Square One Leadership

Are they bought into you?

In the book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Maxwell talks about the “law of buy-in.” People have to be bought into you before they’re bought into what want them to do or be a part of.

I’ve always been sort of introverted and I like my comfort zones. On Friday nights when we were throwing around ideas on what to do, if my idea didn’t get chosen I had no problem going home. What this communicated was that I was in it for me. It’s no wonder we hardly ever chose to do what I wanted to do. The guys loved me, but they weren’t going to follow me, they weren’t bought into me as someone who was going to lead them somewhere that was best for them.

BTW, this can’t be some fake, “hey man you’re great, now lets go do what I want” either. Our generation can smell fake like it’s our favorite meal in the oven, it doesn’t matter who is cooking it, we can smell it. Having people buy into you has to be genuine, sincere, purposed, and most important of all — about them!

In order to get where you want to go, you might need to make a couple of pit stops for the people you want on the journey.

If you want your group to create the best project, figure out what they want out of the activity and deliver it to them. Stephen Covey calls this a “win-win” in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If a movie you want to see is coming out, go do some stuff with your friends that they want to do first. They will be much more likely to go see that movie with you, even if it’s not their type of movie. This is how I was roped into seeing Crossroads.

What’s one thing you can do to appreciate the people around you?

Who do you need help from, what have you done to show them they’re valuable to you?

In the comments, choose something you need buy-in from others on, and write about how you’re going to get it.