What I find fascinating in Good to Great by Jim Collins is the issue of leadership. Through research conducted on companies in the USA, Collins found that good companies which became great companies had leaders who were ‘self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy‘. They were more like ‘Lincoln and Socrates rather than Patton or Caesar’.
This finding flies in the face of popular culture where successful corporate CEOs are perceived as being brash, egocentric, high profile leaders with big personalities. In today’s world Donald Trump comes to mind as someone regarded in the eyes of the public as being a highly successful CEO type.
Collins found that great leaders are incredibly ambitious but their ambition is for their institution and not themselves. Great leaders were also no pushovers. They may have been humble but they had an absolute focus and stoic determination to do whatever needed to be done to make the company great. Great leaders took personal responsibility for their actions. When things went well they gave credit to factors outside themselves, while when things went badly they blamed themselves.
So what can we learn for our own lives? We can learn that we need to be humble. We need to praise and give credit to the people around us – give credit where credit is due. We need focus on building the institution we work with rather than focusing on building our own ego and we need a ‘ferocious resolve’ to do what needs to be done. We also need to question the popular perception of leadership and realise that larger than life, egocentric type CEOs may not be as good as they seem.
Perhaps you are a potential ‘Good to Great’ leader but may have thought of yourself as too shy or humble to be a great leader? In that case you need to think again – you may be just the type of leader your institution and the world needs.
Best Wishes,
Tom
PS More lessons from the book next week. In the meantime have a look at Jim Collins’s website for further information and resources.
Grab your copy of Good to Great from Amazon: