Leadership and Level 5 Leaders

Leadership can be hard to define, and it means different things to different people. It could relate to community, religious, political, and campaigning groups' leadership. Regardless of its definition, it is about mapping where we need to go to win as a team or an organization. It is dynamic, exciting, inspiring and a complex phenomenon that includes the interaction between the social environment of organizations and their leaders. It is more than just a skill, is has been conceptualized as a social process.

Jim Collins and his research team developed a leadership hierarchy based on their research on companies that were transformed from good to great and comparable ones which failed to grow. The top layer of the leadership model is called ‘Level 5’, a necessary requirement to transform organizations to a great position. There are 4 layers beneath the top level, each appropriate to its own right, but none with the influence of level 5. The model characteristics are as follow:

Level 5 – Executives: builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical combination of personal humility plus professional will.

Level 4 – Effective leader: catalyzes commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision; stimulates the group to high-performance standards.

Level 3 – Competent Manager: organizes people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives.

Level 2 – Contributing team member: Contributing to the achievement of group objectives; works effectively with others in a group setting.

Level 1 – Highly capable individual: makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills, and good work habits.

Collin’s leadership model provides a framework to identify where one stands and how to develop to go up in the chain.