An interview with John Maxwell by Michael Duduit

John Maxwell is one of the contemporary church's leading authorities on leadership. For many years a pastor, today Maxwell focuses on writing and teaching about Christian leadership through his organization InJoy. He was interviewed recently by Preaching magazine's editor Michael Duduit.

"All great leaders are effective communicators. It is the vehicle for the vision."

Preaching: Your ministry focus has become leadership and leadership gifts. You are also a preacher and a former pastor. What do you see as the links between preaching and leadership? In what ways do you see the preaching task as a leadership task within the church?

Maxwell: All great leaders are effective communicators. It is the vehicle for the vision. For me to know where I want to take a group of people and not have the ability to cast that dream, preach that message, communicate that heart, makes the dream impossible. The vision won't be accomplished.

So one of the reasons I have committed so much time, not only in teaching leadership but communication, is I think they are so compatible. You show me a great leader and I'll show you a person that became a great leader because of his or her ability to communicate effectively. You can be a good preacher and not a good leader but you cannot be a good leader without being a good preacher or a good communicator. You have to be able to communicate the vision.

What I love about it is that they all do it differently, there is not a certain style or a certain method. But they all have the ability to get their heart into the heart of their people. And that is always done through preaching and through communication. 

Preaching: What are some of the particular approaches or methods in preaching that tend to strengthen our work in leadership? 

Maxwell: As I look at communicators with different styles, different methods, they all have one thing in common. I've seen this, I've watched it, I've observed it. All great communicators have the ability to connect. They can connect with their audience. 

When I was a kid, I used to love to go down to the railroad tracks and watch them switch train cars. They back the engine up and you know how they bang the cars and they have a little ripple effect if there are seven or eight cars. But I learned early just because you bang the cars, it didn't mean you couple with it. You could bang a car and that old engine could pull out without the cars; you had to couple it. 

A lot of preaching is banging with the people. You're banging them and you are hitting them. A lot of pastors think when they have done that then they have communicated -- I've told them, I've told them. But they never connected with it. They never had that relational, emotional, spiritual connection with it. 

All great communicators, regardless of style or method, understand the connecting principle; they have the ability to connect with people, know where they are and connect there. 

In leadership I do a lesson called the levels of leadership. It talks about the different levels that a leader is on with the organization which he or she leads. Very simply, the bottom level is what I call the position level -- you come to a church, you have a title, you have an office, you have a job, you have a senior pastor. But, it's is the lowest level of connecting or relating. 

The second level is the permission level. On that level, you not only have a position, or a title, but they begin to like you, and they begin to give you permission to enter into their lives and enter into their walk with God. 

Then there is the production level. The permission level is built on the relationships, while the production level is built on results. And after you have been effective with the people for a period of time they will say, "Well, you know I was saved under his ministry or I came to Christ or I was baptized in that church while he was there." 

And then there is another level in reproducing yourself in the lives of the people, you develop people, it is a personal development type of level. You have people in your church on all of these levels. So, therefore when they hear me speak, they relate to my message, not on what I said but based on what level they are on. 

That's why pastors will go out and preach a message and one person will shake your hand and say, "That's the greatest message I've ever heard, pastor. It changed my life. We're going to help you support the building program" -- or whatever. Somebody else walks out, and they are not coming back. "All the guy wants is money." 

They received the same message by the same man, the same time, the same words, the same place. What happened? Different levels. In communication and in preaching it is very important for the communicator to understand when he or she walks up in front of people that they have these different stations in life. 

So in my communication as a pastor, I always made sure that I had levels of communication based on where the people were so that I could connect with every person there, based on not where I was or where the message was but where the people were.  

Reprinted by permission from Preaching magazine. 

John Maxwell's materials are available at InJoy.