John C. Maxwell

Rod has been in the room with John Maxwell twice, in two different years. Both times he came away with the same thought: nothing he could add would improve on what Maxwell already does well, so the useful thing to do is take the ideas home and put them to work.

That fits how Rod already thinks. He runs Coulee Tech, coaches other leaders as an AIBMM Master Coach, and still believes a coach needs a coach. Maxwell has spent a career making that point.

What Maxwell built

Maxwell, born in 1947, started as a pastor and began publishing in 1979. Over the decades he turned one subject, leadership, into books, speaking and training. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership has sold more than a million copies on its own, and the line most people take from it is "Everything rises and falls on leadership."

Two more books matter for Rod's work. The 5 Levels of Leadership (2011) describes how a leader moves from a title, to relationships, to results, to developing people, to a lasting reputation. The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth (2012) argues that growth is a decision made on purpose, not something that happens with age. He also built Maxwell Leadership, whose certified team of coaches, speakers and trainers is reported to run past 50,000 members.

What stuck with Rod

Maxwell tells audiences that the first law is the Law of the Lid: a person's leadership ability sets the ceiling on how effective the organization can be. He teaches that leadership is influence, that the best leaders add value to the people around them, and that you grow through a daily habit, not a big event.

For a business owner that is a plain message. The company will not pass the leader, so the work starts at the top.

How Rod applies it

• Raise the lid first. Rod keeps learning because Coulee Tech cannot move beyond his own ability to lead it. He tells executives the same thing about AI: the leader has to use the tools and understand them before asking the team to follow.
• Levels you can see. Maxwell's five levels of leadership sit comfortably beside the five levels of the AI Business Maturity Model. Both say the same thing: you move up one level at a time, and you cannot skip a step. Rod uses that idea when he helps an organization see where it stands and what the next level takes.
• A coach who is coached. As a Master Coach, Rod asks clients to be honest about gaps. He holds himself to the same standard, and his accountability peer group, named Accountability Group of the Year (2024), is where he does that.
• Add value to people. Coulee Tech's 10-10-10 model (10% above market pay, 10% profit sharing, 10% of profits to the community) is a leadership choice written into the budget. It is Rod's way of adding value to the team on purpose.

Rod met each of these people at business growth events where they were the featured speaker. The lessons are his own takeaways and do not imply an endorsement by anyone pictured.