4 Success Traits of Good to Great Leaders
Have you ever been belonged to an organization or perhaps just observed an organization that is being led by a ‘personality driven leader’?
What happens after one of these leaders leaves the organization?
Does this type of leader develop new strong leaders for the future?
Do you think this type of leader takes his organization to sustained greatness?
Today’s post is a second in a series examining the principles put forth by Jim Collins in his book Good To Great.
Collins proposes that Great Companies are led by what he calls Level 5 Leaders. These leaders are the opposite of the personality driven leader. Humble leadership is a key characteristic of the leaders of great companies.
The personality driven leader’s effectiveness is a direct result of the power of his personality. Many times these leaders are described as being charismatic leaders. They look good, smell good, talk good and make you feel good when you are around them.
These leaders are normally workaholics who micro-manage every aspect of their organizations. These leaders spend no time developing leaders in their organization because they see this as a threat to their own job security.
These personality driven leaders usually have huge egos and are often glamorized by the press as being the desired saviors that come in and rescue troubled companies and restore them to profitability. Lee Iacocca’s tenure at Chrysler is a great example of this type of leader and the wake they leave behind themselves when they depart.
When a personality driven leader leaves an organization there is an immediate leadership void due to the fact the personality driven leader did not invest any time in developing leaders. The result is an organization destined for some immediate decline due to the dependent relationship the organization had with the personality driven leader.
While it is true some of these type of leaders have some level of success in different organizations in the short term. When you evaluate their impact over the long term there are pitfalls to being led by this type of leader.
Collins makes it clear that this is not the type of leader who takes an organization from being a good company to a great company. Great companies are led by the opposite type of leaders as the personality driven leader’s organization.
4 Success Traits Of Good To Great Leaders
1. They set up their successors for success. It is common for many leaders to fail at setting up their organizations for success after they leave. These leaders mistakenly conclude that if the organization falls apart after their departure that it is somehow a testament to their greatness showing they are irreplaceable. Level 5 leaders contrast this trend by establishing a culture of leadership development where a leadership pipeline has been built to sustain the success of the leader long after he departs.
2. They have a compelling modesty. In contrast to the celebrity leaders that gather so much attention in our day and age, Level 5 leaders rarely if ever talk about themselves, instead focus attention on their team or the results of the company as a whole. Level 5 leaders don’t aspire to attain the celebrity status of many of their peers, but instead desire to live a life as an ordinary person producing extraordinary results.
3. They have unwavering resolve. Level 5 leaders simply do whatever it takes to make the company or organization great. These leaders are fanatically driven to produce sustained results with workmanlike diligence.
4. Every good to great company had Level 5 leadership. While there is a damaging trend to select dazzling celebrity leaders and deselect potential Level 5 leaders, good to great companies have a penchant for selecting only Level 5 leaders to lead their organizations to sustained success. 10 of 11 good to great CEOs came from within the company.
Level 1 Leader = Highly Capable Individual: Makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills and good work habits.
Level 2 Leader = Contributing Team Member: Contributes individual capabilities to the achievement of group objectives and works effectively with others in group settings.
Level 3 Leader = Competent Manager: Organizes people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives.
Level 4 Leader = Effective Leader: Catalyzes commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision, stimulating higher performance.
Level 5 Leader = Level 5 Executive: Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
What kind of leader are you?
Where do you and your team members fit on the leadership scale?
Do you have a personal improvement plan to move up the leadership scale?
Are you actively developing leaders throughout your organization?
If you need a resource for developing your leadership skills along with your team’s leadership aptitudes check out John Maxwell’s The 5 Levels of Leadership. Maxwell details a clear straightforward process for developing leaders in this book.
While his 5 Levels of Leadership are not the same as Jim Collins the principles to get to Level 5 leadership overlap a great deal. The diagram below gives a high level overview of these levels.
If you would like a Free PDF download of my summary of John Maxwell’s, The 5 Levels of Leadership fill out the form below to grab your copy.
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