July 2009

Chapter 2 of Good to Great begins with the explanation of the six specific aspects of the companies that made the jump from good to great.  Again, they are:

-Level 5 Leadership

-First Who… Then What

-Confront the Brutal Facts

-Hedgehog Concept

-Culture of Discipline, and

-Technology Accelerators

This week’s review is related to the first of the specific aspects found in the good to great companies: Level 5 Leadership.  After 84 interviews with the executive CEOs of the good to great companies, and reading through 5,979 articles of the target companies in the research project, Jim Collins and his research team found unlikely leaders at the helms of these great companies.  After many intriguing company examples in the book, Collins describes the leaders as Level 5 Leaders, at the very top of five levels of leaders found in companies throughout the world.

We can learn many lessons to run our companies better from the leadership lessons the Collins research team discovered in their research.  Here are the levels of the leaders they consistently found:

Level 1 Leaders are highly capable individuals who simply make productive contributions to their companies.

Level 2 Leaders are capable team members in an organization that make significant contributions to achieve group objectives in group settings.

Level 3 Leaders are competent managers who organize people and resources toward predetermined objectives.

Level 4 Leaders are considered effective leaders who catalyze commitment toward the vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision.

Level 5 Leaders are the highest level type of leaders who “build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.”

The last one is what we desire to become.  The humility plus professional will were Jim Collins’ main points in this chapter.  They originally envisioned big, bold (and loud) leaders entering the company on a white horse to save the struggling enterprise.  But they found quite the opposite – low key leaders with a great amount of humility and an almost fanatical will to succeed. No matter what it took, these leaders didn’t toot their own horn, and constantly made huge sacrifices both personally and professionally to make their organizations succeed.

His Window and Mirror analogy impacted me greatly.  These Level 5 Leaders would look out the window of their organizations and typically give credit for success to others, while looking in the mirror and taking all the blame for the times when the organization was misguided and made mistakes.  And these traits were consistent among all of the CEOs they studied!  That says a lot to how we need to operate in our businesses.

Thankfully, Jim Collins believes we can be taught these Level 5 Leader qualities.  That’s good news – let’s get busy.

Thanks, Jason M. Blumer

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