The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential (30 page)

If you become a Level 5 leader, never forget that like everyone else, you started at the bottom as a positional leader. You had to work to build relationships. You had to prove your productivity. And investing in the lives of others came about only with effort. Be confident, but also be humble. If you’ve become successful, it’s only because a lot of other people helped you all along the way.

When leaders reach Level 5, the number of opportunities they receive becomes extraordinary. Everyone wants to hear what such leaders have to say. But many of these opportunities are really little more than distractions. They won’t help the leader’s organization or cause.

In
Good to Great,
Jim Collins tells a story that illustrates how this can happen. The example he gives is of former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca. Collins writes:

If leaders who reach the Pinnacle want to make the most of their time there, they must remain focused on their vision and purpose and continue leading at the highest level.

I’m sorry to admit that I’ve occasionally lost focus in my own leadership. It happened to me at EQUIP several years ago. During the first eight years of the company’s existence, we focused on training one million leaders internationally. We called it the Million Leaders Mandate. It consumed our attention, and we put all our resources to work making it happen. When we reached our goal, we celebrated. I gave each staff member, leadership trainer, and major donor a ring in appreciation for their help. But then, we lost focus. We continued to train leaders, but we experienced a letdown. I wasn’t focused on a new goal, so neither was the team. That was a big mistake, and it meant that we didn’t use the momentum we had built to keep moving forward at our previous pace. The good news is that the leaders of EQUIP huddled together, identified our next big mountain, and refocused our energies once again to make the climb.

No matter where you are in your leadership journey, never forget that what got you to where you are won’t get you to the next level. Each step forward requires focus and a willingness to keep learning, adapting, strategizing, and working. You don’t stay on top without focus, humility, and hard work.

L
eadership should always be about others, not about the leader. That’s true at every level, and it’s especially important on Level 5 because having people follow out of deep respect is the height of leadership. Pinnacle leaders have a lot of horsepower, and they need to make good use of it while they’re on top to do more than help themselves. Here are my suggestions:

One of the most important things any Level 5 leader can do is make room at the top for other leaders. Most leaders make it their goal to cultivate
followers
. But gathering followers doesn’t create room for other leaders. As a Pinnacle leader, you must create that room. That begins on Level 4 when you start developing leaders. If you do that continually and promote good leaders whenever you can, you create a cycle of positive change in the organization that creates room for leaders. That may seem counterintuitive. Wouldn’t having more leaders create less room? No. And here’s why: when you develop a leader who develops other leaders, you create more room at the top because you increase the size and power of the entire organization. Every time you develop good leaders and help find a place for them to lead and make
an impact, they gather more good people to them. As a result, the organization grows (along with its potential) and it needs more good leaders. This process creates a cycle of expansion and a kind of momentum toward the top for other leaders that helps to propel the organization forward.

Developing leaders from the Pinnacle level requires great skill and intentionality. It is not easy to develop leaders. It’s even more difficult to develop leaders who will devote themselves to developing other leaders instead of just leading. As I studied leaders who had only followers versus leaders who developed leaders, I began to notice some subtle but clear differences. Here are the characteristics of a Level 5 leader who develops leaders:

Early in my leadership career I loved it when people needed me. And it was music to my ears when they told me so. I loved hearing things such as “We couldn’t make it without you. What would we do if you were gone? You’re the only leader that really understands us.” Sadly, I believed them!

The reality is that no one is indispensible. Worse, allowing others to become dependent does little more than satisfy a leader’s ego. It is a very limiting leadership style that has a very short life span.

The first step in developing leaders is to have a desire to develop people so that they can succeed without you. Leadership author and former FedEx executive Fred A. Manske Jr., observed, “The ultimate leader is one who is willing to develop people to the point that they eventually surpass him or her in knowledge and ability.” On the Pinnacle level, that should always be your goal.

Some leaders take a counseling approach to developing people. By that I mean that they focus on what the person is doing poorly or wrong, and they focus their attention on helping them make corrections in those areas. In fact, when I began my career, I spent a lot of time counseling people. But to my great frustration, I saw little improvement in the people I worked with. To be fair, I really wasn’t a good counselor. But I also had a eureka moment when I figured out the main reason we weren’t making progress. I was focused on people’s weaknesses. That’s no way to develop people.

If you want to develop people, you must help them discover and build upon their strengths. That’s where people have the most potential to grow. Helping to develop their strengths is the only way to help leaders become world-class.

Did you play follow the leader as a kid? The goal of the game was to hold onto your place in the front of the line as long as possible. The kids who won were most aggressive at trying to do something no one else could imitate. As a Level 5 leader, you need to be as aggressive about giving away power to other leaders as you were at hoarding it when you were a kid. That requires an abundance attitude, where your mind-set is “Let’s Lead Together.” You must become a world-class empowerer. As Lynne Joy McFarland asserted in the book
21st Century Leadership: Dialogue with 100 Top Leaders,
“The empowerment leadership model
shifts away from ‘position power’ to ‘people power’ where all people are given leadership roles so they can contribute to their fullest capacity.”

One of the keys to developing leaders—at any level—is seeing people not as they are or as others see them, but as they could be. Having a hand in closing the gap between how someone is and the fulfillment of their potential is what motivates Level 5 leaders to raise up other leaders to Level 4. Seeing
what is
takes very little talent. Seeing
what could be—
and helping to make it reality—takes vision, imagination, skill, and commitment. That’s what a Pinnacle leader needs to bring to the table.

Leading and developing leaders is not easy. Leaders with high potential will only follow leaders who are ahead of them—in ability, experience, or both. Someone who is a 9 in leadership won’t follow a 5. For that reason, Pinnacle leaders cannot delegate the leadership development process of potential leaders to others who are less talented than those being mentored. It simply doesn’t work. If there are potential Level 4 or Level 5 leaders in your organization and you’re a Level 5 leader, you must dedicate the time and effort to mentoring them. Otherwise they will go elsewhere to find a Level 5 leader who is willing to do it. The best potential leaders will not remain in the organization unless you go to them where they are, extend your hand, and help them to climb up to your level.

I’ve been teaching and writing on the subject of leadership for three and a half decades, and in that time I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of organizations. Each of them has been unique with questions, needs, and conditions unlike any other. However, all of them have had one thing in common. They needed more and better leaders! Not once has anyone in an organization said, “We have too many leaders. And the ones we have are better than we want. Can you help us get rid of some?”

Recently I attended an interview between my friend Bill Hybels and former General Electric CEO Jack Welch. Bill was asking Welch questions about succession (a subject I’ll address specifically in a moment). Welch said that a few years before he exited General Electric, he made a list of potential successors. The list included three categories: leaders on the inside track, leaders with potential, and long shots—and he named several people.

As he spoke, I began to wonder how he was able to choose from the inside-track leaders, but before I could go very far in my thinking, Welch amazed me by mentioning that his successor had come from the long-shot category. And that got me thinking about the importance of mentoring. I came to these conclusions:

1. You have to have a lot of good leaders to select the best leaders.
   
2. You must give your best to all potential Level 5 leaders because you may be surprised by who finishes the strongest.
   

No matter what your leadership potential may be, you should strive to work your way up to Level 4 so that you can invest in others. But if you reach Level 5, you have a much greater responsibility. No one other than a Level 5 leader can raise up other Level 5 leaders. If you
make it to the Pinnacle, give your best potential leaders your best and never stop mentoring them.

When leaders reach Level 4, their inner circle makes them better. The Law of the Inner Circle says that those closest to leaders determine their potential. Inner circle members help leaders take their organization to a higher level. That’s still true on Level 5, but the inner circle must also fulfill another function: it must keep the leader grounded. As I’ve already explained, it’s very easy for leaders to begin believing their own press on Level 5. A good inner circle can help leaders on the Pinnacle level to avoid that pitfall.

Jim Collins, in
How the Mighty Fall
, writes about the erosion of healthy team dynamics that can occur in highly successful organizations. “There is a marked decline in the quality and amount of dialogue and debate; there is a shift toward either consensus or dictatorial management rather than a process of argument and disagreement followed by unified commitment to execute decisions.” When those things occur, the leader and the organization are headed for trouble.

On Level 5, a good inner circle will allow leaders to be themselves, but inner circle members will also tell them the truth about themselves. These things keep the journey enjoyable, prevent loneliness, and keep leaders from developing hubris. And here’s the good news. The people in your inner circle can become your favorite people—like family.

Being on Level 5 allows a leader to see and do things that cannot be done from any other place in leadership. Some of those things are obvious. If you’re the top leader in your organization, you need to guide it.
You need to be a good model to everyone in the organization by valuing people, continuing to grow, practicing the golden rule, being authentic, exhibiting good values, and living out the right priorities.

Other things may be less obvious and very specific to your situation and organization. You may be able to create a groundbreaking product or service. You may be able to champion a value or cause that no one else could as effectively. You may be able to help people improve their lives. You may be able to impact your community in a unique way. You may have relationships with people who can help you to do something important. All the work you’ve done and all the influence you’ve gained over the years just might be in your hands so that you can do something bigger with it. You have to keep your eyes, ears, and heart open to the possibilities. The success you have hasn’t been given to you for only yourself. Level 5 leaders have a platform to lead and persuade. Whenever possible, use it to pass on those things that have helped you. Leadership is influence. Leverage it to add value to others.