Some years ago Mr. Jim Collins did an in depth research on companies that made the leap from mediocre results to exceptional financial returns over a period of time. He started his research with the quest of discovering the common driving point of what it takes to build a great organization.
To our surprise his years of empirical research lead he and his team to conclude that leadership beyond any other element is the single most important factor in building a truly great company and sustaining it through a long period of time.
In Mr. Collins book Good to Great he states his research lead him to the conclusion that there are five layers of leadership that when combined make a great leader. KMBriggs firmly believes in his research and agree with the following conclusions. (Please note the five listed below are not what Mr. Collins actually named them, nor are the definitions exactly what he stated in his book, however they are similar. We hope you pick up a copy of Good to Great as it is definitely a good investment of time well spent)
Five Level Leadership:
1) Technical skill - the ability to be a good worker including being organized, punctual, reliable, and other basic work ethic
2) Teammate - the ability to work with others in a team setting and to be a positive contributor to the effort of labor with others
3) Coordinator or Supervisor - the ability to pull people together and get teams to work toward goals and objectives
4) Visionary - the ability to see the larger picture and create plans based on the vision to lead the group to success
5) Humility - truly great leaders, the rare ones have a small ego or at least choose to set it a side. They actually believe and operate on the truth that they are not the reason success is being created. They believe the people and circumstance around them are the primary reason for the motion in their organization.
The truly great leaders possess all five of these traits and constantly seeks to strengthen each layer, regardless as to his status.
KMBriggs believes the development of all five traits are essential and each of them can be developed in any individual so long as it is brought to his attention, he desires to possess all five of them, and intentionally practices each level throughout his entire lifetime.
KMBriggs
August 2011
