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82 PCB007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2021 Introduction Good leadership always makes a difference; unfortunately, so does bad leadership. is lead- ership truth continues as we will be talking about the 11th of the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. The Law of the Inner Circle If you were to look at the leaders who have inspired you over the course of your career, I would argue that you will find it difficult to name a single one that did not have a great sup- porting cast. I believe that nobody does any- thing great alone; great leaders surround them- selves with great people. is truth was on dis- play in the Sonny Barger chapter of my last book Notorious (in a shameless plug, it's avail- able on Amazon). One of the business lessons Sonny taught us is, "Great leaders know they don't have all the answers." In fact, my August 2020 column, "Leadership Lessons I Learned from Sonny Barger," included this lesson. John Maxwell teaches, "A leader's potential is determined by those closest to him or her," so take a good look around and see who you sur- round yourself with. is is your team, and the Law of the Inner Circle is all about the team. Most people create an inner circle of people; to quote the great Jack Byrnes, who calls it the "circle of trust." However, during this process people are rarely strategic in doing so. Most people are naturally social, and we tend to sur- round ourselves with either people we like or people who we are comfortable with. Few peo- ple give enough thought to how those closest to them impact their effectiveness or leader- ship potential. You Are Your Team I have been fortunate to have gained some degree of success in my career, and one of my most memorable accomplishments was to lead my company to become the first ISO-certi- fied printed circuit shop in the state of Illinois. What makes this particularly memorable to me is that not only was our initial certification audit perfect, but we maintained a perfect re- cord through every surveillance and recertifi- cation audit until I moved on. During our first Leadership 101— The Law of the Inner Circle The Right Approach by Steve Williams, THE RIGHT APPROACH CONSULTING