Level 5 Leadership Characteristics–an understanding of what you can be
Level 5 Hierarchy
I can’t help myself to get excited and talk about this great book by Jim Collins Good to Great (Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t). This is a follow up from my previous post on Hedgehog Concept. First, let me define what does a Level 5 Leader is. It refers to a five-level hierarchy of executive capabilities, with Level 5 at the top. Level 5 leaders embody a paradoxical mix of genuine personal humility and professional will. (A simple formula is Humility + Will = Level 5). They operated first and foremost with genuine humility – defined by a burning passionate obsessive ambition for the cause, for the work, for the company, not themselves. They had this utterly stoic will to make good on that ambition. They channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. A good example of a Level 5 Leader is United States President Abraham Lincoln who never let his ego get in away of his primary ambition for the larger cause of an enduring country.
Here are some few characteristics of a level 5 leader.
Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results. They are resolved to do whatever it takes to make the company great, no matter how big or hard decisions.
Level 5 leaders look out the window to attribute success to factors other than themselves. When things go poorly, however, they look in the mirror and blame themselves, taking full responsibility. The comparison CEOs often did just the opposite – they looked in the mirror to take credit for success, but out the window to assign blame for disappointing results.
Can you learn to become a level 5 leader in your own field of work? Jim Collins hypothesis is that there are two categories of people: those who do not have the seed of Level 5 and those who do. The first category consists of people who could never in a million years bring themselves to subjugate their egoistic needs to the greater ambition of building something larger and more lasting than themselves. For these people, work will always be first and foremost about what they get – fame, fortune, adulation, power, whatever – not what they build, create, and contribute.
The second category of people consists of those who have the potential to evolve to Level 5; the capability resides within them, perhaps buried or ignored, but nonetheless. And under right circumstance – self reflection, conscious personal development, a mentor, a great teacher, loving parents, a significant life experience, a Level 5 boss, or any number of other factors – they begin to develop. Some of the level 5 CEOs like Darwin Smith of Kimberly Clark fully blossomed after his battle with cancer. Gillette’s Colman M. Mockler converted to evangelical Christianity while getting his MBA at Harvard, and later, according to the book Cutting Edge became the prime mover in a group of Boston business executives who met frequently over breakfast to discuss the carryover of religious values at corporate life.
There is a potential of Level 5 leaders that exist all around us, if we know what to look for, and that many people have the potential to evolve into Level 5. So how can one grow in level 5 direction? There are no specific steps to become one but an understanding about what you can become with your decisions is a great start. Imagine yourself walking in a path and a decision is needed. In the right hand path if you make that decision is about yourself, your ego, what you will get and on the left path is different decision that reflects more ambition for the cause, or the work. In some point you are confronted with that actual concrete decision and you are pulled to the right but you step to the left. This might be the start of what you can be in this process.
I suggest that you read the book so that you will understand what I am trying to share. Honestly, I wrote the key concepts about level 5 here so that I can just go back here and understand the process and besides I have to return the book to the library (haha! 
)
Please check out Jim Collins audio about can you be a level 5 leader?
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Hedgehog Concept-an understanding what you can be best at
Are you a hedgehog or a fox?
In the famous essay by Isaiah Berlin “The Hedgehog and the Fox” the world is divided into two types. The fox knows many things. The fox is a very cunning creature, able to devise a myriad of complex strategies to sneak attack upon hedgehog. The hedgehog knows one big thing. That is rolling up into a perfect little ball thus becoming a sphere of sharp spikes, pointing outward in all directions. The hedgehog always wins despite the different tactics the fox used.
Just recently, I managed to read the book and also listened to the audio book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by Jim Collins. This is a highly must read book even though it was about business companies but I found that individuals can learn especially the Hedgehog Concept of Chapter 5. I actually kept on listening the audio book a lot of times, it was like having Jim Collins as your coach by your side. That was priceless.
The Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from the deep understanding about the intersection of the following circles:
- What you can be the best in the world at (and, equally important what you cannot be the best in the world at). This basic understanding goes far beyond core competence. A core competency does not guarantee that you can be best in the world at it. Conversely, what you can be the best at might not even be something in which you are currently engaged.
- What drives your economic engine? Most of the good-to-great companies discovered a single driving denominator as profit per x, which had the greatest impact on their economics. For social sector, instead of economic, resource engine – which is broken into three parts as time, money, and brand.
- What you are deeply passionate about. The good-to-great companies focused on those activities that ignited their passion. The idea here is not to stimulate passion but to discover what makes you passionate.
To understand more simply about the 3 questions so that we can apply to our personal understanding, here are some guiding statements. First, you are doing work for which you have a genetic or God-given talent, and perhaps you could become one of the best in the world in applying that talent. (“I feel that I was just born to do this?”) Second, you are well paid for what you do. (“I get paid to do this? Am I dreaming?”) Third, you are doing work you are passionate about and absolutely love to do, enjoying the actual process for its own sake.(“I look forward to getting up and throwing myself into my daily work, and I really believe in what I’m doing.”)
A Hedgehog Concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. It is simply an understanding of what you can be the best at. This distinction is very crucial.
Here are some exercises that you can do to be able to find and understand your hedgehog concept. Get 3 sheets of paper. On the first sheet of paper, do an analysis of yourself. What I am truly passionate about? What do I love to do? List down as many things that you love to do even when you are a child. Start with, I love to… On the second sheet of paper, what am I genetically encoded for? I feel like I was kind of made to do this. What fits your capabilities? What fits your psychology? What fits me why I was put here on this earth to do? On third sheet of paper, what are all the various things that you can think of that will allow you to have an economic engine? What are the things that you can do that make you a living if you’re allowed to do that?
Give those sheets of papers to your trusted friends and ask them for the thoughts where do you see the intersection across these 3 sheets? What kind of direction do you think that this might help me see as the right direction for me?
Please play this audio advise by Jim Collins on How to Find Your Personal Hedgehog Concept?
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