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102 PCB007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2021 Introduction As we continue with the second installment of Leadership 101, it is wise to review the premise of this series: Good leadership always makes a difference; unfortunately, so does bad leadership. Today we will be talking about the first of the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: e Law of the Lid [1] . The Law of the Lid Last time, I stated that the biggest mistake most companies make is to promote someone to a leadership position based on their techni- cal skills. is makes some sense, on the sur- face. But the thing is, leadership requires a completely different skill set and what happens more times than not is that you lose a good technical person and gain a bad manager. e Law of the Lid states that your success as a leader is dependent on your leadership abil- ity, or your leadership lid. You can never rise above your lid (Figure 1) and neither can your organization. Take your le hand and hold it out in front of you with your palm parallel to the ground (this is your lid). Now make a fist with your right and hold it under your palm (this is your business). Your business success may rise up to your lid but cannot rise above it. In fact, for many people success falls a bit short of their lid. So, your leadership lid in this context is your ability to realize your vision for the business: Create a highly effective team, motivate those people in a common purpose behind that vi- sion, and inspire them to see how their own goals are in alignment with the team goals. In other words, to quote my friend Jim Collins, to get the right people on the bus, get the right people in the right seats, and get the wrong people off the bus. Only then can we get the bus going in the right direction. Leadership 101: The Law of the Lid The Right Approach Feature Column by Steve Williams, THE RIGHT APPROACH CONSULTING Figure 1: Leaders can get stuck "under the lid" and not have the ability to raise themselves or their organizations.