Most great companies grew up with superb parentspeople like george merck. Level 5 leadership is a concept developed by jim collins in his classic business book, good to great. An instrument to measure level 5 leadership article pdf available in journal of leadership studies 81. The objective of this research project was to develop a validated scale to measure level 5 leadership using the collins 2005 level 5 attributes. Level 5 leadership is a concept developed in the book good to great. While level 5 leaders can come in many personality. This is going to be the first in a series of blog posts where im going to go over various chapters from jim collins excellent book good to great. Level 5 leadership is an essential factor for taking a company from good to great, but its not the only one. To write good to great, 1,435 companies were analyzed over a 40 year period. Level 5 leadership mosaic project services pty ltd. Jim collins reinforces the idea that level 5 leaders look in.
The aim of this analysis was to find companies that had been good for a long time but had then transformed into great companies. And while level 5 leadership is not the only requirement for transforming a good company into a great one other factors include getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus and creating a culture of discipline our research shows it to be essential. Level 5 leaders display a powerful mixture of personal humility and indomitable will. People generally assume that transforming companies from good to great requires largerthanlife leadersbig personalities like lee iacocca, al dunlap, jack welch, and stanley gault. Level 5 leadership which is harder to cultivate within yourself. To kick things off im going to go over the chapter titled level 5 leadership in which jim collins introduces a hierarchy of leadership with level 5 being the topmost one reserved for the leaders that take a company from good to great. For example, level 4 leaders catalyze commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a. The fundamentals of level 5 leadership lesley university. Do that consistently, for long enough, and you may begin to reap the rewards of the next level. These people, who business researcher jim collins dubs level 5 leaders, represent a unique combination of executive capabilities, something that allows them. Theyre incredibly ambitious, but their ambition is first and foremost for the cause, for the organization and its purpose, not themselves. So to grow at the people development level, you need to make investing in leaders a priority, and take intentional steps every day to help them grow. Not what you would expect our discovery of level 5 leadership is counterintuitive. What catapults a company from merely good to truly great.