Maxwell’s First Law – The Law Of The Lid.

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By Christian J. Farber

Often business leadership failures are upon reflection simple to identify and may have easily been avoided. The recent failures of Lehman Brothers, Blockbuster and Borders can be pointed to excessive greed, lack of vision and failure in distribution. We won’t miss these companies as we go forward and I suspect we will not have to experience the executives who ran these brands into the ground either. However, there are failures in business that happen every day and don’t get any press or attention, except by the employees who experience them and work in a dead end jobs to just pays the bills. These failures come from ineffective leadership which translates into poor results and even poorer working conditions.

The first of Maxwells 21 Irrefutable Laws of leadership is the “Law of the Lid”, we should all pay attention to this telling law. In short, it says a person has a lid on his or her effectiveness based on his leadership lid. If the lid is high he can be highly effective, if the leadership lid is low then he will be limited in his effectiveness. If an executive has a low lid and is the head of your division or the CEO of your company you can expect the results of your division or company to be disappointing. Said another way if your boss is a junior varsity leader he will be less effective and therefore you will never get to play varsity unless he is replaced with a leader with a higher lid. Kind of a glass ceiling of effectiveness and leadership for you if you are in a situation like this.

Personally, I like to be around A players and exceptional leaders who want to accomplish great things. They have the need and desire to be great and have Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals or what you might know as BHAG’s. I have made my career by working with these people and consider them to be leaders who are effective because of their lofty goals. They are smart, realize their strengths and weaknesses and surround themselves with other leaders who fill in skill sets they don’t have themselves. Confident and sure these men and woman assess and take risk only after diligent research and will purposely delay a key decision in lieu of gathering critical information. It is not surprising that they get the key decisions right at a very high percentage and rarely miss opportunities.

There are not many options if you find yourself in a leaderless situation so I will focus on how to find good leadership and effectiveness. I described some of the qualities above but finding people with these skills and desires is hard and takes focused time. My experience is that these men and women are in a few key places. Small start ups, turnaround situations and in the venture capital/private equity areas of business. Sure you will find them elsewhere like General Electric, IBM or some other large corporate brands but they are less accessible to most people. You can’t just walk in and say you want to work for and effective executive with a high leadership lid. To do that would require a lot of prior success on your part and your own high leadership lid.

Many large companies spawn effective leaders who over time venture out of into the small company game. They have BHAG’s and may join a small start up company with a promising idea. It is here where you can find access to an effective executive with a high leadership lid. Networking into the start up game isn’t as hard as you might think. Use LinkedIn and sort through your network to gain access to a those who can help you (see my two articles on dailyBlogma to help you make the most of LinkedIn) or to gain access to the start up company directly.

Turnaround situations are similar to start ups in that often times experienced executives with high lids and potential take the risk to help a fledgling unit of a company or a company which has lost its way. These opportunities are identifiable and can be researched by you through networking and exploring those companies in your industry you know are doing poorly. After you have identified the company watch their press releases, over time you will see new management talent join the company. After researching the executive make your move to be introduced to him.

The VC and PE industry it teeming with a network of talented executives. Successful people travel in the same circles and invariable find some connection to an investor who is looking to bring a new executive into a company they have invested their funds in. VC’s are happy to meet with you if you have some success behind you and will introduce you to their companies and an effective leader with a high lid.

Effective leaders with high leadership lids are out there seeking opportunities to do something great. Some are hidden in large companies and hard to approach. However, working through start ups, turn-arounds and investors can uncover them and provide you what may be the opportunity of a lifetime. My best, Chris

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