A few years ago, I was invited to a special presentation. I was offered a three-night, all expenses paid vacation in the Caribbean. The only stipulation was that on Day Three of the vacation, I had to listen to a special presentation about the resort I was staying at.
I declined. As I’m sure you would too.
We decline these almost too good to be true offers because we know what happens during the special presentation. We have to sit and listen to a pitch for time-shares. The presenters will try to convince us to shell out several thousands dollars for the right to stay one week a year at the resort we just previewed.
Their job is to influence us to pay for a time-share. In fact, all salespeople have the same job description: influence. Sales is a process of influencing prospective customers to become customers.
Let’s examine some simple Logic:
- Major Premise: “Leadership is influence.”
- Minor Premise: Salespeople influence others.
- Conclusion: Salespeople are leaders.
But are they? Very few people would agree with this conclusion. More often than not, salespeople are not leaders. So there must be an error somewhere in our syllogism.
Indeed there is: our major premise.
We’re forced to conclude that salespeople are leaders unless we change our major premise. Unless we add something to our definition that screens them out, we have to let them in.
I understand the point that you are trying to make, but your are using a flawed syllogism. You are assuming that your minor premise is true. You are committing a fallacy of affirming the consequent by equating the “influence” a leader exerts (a power to affect persons or events especially POWER BASED ON PRESTIGE) with the “influence” a salesperson MAY exert (a cognitive factor that TENDS to have an effect on what you do).
The funny thing about the English language is that we often use the same term to describe certain things e.g. I love pizza and I love my wife. In your syllogism, I think you are using generalizations that simply aren’t true. If the premises (or generalizations) are granted, and if the procedure is correct, then the conclusion should necessarily follow, right?
However, the quality of the conclusion is directly dependent on the quality of the generalizations on which it is based; and since inductively obtained generalizations are almost always somewhat tentative, we can seldom make absolutely inarguable deductions.
In any case, I don’t believe the “influence” of a leader and the “influence” of a salesperson are one and the same. The fallacy is not in Maxwell’s definition but instead, is in the conclusion you reach.
And by the way, I am a huge John Maxwell fan, but that doesn’t in anyway bias my opinion of your articles.
I understand your being a fan of Maxwell. I also like your pointing out the various definitions of influence. However, I think its incorrect to point the finger of fault at me. I was not the one who chose influence; Maxwell was. There is a difference between the meanings of influence when used in leadership and influence when used in salesmanship.
This is precisely why his definition needs modification. If I am confusing the meaning Maxwell intended then the fault is on Maxwell, not me. It’s the job of the teacher to make sure the student understands.
I think the confusion is a result of “taking the verse out of the context of the rest of the chapter.” When Jesus spoke to the “general public” He spoke in parables. When He spoke to His disciples, He spoke plainly. So often, the meaning is not understood because the student is too lazy to dive in and do the research. Other times, the meaning is so clear, but the student tries to make it more than was intended.
I personally think the interest level on the part of the student determines the lesson and not the teacher. A good teacher is one who takes the complicated and makes it simple and challenges the student to dive deeper into the subject matter. John Maxwell has done this repeatedly in his books beginning with “Developing the Leader in You.”
Maybe your searching for a better definition is an indication that John Maxwell has done his job. . . not only has he defined leadership, he has piqued your interest to dive deeper into the subject matter!
I’ll give you that he has piqued interested and laid a foundation for defining leadership. However, what I learned after he piqued my interest caused me to go back and discover his “definition” for the foundation it is.
David,
Have you considered using a related posts plug-in for your articles? It would make it easier for your readers to go to another article in this series rather than going back to the home page and scrolling to find the next article or a related article. I use this one and it seems to work very nicely. Just a suggestion! (http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/)
Steve
Thanks for the suggestion. I will add that. Also, I just reciprocated the blogroll link. Thanks.