Personal Humility and Professional Will

Jim Collins is a world-renowned business writer, and his book Good to Great is one of the leading business books ever written. Collins and his research team sifted through more than 1,400 companies to finally identify just 11 that met their criteria for Good-to-Great businesses and then gain empirical evidence to differentiate the habits of the good from the great.

The first concept Collins presents in his book is Level 5 leadership, which is described summarily as personal humility and professional will. Interestingly, CEOs of all eleven subject Good-to-Great companies demonstrated this paradox, while CEOs of the comparison companies were "celebrity leaders" that had all the chutzpah and fanfare but in the end delivered mediocre results at best.

Determined ambition is often accompanied with egotism in the most apparent leaders, but the evidence clearly demonstrates the value of humility in leadership. To maximize leadership potential, one must learn to appreciate the efforts of their entire team and defer credit to others at every opportunity. In the words of former President Harry Truman, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

Collins suggests that Level 5 leaders are most likely to be found in areas where a lot is accomplished and no one is taking credit for it. These rare leaders are not especially comfortable receiving accolades for their accomplishments; instead, they view their work as simply doing what needed to be done. As one executive illustrated when comparing himself to a flashy comparison executive, "He's more of a showhorse, whereas I'm more of a workhorse."

There is far more discipline and far less recognition in Level 5 leadership than conventional leadership; this leadership style is reserved for those who are more inspired by excellence for its own sake than excellence for the sake of personal gain. Ironically, those leaders less concerned with the appearance of success tend to realize the success that the charismatic, egocentric, conventional leaders aspire to but likely will never attain.

The results speak for themselves.

Appendix to Changing Times

I just read this verse, which succintly and reverently encapsulates what I tried to say in my last post:

So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto wisdom. ~ Psalm 90:12

Amen.