Many teens have aspirations of making it big. They plan to go to college, enter the work force, and make it to the top where they can obtain riches, fame and prestige. They want to become “The Man.” They envision a life of ease once they reach this plateau, bossing people around during the day and lying around counting their money at night.

I had this dream. In high school, we had to write a paper on what we considered our dream job. The dream that captured me was of becoming a ceo of a major company. I could almost smell the money and hear the knock at my office door as my secretary informed me that my financial adviser had arrived to meet with me concerning the investing of my millions. As I turned in my leather chair, from my 50-story office window overlooking the metropolis, back to my desk, I would say, “Show him in.”

That dream of life at the top is just a fairy tale. In reality, life at the top is not carefree, but instead is a life of sacrifice. If we want to move up in the ranks of leadership, we must learn to sacrifice.

To illustrate this point, let’s look at the example of one of the greatest business leaders of America’s history, Lee Iacocca. Time magazine called him “the John Wayne of the automobile business.” He was able to bring Chrysler from the brink of bankruptcy to financial stability as one of the nation’s leading car manufacturers. Mr. Iacocca was successful by employing many qualities of leadership; among these, as John C. Maxwell’s book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership points out, Lee Iacocca was a model of the law of sacrifice.

Chrysler was in bad shape when Mr. Iacocca came on board as president on Nov. 2, 1978. From the 1920s through the ’60s, Chrysler had been very successful, laying hold on 25 percent of the market at its peak. But in the ’70s, the company began to come tumbling down, like an avalanche gains speed as it moves down a mountain. On the day that Chrysler announced the hiring of Lee Iacocca, it also announced its worst financial outlook yet. It was time for this leader to fill the gap.

Iacocca from day one had an attitude of sacrifice. He accepted a salary less than half of what he had made as president of Ford Motor Company.

But that isn’t where his embodiment of the law of sacrifice ended. At Ford, he had prided himself on never working weekends and always being home early to be with his family, but at Chrysler, the situation was so desperate it demanded much more of his time. Personal time had to be sacrificed. Even when he was able to go home, he was unable to leave work in his mind. Giving up some or even most of your personal time is what it takes sometimes to get the job done.

Next came his pride. “At Ford, Iacocca had developed a reputation for being highly critical of any government involvement in business. So when he approached Congress for help, no one spoke very kindly about him. Iacocca later discussed that episode: ‘In the minds of Congress and the media, we had sinned. We had missed the market, and we deserved to be punished.

“‘And punished we were. During the congressional hearings, we were held up before the entire world as living examples of everything that was wrong with American industry. We were humiliated on the editorial pages for not having the decency to give up and die gracefully …. Our wives and kids were the butt of jokes in shopping malls and schools. It was a far higher price to pay than just closing the doors and walking away. It was personal. It was pointed. And it was painful’” (ibid).

Swallowing his pride was a heroic sacrifice for Iacocca, one that many top corporate executives never would have made. But it was a price he paid to save the company.

Then came the sacrifice he is most known for. Pay cuts had become more than an idea and were now mandatory if the company was to survive. In order to set the example, Lee Iacocca reduced his own salary to one dollar a year. No longer was he making hundreds of thousands or even tens of thousands per year. His salary was one dollar a year. With this example of sacrifice, he was able to go to the labor unions and get them to agree to cut employees’ salaries in order to save the company.

What was the result of this attitude of sacrifice? Through his sacrifices, Iacocca was able to lead a company out of the throes of defeat to the heights of success.

By 1982, only four years after hiring Iacocca to be their president, Chrysler had an operating profit of $925 million and was able to repay its loans the following year. “He has since retired, but his leadership put Chrysler back on the map. Why? Because he modeled the Law of Sacrifice” (ibid).

What are you willing to sacrifice to see the projects you are involved in succeed? Lee Iacocca was willing to sacrifice his time, pride and finances to see Chrysler succeed. His example of sacrifice moved others to follow him and put faith in his leadership. Those who were under him took on his attitude of sacrifice so they all could succeed.

Will the people you someday lead want to emulate your willingness to sacrifice for them? If we want to have the same success that Lee Iacocca had, we must set the example of sacrifice.

We must get away from the dreamy vision that many people have of top positions. Life at the top is not a life of ease, but a life of sacrifice.

As leaders, we can make others sacrifice for us, and fail—or, we can learn to sacrifice for others, and succeed. It is up to us.

Live the law of sacrifice!