Imagine you receive an email from the new superstar leader of your company. They have a plan for you. It is about working “extremely hard” until all the technical problems the company faces are fixed. There won’t be any other compensation than the chance to be part of this epic project. If you agree, you’ll join a special group connected to the world’s richest person for their next adventure. Otherwise, if you prefer to stick to your job contract and protect your family or personal life, you’ll lose your job, with some compensation aceptable for your country’s laws. You’ve got a few hours to decide. What would you answer?
It seems a major part of the Twitter employees declined the invitation. Is this a surprise?
Certainly many employees were already working very hard, and the new proposal sounded like a wild 24/7. Specially seeing how it was spiced up by photos in the media as inspiring as Esther Crawford using a sleeping bag in her cubicle. In addition, some of the problems were caused by the landing of this new boss, who had fired half the staff, let several key executives resign and announced to great fanfare sone hasty decisions he later had to reconsider.
Did the new owner expect a more favorable response, or was the high number of rejections in his plans, as a way to identify and fire anyone who has boundaries preventing them from giving themselves wholeheartedly? In fact, from the point of view of his quality as a leader, I don’t care. The value of the company – which has fallen dramatically in this chaotic situation – may recover, but mutual trust, social image and the ability to generate purpose for employees will probably not recover.
Elon Musk has been until now one of the most admired leaders for many young entrepreneurs. They saw him as a provocative, ambitious and transgressive individual, with a privileged intelligence and creativity and a superior capacity for work. For many, he probably remains a reference, despite this episode of leadership failure. For those of us who think leadership should be measured by the impact on the organization, people and society, and not by the ego, the model is worthless.
Today we have taken Musk as an example of a type of leadership that fails. Yesterday it could have been Zuckerberg having to answer in court for failing to protect his users. Or Kalanik, getting rich with a disruptive and libertarian idea of urban transport that has never been profitable despite his lobbying efforts near the limits of legality.
Why do we put self centric, impulsive and despotic leaders on pedestals?
It seems the business public opinion has simply replaced XXth century suits and white shirts with sneakers, Wall Street with Silicon Valley, and speeches with social media posts. Just a superficial restyling, instead of overcoming mythomania and looking for inspiration in more humble and productive models of behavior.
Cult of the individual and impulsive decision-making are attitudes that do not fit into the leadership model in which I believe, which I have practiced and which I try to pass on to my mentees.
In the early 2000’s, when I was being mentored, someone put in my hands a reading that marked my reflections on this topic: “From Good to Great“, by Jim Collins. This short article summarizes one of the classic books on leadership that I recommend reading (*). Collins had identified a group of admirable business leaders with a very different traits. He called them Level 5 leaders, referring to the highest level of impact on a scale he defined, and surprisingly he noted some common characteristics in their styles.
Instead of shining as charismatic individuals, these individuals often displayed humble, quiet, and even reserved personalities, combined with a strong will to make their company great. They are extremely ambitious people, but their ambition is not at the service of their ego, but of something greater than themselves: their organization or their cause.
Collin had studied 1,435 “good” companies, including the most successful in the Fortune 500, and found the 11 that had made a marked transition “from good to great”. This few had achieved spectacular and very sustainable growth over time. Run by discreet and fiercely committed individuals, these eleven companies had achieved far better growth than GE in its heydays under Jack Welch, probably the epitome of the 20th-century authoritarian and personalist leader. Collins looked for common characteristics in these leaders. The results debunked many myths.
None of those growth processes was driven by change programs with sophisticated internal marketing messages. They were not incentivated by expensive stock option programs for managers, nor by fear, nor by acquisitions, technological disruptions or by revolutions in the environment. The changes were the result of the quiet and focused work of managers and teams in a disciplined pursuit of excellence.
The level 5 leader effectively manages to recruit wills not around his ego, but in favor of his cause, be it a company, a project or a social cause. Unlike arbitrary and personalistic leadership, which confuses followers, the leader who demonstrates self-discipline inspires enormous discipline in his companies, both in thought and in action.
Thought discipline makes it possible to identify the intersection between vocation, competence and profitability, and to focus on that sweet spot with an almost obsessive intensity. Collins compares this intensity to that of a hedgehog defending itself, using a concept from the philosopher Isaiah Berlin.
Action discipline means doing what is necessary and stopping everything that is not. This obvious advice, being so simple, is often forgotten in business strategies. Often plans derail because management wants to pursue every opportunity. Strong leadership focuses on an objective, project or organization, and puts all efforts at the service of that adventure.
The Level 5 leader is well aware of serving something bigger than him or herself.
The concept of service is central to this model and links it with the servant leadership proposed by Robert K. Greenleaf. Greenleaf defends that the leader should focus on serving the organization and the people who form it, creating a shared ethic and a sense of belonging. These feelings, and not admiration or charisma, create loyalty and active participation of the followers in decisions. This idea has generated interesting debates, and has undoubtedly had a positive impact on companies applying some of its principles. In any case, it comes from theory, while level 5 leadership is more realistic because it starts from the observation of specific and real-life behaviors of success.
As Collins found such behaviors in the eleven best companies in the Fortune 500 index, today, 20 years later, any of us can add our own names to the list. They are those people that we find in our career, perhaps in less visible but equally excellent companies, who impress us with their authenticity and commitment. Xavier Marcet, in one of his many and very inspiring articles on leadership, portrays them like this:
“People who combine vision, passion, demand and humility. People who embody a way of doing things that makes the ambition of projects and businesses compatible with a contained personal spirit”
These leaders have names, of course, but they don’t necessarily include the superstars who get all the flashes in the news and the “likes” on the social media. And that is why we will not end with a list to put on the pedestals from which some myths have fallen. Learning from the good people is great, but you can choose your own role models, and don’t forget that the reference you are looking for has your name. That specific behavior of yours that makes you successful and leads you to take care of those around you, is the one you should pursue and develop.
(*) For those who prefer the screen, the author offers good summaries and documentation in his web.