comes to talking about leadership, John Maxwell is one of the gurus in this area. We’ve explored John Maxwell’s leadership work, books, and famous quotes in this article.
In this article
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Top 5 John Maxwell Leadership Books
John Maxwell speaks to Fortune 500 companies, international government leaders, and audiences as diverse as the United States Military Academy at West Point, the National Football League, and ambassadors at the United Nations. He is an awarded bestseller by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week. Maxwell was named the World’s Top Leadership Guru by Leadershipgurus.net.
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We’ve examined John Maxwell’s leadership books and picked the top 5 most popular ones in this article. While we are picking the top 5 books, we’ve gone through the review ratings and number of reviews on Amazon and Good Reads. The combined rating is the weighted average of the Amazon and Good Reads ratings.
| John Maxwell Leadership Book | Amazon Rating | Number of Reviews | Good Reads Rating | Number of Reviews | Combined Rating |
| The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership | 4.70 | 8,130 | 4.15 | 51,633 | 4.22 |
| The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth | 4.80 | 5,116 | 4.32 | 8,146 | 4.51 |
| The 5 Levels of Leadership | 4.70 | 4,239 | 4.29 | 6,059 | 4.46 |
| How Successful People Think | 4.70 | 3,893 | 3.93 | 12,751 | 4.11 |
| Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 | 4.70 | 3,171 | 4.21 | 23,664 | 4.27 |
If you like reading books for your self-development, you should add these leadership books to your reading list. Let’s go through each of these John Maxwell books and examine them.
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1- The Most Popular John Maxwell Book- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
The most popular and best John Maxwell leadership book is “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You”.
This book has over 8,000 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.7. There are even more ratings on Good Reads with over 51,000 reviews and an average rating of 4.15.
John Maxwell focuses on the fundamental pillars of successful leadership such as vision, influence, responsibility, and commitment in this book. While defining leadership, it focuses on how to set targets for yourself and for your team. The book shows how to manage the emotional balance in hard times as well. While the book goes over the 21 laws, each law is justified by scenarios and examples from John Maxell’s leadership experience.
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership book by John Maxwell is a go-to resource for exploring the ways to become a leader and be successful in the workplace. This book is the best John Maxwell leadership book people can read if they want to:
- Learn leadership on their own,
- Develop as leaders in a group
- Teach leadership to others as a mentor.
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2- The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth
The second John Maxwell book in our list is “The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential”.
This book has over 5,000 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.8, and over 8,000 reviews on Good Reads with an average rating of 4.32.
John C. Maxwell wrote his tested and true principles for maximum personal growth. According to John Maxwell, there are tested and correct principles that can help personal growth. The book focuses on:
- The Law of the Mirror: You Must See Value in Yourself to Add Value to Yourself
- The Law of Awareness: You Must Know Yourself to Grow Yourself
- The Law of Modeling: It’s Hard to Improve When You Have No One But Yourself to Follow
- The Law of the Rubber Band: Growth Stops When You Lose the Tension Between Where You Are and Where You Could Be
- The Law of Contribution: Developing Yourself Enables You to Develop Others
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3- The 5 Levels of Leadership
The third John Maxwell leadership book is “The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential”.
This book has over 4,000 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.7, and over 6,000 reviews on Good Reads with an average rating of 4.29.
You can read this John Maxwell book to learn about the leadership tools to fuel success, grow your team, and become the visionary you were meant to be.
True leadership is not related to having particular jobs or titles. In order to grow your career, you must be successful and reach targets with your team. You must act as a servant leader and help your people to improve their skills to become leaders as well.
The book focuses on the following 5 Levels of Leadership:
1. Position—People follow because they have to.
2. Permission—People follow because they want to.
3. Production—People follow because of what you have done for the organization.
4. People Development—People follow because of what you have done for them personally.
5. Pinnacle—People follow because of who you are and what you represent.
John Maxwell goes over each of these five levels of leadership through insights and examples.
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4- How Successful People Think
The fourth John Maxwell leadership book on our list is “How Successful People Think: Change Your Life”.
This John Maxwell leadership book has over 3,800 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.7, and over 12,500 reviews on Good Reads with an average rating of 3.93.
How Successful People Think, a Wall Street Journal best-seller, is the ideal, concise read for the fast-paced world of today. John C. Maxwell writes about how to be innovative and challenge traditional traits. The book teaches you to see the big picture while you are focusing on day-to-day activities.
5- Developing the Leader Within You 2.0
The fifth and last leadership book by John Maxwell on our list is “Developing the Leader Within You 2.0”.
This John Maxwell leadership book has over 3,000 reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4.7, and over 23,500 reviews on Good Reads with an average rating of 4.21.
This book can help you develop the influence, character, service, and vision that it takes to be a leader in every aspect of your life. John Maxwell analyzes the different types of leadership styles and lists the following fundamental principles for inspiration, motivation, and influence.
- Influence – using the 5 Levels of Leadership as a roadmap to influence others
- Character – embracing good ethics, practicing self-leadership, and valuing people
- Service – asking eight questions to develop into a leader who serves others daily
- Vision – including eight components when painting a vision for your people so they can experience it
Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 book will help you transform the way you think about leadership.
Top 10 John Maxwell Quotes
There are thousands of famous quotes by John Maxwell. We’ve picked the top 10 quotes voted on Good Reads.
Quote #1 – “Leadership is not about titles, positions, or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”
Quote #2 – “Seven Steps to Success
1) Make a commitment to grow daily.
2) Value the process more than events.
3) Don’t wait for inspiration.
4) Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity.
5) Dream big.
6) Plan your priorities.
7) Give up to go up.”
Quote #3 – “We cannot become what we need by remaining what we are.”
Quote #4 – “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”
Quote #5 – “The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.”
Quote #6 – “A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.”
Quote #7 – “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.”
Quote #8 – “Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.”
Quote #9 – “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”
Quote #10 – “Success is…
knowing your purpose in life,
growing to reach your maximum potential, and
sowing seeds that benefit others.”
All of them are inspirational, which one is your favorite?
Summary – John Maxwell
John Calvin Maxwell (born February 20, 1947) is an American author, speaker, and pastor who has written many books, primarily focusing on leadership. We’ve reviewed the hundreds of books written by John Maxwell and picked the top 5 based on Amazon and Good Reads.
The top 5 John Maxwell books are:
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You
- The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential
- The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential
- How Successful People Think: Change Your Life
- Developing the Leader Within You 2.0
John Maxwell has thousands of quotes about leadership as well. We’ve picked the top 10 for our article as well.