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Level 5 Leadership

Disciplines:
psychology/organizational psychology
management

Summary

Jim Collins's concept of the leadership style that distinguishes companies that make the leap from good to great — a paradoxical combination of extreme personal humility and fierce professional will.

Core Contribution

Level 5 hierarchy: Collins identified five levels of leadership capability, with Level 5 at the apex. The paradox: Level 5 leaders combine fierce resolve to do whatever it takes to make the company great with striking personal humility — they look out the window to attribute success to others, and in the mirror to accept responsibility for failures. Directly contradicts the 'celebrity CEO' model. Identified empirically from research on companies that outperformed their industries over 15+ years.

Historical Influences

Jim Collins's Good to Great research

Intellectual Lineage

Management Theory Servant Leadership

Allied Works

Good to Great Built to Last Great by Choice

Contemporaries & Peers

Servant Leadership Situational Leadership

Minds Influenced

Leadership Development Management Education

Intellectual Posterity

Leadership Theory

Discussing

Level 5 Leadership

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