How do you beat the law of the lid?

Do you know what the law of the lid is?

John Maxwell talks about it. The “lid” is your leadership ability.

You will never grow beyond your ability to lead.

I remember working with a leader who had grown his organization to double digit employees. Good work. But he could never grow beyond that.

It wasn’t for lack of desire. It wasn’t for lack of trying. It wasn’t for lack of capital.

He’d reached his lid. His max. He was stuck.

Eventually he sold to bring in someone else who had a higher lid than him.

What’s the key to raising your lid? I, for one, look to other leaders who beat the odds.

I’ve always been curious, in particular, about David Green, CEO and Founder of Hobby Lobby. He was a pastor’s kid, growing up in small churches of a 100 people or less, and he never had scale modeled for him.

His first job was in a small five and dime store.

He started Hobby Lobby with a $600 loan. His first store was 600 square feet. Later, the doubled that size before going to a 5,000 square foot store.

So how did he grow Hobby Lobby to nearly 1,000 stores with 50,000 employees and $8 billion in sales?

That’s why we wrote Leadership Not by the Book: 12 Unconventional Principles to Drive Incredible Results. The book contains David Green’s leadership lessons.

David laughs—he didn’t go to Harvard—so he had to learn in the fire of everyday experience, and prayer, and obedience.  That’s perhaps the great message: great leadership is not purely the result of acquiring great skill and experience, but rather a listening heart.

That’s why it’s called Leadership Not by the Book. I encourage you to pick up a copy if you want to do leadership different.

Photo by Alfred Aloushy on Unsplash

Bill High

Bill is CEO & Founder of Vyne Legacy. He works with families to equip them with tools to build multigenerational legacies, and he teaches givers and financial advisers on transformational biblical generosity. He is the co-author with David Green of Giving It All Away and Getting It All Back Again: The Way of Living Generously.

Published October 3, 2022

Topics: Family Business | Lessons with Bill

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