Your Motives Matter
Maxwell Leadership Podcast
John Maxwell
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Do you know why you want to lead? What drives your interactions with people? These are critical questions every leader must ask themselves for the good of those they lead — and in today's episode, John Maxwell is walking you through how to examine your motives as a leader!
After John's lesson, Mark Cole unpacks John's teaching points so you can apply them directly to your life and leadership.
Key takeaways:
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Motivation is about mutual advantage and empowering people, while manipulation is about personal gain and controlling people.
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Most aspiring leaders want to lead and be loved, but sometimes, they are mutually exclusive.
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To keep your leadership motives in check, regularly serve others without a title or position.
Our BONUS resource for this episode is the Your Motives Matter Worksheet, which includes fill-in-the-blank notes from John's teaching. You can download the worksheet by visiting MaxwellPodcast.com/MotivesMatter and clicking "Download the Bonus Resource."
Take the next step in your growth journey and become a Maxwell Leadership Certified Team Member. Click here to speak with a Program Advisor today!
References:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. |
| 0:11.0 | My name is Mark Cole, and today we're going to talk about your motives. |
| 0:16.0 | That's because your motives matter. |
| 0:19.0 | In fact, when John teaches today, he's going to ask a question, |
| 0:22.9 | and when I come back and unpack what John teaches us, we're going to unpack this question, |
| 0:27.8 | but here it is, at the top of the podcast, why do you lead? Why is it that you want to lead? |
| 0:35.2 | And what do you want to be known for with your leadership? We're going to be |
| 0:40.0 | digging into that because we believe, here at Maxwell Leadership, we believe that it all starts |
| 0:44.8 | with your motive. Our motive in this whole podcast is to add value to you so you will |
| 0:51.7 | multiply value to others. See, doing the right thing for the right reason is the most |
| 0:58.3 | important issue in leadership today. So get ready. We're going together to a place of checking |
| 1:08.5 | our motives because motives matters. Now, if you would like to really follow along |
| 1:14.2 | as John teaches, we've provided a bonus resource for you. And you can go to Maxwellpodcast.com |
| 1:20.6 | forward slash motives matter. Motives matter. And you will be able to download the resource. You'll |
| 1:27.0 | also be able to click the link and watch us on YouTube today. |
| 1:30.8 | And finally, we will put in there other resources, other tools that will help you on your journey. |
| 1:37.3 | But before we go there, before we even answer the question, why is it that you lead? |
| 1:42.0 | Grab a pen, grab a piece of paper. |
| 1:43.8 | Here is John Maxwell |
| 1:45.6 | talking about your motives matter. |
| 1:56.3 | Motives matter. When I was a child, my parents taught me to do the right thing with the right attitude. |
| 2:03.6 | They cared about what I did and why I did it. That instilled in me the understanding that our motives always matter, and that's especially true for leaders. |
... |
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