Good To Great

I find many business books on leadership to be filled with a lot of fluff. Usually, they just rehash the buzzwords of the day and usually characterize leadership some sort of magical "charisma" to coerce or fool people into doing what you want. Good To Great by Jim Collins is not one of those books.

First off, Good to Great, was the result of two years of intense research by Collins' group of 21 researchers on what made a "great" company, and how a company went from just being profitable in the short term (good) to being "great", with examples of Kimberly Clark, Walgreens, Nucor...

Collins makes a number of key points:

1. Great companies have "Level 5 Leadership" (more on this later)
2. Great companies think about getting the right people before finding the right vision
3. Great companies are able to "confront the brutal facts" (not sugar coating weaknesses or faults in order to solve them)
4. Great companies know their strengths and follow the law of constant renewal
5. Great companies foster a culture of discipline
6. Great companies realize that technology is only an accelerator, a means to a greater end
7. Great companies build momentum by reinforcing their consistent efforts with success.

I'll spend this post talking a little bit more on what Collins calls "Level 5 Leadership".

Essentially Collins describes 5 levels of leadership:
Level 1: Highly capable individual
Level 2: Contributing team member
Level 3: Competent manager
Level 4: Effective Leader
Level 5: "Executive Leader"

Most of the levels are pretty self explanatory, except you might ask "What is the difference between Level 4 and 5?" According to Collins, "Level 5 leaders channel their ego away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company." They show personal humility and they never stop trying.

The problem with Level 4 leaders is that they are often wrapped up in themselves. They are "effective leaders" in a very strict sense of the term. They are able to motivate others to achieve, however because of this they often take on a "larger than life" or "rockstar" persona. We often see these types of "rockstar" CEO's flaunting their 9 figure salaries as they are surrounded by reporters from business magazines who proclaim him or her as a "genius". While they very well might be a genius, it doesn't set a very good example for the developing Young Leader.

First of all circumstances are completely different for each individual. What might work for one leader at one organization probably won't work completely at another. Secondly, a lot of Level 4 leadership success has to do with luck, being at the right place at the right time with the right people. A "great" organization needs more than just one genius leader... because no matter how long he or she stays in control, one day successor will be needed and without the proper culture, chance has it that another "genius" leader will not be the one taking the helm.

However, Level 5 leaders often breed more more Level 5 leaders. As such they will spend the time to cultivate successors who will have the discipline to keep the organization "great". This makes all the difference.

So check out Good to Great! It's definitely worth it.

-Jason