Lead to Give, Not to Get
Maxwell Leadership Podcast
John Maxwell
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this Thanksgiving-week episode of the Maxwell Leadership Podcast, John Maxwell reminds us that effective, impactful leadership isn't about what you receive — it's about what you give. He explains how the most effective leaders focus on servant leadership, sowing into others, and making their contribution bigger than their reward.
After John's lesson, Mark Cole and Traci Morrow share how this principle applies in today's organizations—from mentoring employees to overcoming entitlement and inspiring genuine employee motivation through example and gratitude.
You'll learn how to:
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Replace entitlement with a mindset of service and contribution.
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Lead through generosity, not expectation.
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Turn competition into collaboration by focusing on team growth.
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Model selfless leadership that strengthens trust and performance.
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Inspire others through consistent gratitude and example.
🎯 Our BONUS RESOURCE for this episode is the Lead to Give, Not to Get Worksheet, which includes fill-in-the-blank notes from John's teaching. To download the worksheet, go to MaxwellPodcast.com/LeadToGive and click "Download the Bonus Resource."
📈 Join the Maxwell Leadership Certified Team to grow your leadership skills and coaching business.
References:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, for all of our U.S. partners and listeners and family of the podcast, it is Thanksgiving |
| 0:15.5 | week. Happy Thanksgiving. If you're listening live tomorrow, I hope you have a great time of your family. |
| 0:22.4 | My name is Mark Cole, and I want to welcome you the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. |
| 0:26.8 | We want to add value to you today so you will multiply value to those around you for the rest of your days. |
| 0:34.7 | And so I'm joined by Tracy Morrow today, Tracy. So good to have you. Happy Thanksgiving. |
| 0:40.9 | Happy Thanksgiving to you. Likewise. Hey, you got to give me, so give me something, some family |
| 0:47.5 | tradition at the Morrow household. You got to give me something. What is Thanksgiving week like |
| 0:51.7 | for you guys? Oh, well, gosh, there's so many things. |
| 0:56.7 | I'm going to give you two. One of them is about people and one of them is about food. |
| 1:02.0 | So we have a humongous family and so it could be anything. Hopefully all of our kids are, you know, |
| 1:09.4 | we have almost all of our kids are going to be |
| 1:11.2 | around the table, all but one and our grandkids. And so we usually like to see if there are people |
| 1:17.2 | in our church or attendees around our church or military people or someone in the community |
| 1:22.4 | who needs a place to come and join us. So a lot of times we'll have, you know, displaced college students or something. |
| 1:28.8 | So in addition to our humongous family, there's just tables in every nook and cranny filled with |
| 1:33.2 | people who are beyond our family, other people who are looking for a place to come and find family. |
| 1:39.3 | And that's been a tradition back to our home and to my grandparents. There was just always people everywhere in the |
| 1:47.1 | house just packed in. And I just love, I feel like that's what Thanksgiving is for me. That's, |
| 1:53.3 | that's the people part. And then the food part is that my my parents were Slovenian, my grandparents |
| 1:59.8 | were Slovenians first generation. And so there is a |
| 2:02.5 | sweet bread that is, you fill out this huge table and it's called Petitsa. And so any Slovenian |
| 2:09.8 | friends out there listening, you know what this is. You get this huge table and you roll out this bread |
... |
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