Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve

HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition

Harvard Business Review, 2001, Digital

Product Description

Boards of directors typically believe that transforming a company from merely good to truly great requires a larger-than-life personality — an egocentric chief to lead the corporate charge. Think "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap or Lee Iacocca. In fact, that's not the case, says author and leadership expert Jim Collins. The essential ingredient for taking a company to greatness is having a "Level 5" leader at the helm — an executive in whom extreme personal humility blends paradoxically with intense professional will. Collins paints a compelling and counterintuitive portrait of the skills and personality traits necessary for effective leadership. He identifies the characteristics common to Level 5 leaders: humility, will, ferocious resolve, and the tendency to give credit to others while assigning blame to themselves. Collins fleshes out his Level 5 theory by telling colorful tales about 11 such leaders from recent business history. He contrasts the turnaround successes of outwardly humble, even shy, executives like Gillette's Colman M. Mockler and Kimberly-Clark's Darwin E. Smith with those of larger-than-life business leaders like Dunlap and Iacocca, who courted personal celebrity. The jury is still out on how to cultivate Level 5 leaders and whether it's even possible to do so, Collins admits. Some leaders have the Level 5 seed within; some don't. But Collins suggests using the findings from his research to strive for Level 5 — for instance, getting the right people on board and creating a culture of discipline. "Our own lives and all that we touch will be better for the effort," he concludes.

Product Details

Title: Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
Sales Rank: 254942 in Books
Author: Jim Collins
Publisher: Harvard Business Review, 2001-01-01, Digital, 13 pages

Customer Reviews

Nice Intro to Level 5: This article is a nice insight into Jim Collin's theory on Level 5 leaders, and why they are important. But, without context to the rest of the book "Good to Great", the article lacks the punch that the book does. If you like what he writes about being a Level 5 leader, go buy the book! More reviews

Good to Great - Level 5 leadership: I found this research book by Jim Collins and his research team to be very insighful book with some interesting findings. The part of the research that interested me most was the Level 5 leadership styles of the good to great CEO's. I am not an individual that is at a point who understands the complexity of a CEO's thought's and idea's, however reading this book was… More reviews

Leadership to outperform the market: Jim Collins operates a management research laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. Together with Jerry I. Porras he wrote the bestseller 'Built to Last' (1994). This article was published in the January 2001 issue of the Harvard Business Review.
This article reports on the author's research into how good companies can become great ones. "We looked for companies that had shifted… More reviews

Leadership to outperform the market: Jim Collins is a management research from Boulder, California. He is the co-author of 'Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies' and has written several other Harvard Business Review articles. Just like many Harvard Business Review articles, this article takes the idea from a book. In this instance, Jim Collins' latest book 'Good to Great'.
This article is based on a five-year research… More reviews