Good to Great (2)

A level 5 leader is a person already exceeds four levels of competence, i.e individually capable (level 1), contributing member (level 2), effective manager (level 3), and visionary leader (level 4). At the beginning of their research, Jim Collins and team tried to denounce the leader role in transforming a company from good to great. Nonetheless, the research shows the opposite. In the critical transition period, the great companies indeed were lead by level five leaders whose characteristics are:

1. having ambition to make the companies great, not themselves; 
   
2. preparing better successors to make sure after them the companies would only get greater; 
   
3. calm, humble, even seemingly timid; 
   
4. always pointing at the person at the mirror (themselves) responsible for failure, but pointing at the persons out of the window (others) responsible for success; and 
   
5. emerging from inside the companies, not celebrity CEO’s from outside.
   

With regard to the third and fourth characteristics above, a level 5 leader always acknowledges fortune and help of others as the reason for the company greatness.

In my next post, we will discuss the second factor… First Who… Then What.