Level 5 Leadership: Serve the Cause

So, I’ve read many of the Jim Collins books, Good to Great, Great By Choice, Built to Last are (or were) on the shelf.

(Were on the shelf because I give books to ‘loan’, never get ’em back which hopefully means they are of value and doing good things for people in the world.

I heard an inspirational (and reportedly rare) podcast interview with Jim Collins and Tim Ferris. During the Tim Ferris Podcast, Jim Collins talks about John McPhee, a great writer and a great teacher of writing (see Uncommon Carriers and Draft #4) and Peter Drucker.

That started me down a rabbit hole. It’s a bad habit. Jim Collins talked about the fact that Drucker wrote more than half of his books after age 65, which is inspiring to a 60.7 year old.

THAT turned into a need for a particular Peter Drucker article which you can only find in a book called “On Leadership” from Harvard Business Review. (I do this so you won’t have to.)

Lucky Me! The little orange book had a compact article called “Level 5 Leadership – The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve” which brings me back to my now popular thesis: Servant Leadership is effective leadership.

According Collins and this article, a level 5 leader “Builds Enduring Greatness” through a combination “of personal humility plus professional will“

The TLDR (too long didn’t read) is that Collins is not a fan of the Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca ego leaders. A level 5 leader is all about building the company for the long haul (vs. a quick buck or flash for investors). A level 5 leader is a ‘Strategist’.

Big Ideas:

• Great Companies are “Built to Last”
• Level 5 Leaders are strategists (or alchemists) in it for the long haul.
• Collins talks about a flywheel effect in which the company is slowly moved in direction based on strategy, and like a flywheel, it starts slow and builds momentum. (Deming talks about Constancy of Purpose, the first of the 14 points, Big Fan).

The Article from “On Leadership”

The “Level 5 Leadership” article talks about how to grow to level 5 leadership. It’s a short form of the many books and on point for this HBR book which is supposed to teach you to be a better leader. There’s a chunk “Growing to Level 5“

• First Who: Attend to people first, strategy second. I’d like to think that Collins coined “Right People on the bus” as well as “right seat on the bus”. Some of my greatest and most powerful engineers were found in the wrong seat in the big blue square bus. NOTE: Some people that I lured onto the bus were NOT great fits to our team and had to leave the bus.
• Stockdale Paradox: This one tickled me because Sensei Tatsuhiko Yoshimura used the Stockdale Paradox to teach us: Deal with reality / brutal truth and maintain faith that you will prevail.
• Buildup-Breakthrough Flywheel: Keep pushing / build momentum (big-mo) until breakthrough.
• The Hedgehog Concept: A) What can your company be best at? B) How do your economics work best? C) What ignites people’s passions (First Who). ELIMINATE EVERYTHING ELSE! (Constancy of Purpose)

That’s pretty much it. Read all of the Collins books. The Article in the orange book is good guidepost to grow your leadership style.

Caution: Servant / Level 5 Leadership MAY NOT be valued on some buses or bus companies. If the system at your company is full of short term metrics (at the expense of vision) and requires forced ranking of people, you may not be on the right bus: Your bus may be full of “The Big C” (Cortisol).

If you enter work and start to feel dread, anxiety and fear: Find a different organization to work in (or a different seat on the bus).

Don’t stick with a boss who is a cortisol monster (Deming says ‘Drive out Fear’). Cortisol is good when there is danger from outside / bad if you’re in a supposed circle of safety.

PS: I must be rich right? Always buying books? See the Link Below. Be patient, it ain’t Amazon but you get a book for $3 and $6 shipping.