HBS: Level 5 Leadership « Erik L. Johnson's BADM 720 Blog

     Jim Collin's believes that it takes a Level 5 leader to take a company from "good to great", and that a Level 5 Leader is someone that "blends extreme personal humility with intense professional will".  He goes on to describe some of the leaders from the 11 companies he researched and compares their similarities.  In my previous post "Good to Great, or Just Good?" we talked about two significant flaws in his research.   The first flaw dealt with data mining and that the research he presented was a pattern for a specific period in time.  There was no statistical evidence that suggested this pattern was anything other than random.  There was no explanation for the pattern, and it was not tested against other datasets and other periods of time.  In other words, there is no evidence that suggests applying the 5 principles he suggests and having a level 5 leader at the helm makes a "great" company.   The second flaw was association vs. causation.  In comparing a bunch of leaders and pulling out common characteristics we have really only made an association, or correlation, between those characteristics and the leaders for that period of time.  We have not done anything to explain the characteristics and how they relate to a level 5 leader.

     Please don't misunderstand this post.  I whole-heartedly agree that a truly great leader should be someone that is humble and not egocentric, and should have a resilient resolve.  However, I don't think that there is evidence that suggests that all we need to do is find a Level 5 CEO and we will have a great company.  I believe it takes much more than that.  Our efforts would be better spent instituting evidence-based management techniques at all levels of the organization.