Who You Are Is WhoYou Attract
Effective leaders are always on the lookout for good people. I think each of us carries around a mental list of what kind of people we would like to have in our organization or department. Think about it. Do you know who you’re looking for right now? What is your profile of perfect employees? What qualities would they possess? Would you want them to be aggressive and entrepreneurial? Are you looking for leaders? Do you care whether they are in their twenties, forties, or sixties? Stop right now, take a moment, and make a list of the qualities you’d like in the people on your team. Find a pencil or pen, and do it now before you read any farther.
My People Would Have These Qualities:
Now, what will determine whether the people you want are the people you get and whether they will possess the qualities you desire? You may be surprised by the answer. Believe it or not, who you attract is not determined by what you want. It’s determined by who you are.
Go back to the list you just made, and for each characteristic you identified, decide whether you possess that quality. For example, if you wrote that you would like “great leaders” and you are an excellent leader, that’s a match. Put a check (
) by it. But if your leadership is no better than average, put an X and write “only average leader” next to it. If you wrote that you want people who are “entrepreneurial” and you possess that quality, put a check. Otherwise, mark it with an X, and so on. Now review the whole list.
Who you attract is not determined by what you want.It’s determined by who you are.
If you see a whole bunch of Xs, then you’re in trouble, because the people you describe are not the type who will want to follow you. In most situations, unless you take strong measures to counteract it, you draw people to you who possess the same qualities you do. That’s the Law of Magnetism: who you are is who you attract.
FROM MUSICIANSHIP TO LEADERSHIP
When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me that birds of a feather flock together. I thought that was a wise saying when I was spending time with my older brother, Larry, and playing ball. He was a good athlete, so I figured that made me one, too. As I grew up, I think I instinctively recognized that good students spent time with good students, people who only wanted to play stuck together, and so on. But I don’t think I really understood the impact of the Law of Magnetism until I moved to San Diego, California, and became the leader of the last church I pastored.
My predecessor at Skyline Church was Dr. Orval Butcher. He is a wonderful man with many admirable qualities. One of his best is his musician-ship. He plays piano and has a beautiful Irish tenor voice, even today in his eighties. At the time I arrived in 1981, Skyline had a solid reputation for fine music and was nationally known for its outstanding musical productions. In fact, the church was filled with talented musicians and vocalists. And in the twenty-seven years Dr. Butcher led the church, only two music directors worked for him—an unbelievable track record. (In comparison, during my fourteen years there, I employed five people in that capacity.)
Why were there so many exceptional musicians at Skyline? The answer lies in the Law of Magnetism. People with musical talent were naturally attracted to Dr. Butcher. They respected him and understood him. They shared his motivation and values. They were on the same page with him. Leaders help to shape the culture of their organizations based on who they are and what they do. Music was valued. It was practiced and performed with excellence. It was used to reach out to the community. It was deeply ingrained in the culture of the organization.
In contrast, I enjoy music, but I am not a musician. It’s funny, but when I interviewed for the position at Skyline, one of the first questions they asked me was whether I could sing. They were very disappointed when I told them no. After I came on board at the church, the number of new musicians arriving at the church declined quickly. We still had more than our share because Dr. Butcher had created momentum and a wonderful legacy in that area. But do you know what kind of people started coming instead? Leaders. I valued leadership, modeled it, trained people in it, and rewarded it. Leadership was woven into the fabric of the organization. By the time I left Skyline, not only was the church filled with hundreds of excellent leaders, but the church had raised up and sent out hundreds of leaders. The reason was the Law of Magnetism. Our organization became a magnet for people with leadership ability.
WHERE DO THEY MATCH UP?
Maybe you’ve started thinking about the people that you have attracted in your organization. You might say to yourself, Wait a minute. I can name twenty things that make my people different from me. And my response would be, “Of course you can.” We’re all individuals. But the people who are drawn to you probably have more similarities than differences, especially in a few key areas.
Take a look at the following characteristics. If you have recruited and hired a staff, you will probably find that you and the people who follow you share common ground in several of these key areas:
GENERATION
Most organizations reflect the characteristics of their key leaders, and that includes their age. During the dot-com boom of the 1990s, thousands of companies were founded by people in their twenties and early thirties. And who did they hire? Others in their twenties and thirties. In just about any type of organization, most of the time the people who come on board are similar in age to the leaders who hire them. Often that occurs within departments Sometimes it occurs company-wide.
If you think your people are negative, then you’d better check your attitude.
ATTITUDE
Rarely have I seen positive and negative people attracted to one another. People who view life as a series of opportunities and exciting challenges don’t want to hear others talk about how bad things are all the time. I know that’s true for me. And not only do people attract others with similar attitudes, but their attitudes tend to become alike. Attitude is one of the most contagious qualities a human being possesses. People with good attitudes tend to make people around them feel more positive. Those with a terrible attitude tend to bring others down.
BACKGROUND
In the chapter on the Law of Process, I wrote about Theodore Roosevelt. One of his memorable accomplishments is his daring charge up San Juan Hill with the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt personally recruited that all-volunteer cavalry company, and it was said to be a remarkably peculiar group of people. It was comprised primarily of two types of men: wealthy aristocrats from the Northeast and cowboys from the Wild West. Why? Because TR was an aristocratic-born, Harvard-educated New Yorker who turned himself into a real-life cowboy and big-game hunter in the Dakotas of the West. He was a strong and genuine leader in both worlds, and as a result, he attracted both kinds of people.
People attract—and are attracted to—others of similar background. Blue-collar workers tend to stick together. Employers tend to hire people of the same race. People with education tend to respect and value others who are also well educated. This natural magnetism is so strong that organizations that value diversity have to fight against it.
In the NFL, for example, the team owners are white, and for decades, all the head coaches were white. But because members of the league valued racial diversity, they put into place a diversity policy requiring teams to include at least one minority candidate in the interview process when hiring head coaches. That policy has helped more highly qualified African American head coaches to be hired. (But other than in the area of race, the background of all the coaches remains strikingly similar.)
VALUES
People are attracted to leaders whose values are similar to their own. Think about the people who flocked to President John F. Kennedy after he was elected in 1960. He was a young idealist who wanted to change the world, and he attracted people with a similar profile. When he formed the Peace Corps and called people to service, saying, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” thousands of young, idealistic people stepped forward to answer the challenge.
It doesn’t matter whether the shared values are positive or negative. Either way, the attraction is equally strong. Think about someone like Adolf Hitler. He was a very strong leader (as you can judge by his level of influence). But his values were rotten to the core. What kinds of people did he attract? Leaders with similar values: Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo; Joseph Goebbels, a bitter anti-Semite who ran Hitler’s propaganda machine; Reinhard Heydrich, second in command of the Nazi secret police, who ordered mass executions of Nazi opponents; and Heinrich Himmler, chief of the SS and director of the Gestapo, who initiated the systematic execution of Jews. They were all strong leaders, and they were all utterly evil men. The Law of Magnetism is powerful. Whatever character you possess is what you will likely find in the people who follow you.
ENERGY
It’s a good thing that people with similar levels of energy are attracted to one another because when you pair a high-energy person with a low-energy person and ask them to work closely together, they can drive one another crazy. The high-energy person thinks the low-energy one is lazy, and the low-energy person thinks the high-energy one is insane.
GIFTEDNESS
People do not go out looking for mediocre leaders to follow. People are attracted to talent and excellence, especially in their area of giftedness. They are most likely to respect and follow someone who possesses their kind of talent. Businesspeople want to follow bosses with skill in building an organization and making a profit. Football players want to follow coaches with great football talent. Creative people want to follow leaders who are willing to think outside the box. Like attracts like. That may seem pretty obvious. Yet I’ve met many leaders who expect highly talented people to follow them, even though they neither possess nor express value for those people’s giftedness.
LEADERSHIP ABILITY
Finally, the people you attract will have leadership ability similar to your own. As I said in discussing the Law of Respect, people naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves. But you also have to factor in the Law of Magnetism, which states that who you are is who you attract. If you are a 7 when it comes to leadership, you are more likely to draw 5s and 6s to you than 2s and 3s. The leaders you attract will be similar in style and ability to you.
LIVING LEADERSHIP
Al McGuire, former head basketball coach of Marquette University, once said, “A team should be an extension of the coach’s personality. My teams were arrogant and obnoxious.” It’s more than a matter of “should be”— teams cannot help being an extension of their leader’s personality.
In 1996, I founded my nonprofit organization, EQUIP, which exists to train leaders internationally. Guess what kinds of donors are attracted to EQUIP? Leaders! Men and women who lead others and understand the value and impact that come from training leaders are continually attracted to EQUIP.
GOING AGAINST THE GRAIN
As you read this chapter, you may find yourself in one of two situations. You may be saying to yourself, I’m not crazy about the people I’m attracting. Am I stuck with my situation? The answer is no. If you are dissatisfied with the leadership ability of the people you are attracting, then embrace the Law of Process and work to increase your leadership skill. If you want to grow an organization, grow the leader. If you find the people you attract to be unreliable or untrustworthy, then examine your character. Developing stronger character can be a more difficult road, but the payoff is huge. Good character improves every aspect of a person’s life.
On the other hand, you may be saying, I like who I am, and I like the kind of people I attract. That’s great! Now, take the next step in effective leadership. Work at recruiting people who are different from you to staff your weaknesses. If you don’t, important organizational tasks are likely to be overlooked, and the organization will suffer as a result. An organization will never fulfill its potential if everyone in it is a visionary or if everyone is an accountant.
It is possible for a leader to go out and recruit people unlike himself, but those are not the people he will naturally attract. Attracting people unlike yourself requires a high degree of intentionality. To succeed at it, people must believe in you, and the vision you share must be compelling. You can learn more about that in the Law of Buy-In.
HISTORY CHANGES COURSE
Once you understand the Law of Magnetism, you can see it at work in just about any kind of situation: business, government, sports, education, the military, and more. As you read history, look for its clues. One of the most vivid examples of the Law of Magnetism is found in American history among the military leaders of the Civil War. When the Southern states seceded, there were questions about which side many of the generals would fight for. Robert E. Lee was considered the best general in the nation, and President Lincoln actually offered him command of the Union army. But Lee would never consider fighting against his native Virginia. He declined the offer and joined the Confederacy—and the best generals in the land followed him.
The better leader you are, the better leaders you will attract.
If Lee had chosen to lead an army for the Union instead, many other good generals would have followed him north. As a result, the war probably would have been much shorter. Some speculate that it might have lasted two years instead of five—and hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. It just goes to show you that the better leader you are, the better leaders you will attract. And that has an incredible impact on everything you do.
How do the people you are currently attracting to your organization or department look to you? Are they the strong, capable, potential leaders you desire? Or could they be better? Remember, their quality does not ultimately depend on a hiring process, a human resources department, or even what you consider to be the quality of your area’s applicant pool. It depends on you. Who you are is who you attract. That is the Law of Magnetism. If you want to attract better people, become the kind of person you desire to attract.
Applying
THE LAW OF MAGNETISM
To Your Life
1. If you skipped the exercise of writing down the qualities you desire in your followers, then do it now. Once you are finished (or if you already completed it), think about why you desire the qualities you listed. When you wrote them, did you think you were describing people like you or different from you? If there is a disparity between your image of yourself and of your employees, then your level of self-awareness may be low, and it may be hindering your personal development. Talk to a trusted colleague or friend who knows you well to help you identify your blind spots.
2. Based on who you are attracting, you may need to grow in the areas of character and leadership. Find mentors willing and able to help you grow in each area. Good candidates as a character mentor could be a pastor or spiritual advisor, a professional whose ability you respect, or a professional coach. Ideally, your leadership mentor should work in the same or a similar profession and be several steps ahead of you in his or her career.
3. If you are already attracting the kinds of people you desire, then it’s time to take your leadership to the next level. Work at staffing your weaknesses and recruiting people who will complement your leadership in the area of skills. Write a list of your five greatest strengths when it comes to skills. Then write your five greatest weaknesses.
Now it’s time to create a profile of who you are looking for. Start with giftedness that corresponds to your weaknesses. Add to that values and attitudes that are similar to yours. Also consider whether age, background, and education are factors. Will it help if they are different? Finally, look for someone who is potentially a good leader or at the very least understands and appreciates how leadership works. Few things are more frustrating to a good leader than a partner with a bureaucratic mindset.