Level 5 Leadership Archives

Can Leadership be Taught? What Most Companies Get Wrong

08/21/2021Jon Rennie

Have you ever considered the question of whether leadership can be taught?

There has always been a lot of debate about whether leaders are born or made.

I was thinking about this subject over the past week, and I remembered an interaction with a former employee. It was when I was a manufacturing plant manager at a large global company.

This employee was a manufacturing technician at the plant, and he stopped by my office one afternoon to talk to me.

I knew this employee very well. He was a hard worker who always went the extra mile. People looked up to him. He seemed to have a natural ability to lead others. He was someone I was considering for a supervisory role in the plant.

He asked me an interesting question, “I want to have your job. What do I need to do?”

The question took me by surprise. I had never had anyone ask me what it took to get to my position. I considered him as someone with leadership potential, so I was happy to share my story.

I proceeded to describe exactly what I had done to get into this role. I told him about four years of engineering school, a year of nuclear power training, five years of leading on a nuclear submarine, two years of MBA school, and eight years of corporate leadership experience. I explained how I had a mentor and started small and gained more responsibility over nearly two decades of leading people.

I told him he could do the same.

He shocked me with his response when he said, “You don’t understand. I don’t want to do all that. I just want to have your job.”

This employee failed to understand that there are no shortcuts when it comes to learning how to be an effective leader. Many companies make this mistake as well.

Even if you are born with the natural skills to be a great leader, you need practice. All the ability and training in the world won’t help.

To learn leadership, you need to be a leader.

To learn leadership, you need to be a leader. Click To Tweet

You’ve likely heard of the 10,000-hour rule, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book Outliers. Gladwell states that it takes 10,000 hours of intensive practice to achieve mastery of complex skills, like playing the violin.

Sure, there are people born with the natural ability to play an instrument, but it takes years of practice and a great mentor to become a master of the craft.

Leadership is the same.

Even if someone is gifted with natural leadership ability, they need practice.

You can’t just send someone to leadership training and expect them to become a great leader. They can certainly learn the basics, but they need the opportunity to lead to develop leadership skills.

You can’t just send someone to leadership training and expect them to become a great leader. Click To Tweet

Like the violinist, they need to start small and practice leadership under an experienced mentor to gain experience.

The problem with most companies is that they promote people into management with no plan to develop their necessary skills to be a leader. At best, these employees might get some rudimentary leadership training, but most new managers are left alone to figure it out.

Often they are promoted, not because of their leadership potential, but because they were a solid individual contributor. Many of these managers slip back into what they are comfortable with, being a doer and not a leader.

Instead of practicing leadership, they spend their days in meetings, working on emails, and doing spreadsheets. They never learn how to become an effective leader. They fail to build a relationship with their teams, establish clear goals, and motivate employees.

And the failure of the leader eventually results in poor performance, disengaged employees, and high turnover.

So, can leadership be taught?

The answer is yes. But not in the way of traditional training programs.

The best way to learn to become an effective leader is to practice leadership. Aspiring leaders need to be given opportunities to lead small teams under the careful observation of an experienced leader.

Like a master-apprentice relationship, the young leader will gain mastery through continued practice and guidance.

When it comes to learning how to lead, there are no shortcuts.

If you are interested in how I learned to lead as a young submarine officer, look at my new book, All in the Same Boat. I share my transition from a rookie leader to a qualified, experienced division officer.

[Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash]

Is it Time for the Introverted Leader?

01/13/201508/06/2021Jon Rennie

What type of individual makes a great leader? The answer to that question is likely to cause a debate in any social circle. The truth is, leaders are people and people come in all shapes and sizes. Most people think of the stereotypical leader as someone who is confident, charismatic, outgoing, and larger-than-life; but what about the introvert? Can introverts make great leaders?

Jessica Stillman tackles this question in a great article in Inc.com called 7 Reasons Introverts Make Great Leaders. In the article she warns about being seduced by charisma and overlooking more quiet individuals. She explains that, “introverted personality types come equipped with significant leadership advantages.” Her seven reasons make a lot of sense:

They’re better listeners
They’re better prepared
They go deep
They don’t mind solitude
They keep their cool
They don’t settle
They write more

In fact, this is exactly what Jim Collins found when researching his landmark business book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t. In that book, Jim and his team researched 1,500 companies and identified 11 that made the leap from being good companies to ones that outpaced the market for a significant period of time. In working to determine all the factors that led to these remarkable transformations, he discovered something unique in the leadership traits of their CEOs. They were not the charismatic, outgoing types but had quiet, almost shy, personalities.

This “paradoxical combination of personal humility and professional will,” which he called Level 5 Leadership, was always present in the CEOs of companies that made the leap to a great company. As I wrote in a previous article, What Level is your Leadership?, there is extensive evidence that charismatic, extroverted CEOs have the ability to improve their companies in the short-term, but long-term transformation only occurs with a Level 5 Leader at the helm.

Jim explained Level 5 Leadership in greater detail in an HBR article called Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve. The leadership qualities of personal humility and professional will he called the “yin and yang” of Level 5 Leadership.

Level 5 leaders demonstrate personal humility:

They are modest, shunning public adulation; never boastful.
They act with quiet, calm determination; relying principally on inspired standards, not inspiring charisma, to motivate.
They channel their ambition into the company, not themselves; they set up successors for even more greatness in the next generation.
They look in the mirror, not out the window, to apportion responsibility for poor results, never blaming other people, external factors, or bad luck.

Level 5 leaders demonstrate professional will:

They demonstrate an unwavering resolve to do whatever must be done to produce the best long-term results, no matter how difficult.
They create superb results and are the clear catalyst in the transition from good to great.
They set the standard of building an enduring great company; they will settle for nothing less.
They look out the window, not in the mirror, to apportion credit for the success of the company—to other people, external factors, and even good luck.

While I still believe leaders come in all shapes and sizes, there is an argument to be made for the introverted leader. Introverted leaders come equipped with significant leadership advantages and, if combined with a deep relentless will to succeed, they can lead companies to remarkable transformations. So, what do you think? Is the stereotypical model of the charismatic leader wrong? Are we ignoring more introverted employees as potential leaders? Are there times when organizations need an extroverted leader and times when an introverted leader is needed?

What Level is your Leadership?

11/03/201408/06/2021Jon Rennie

Lolly Daskal’s article in Inc.com last week was a great reminder of a famous HBR article I read years ago, one that changed my view of leadership completely. Lolly’s article provides excellent insight on leadership qualities and is a good read. In it, she describes 10 important adjustments to make in your leadership style to be a boss who goes from being good to great.

Her article reminded me of the timeless leadership lessons that Jim Collins uncovered while writing his best-selling business book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t. In that book, Jim and his team researched 1,500 companies and identified 11 that made the leap from being good companies to ones that outpaced the market. The 11 great companies he identified averaged cumulative stock returns nearly 7 times the general stock market for more than 15 years. In working to determine all the factors that led to these remarkable transformations, he discovered something unique in the leadership traits of their CEOs. He called it Level 5 Leadership.

He introduced the world to his discovery in an HBR article called Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve. What he revealed in that landmark article was something that was counterintuitive, revolutionary, and still true to this day. His findings challenged the age-old, conventional wisdom that the best CEOs had to have large egos, be charismatic, and act like larger-than-life figures. Instead, he discovered the CEOs that built these long-term, sustainable, great companies had a “paradoxical combination of personal humility and professional will.”

According to his research, Level 5 Leadership was a necessary requirement for these companies to transform from good to great. He cites examples of companies like Kimberly-Clark, Gillette, Abbott Laboratories, Walgreens, and Nucor Steel. Each of these companies was transformed into a great organization, one that outpaced the market, under the guidance of a Level 5 Leader.

So what exactly is a Level 5 Leader? According to Jim Collins, the Level 5 Leader sits on top of a hierarchy of 5 different leadership types:

Level 5 – Executive – Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical combination of personal humility plus professional will.

Level 4 – Effective Leader – Catalyzes commitment to a 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 – Contributes 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 research showed extensive evidence of Level 4 Leaders who had improved companies in the short-term, but long-term transformation only occurred with a Level 5 Leader at the helm. Level 5 Leaders have two unique leadership characteristics not seen in Level 4 Leaders. Collins describes these qualities, personal humility and professional will, as the “yin and yang” of Level 5 Leadership:

Level 5 Leaders are humble and exhibit personal humility

They demonstrate a compelling modesty, shunning public adulation; never boastful.
They act with quiet, calm determination; relying principally on inspired standards, not inspiring charisma, to motivate.
They channel their ambition into the company, not themselves; they set up successors for even more greatness in the next generation.
They look in the mirror, not out the window, to apportion responsibility for poor results, never blaming other people, external factors, or bad luck.

Level 5 Leaders demonstrate relentless professional will

They create superb results and are the clear catalyst in the transition from good to great.
They demonstrate an unwavering resolve to do whatever must be done to produce the best long-term results, no matter how difficult.
They set the standard of building an enduring great company; they will settle for nothing less.
They look out the window, not in the mirror, to apportion credit for the success of the company—to other people, external factors, and even good luck.

Jim’s stories of these humble-but-fierce CEOs who led remarkable turnarounds in their organizations, forever changed the way I thought of leadership. His well-researched and compelling arguments changed the minds of many others as well. Much of the thinking on corporate leadership was challenged by his revolutionary findings. Today, you can see evidence of his influence in leadership books, articles and blog posts. If you go back and re-read Lolly Daskal’s article you can see the traces of Level 5 Leadership in her descriptions of a what makes a great boss.