Level 5 Leadership

Video Transcript

The X factor of truly great leadership is humility; humility combined with a ferocious will for something bigger than yourself, humility in a very special way. I want to be very clear. These people are ambitious. They have tremendous energy. They are often exhausting. They never want to stop. They’re utterly relentless. Okay, they have all that, but here’s the difference. See, for a 5 versus a 4—so, for a 4, all that energy and ambition and drive is about them. It’s about what they get. It’s about how they look. It’s about what they make. It’s about what accrues to them. It’s about whether they are the center. That’s a 4. 5s, all that same level of energy and drive and ambition is channeled outward into a cause, into a company, into a culture, into a quest, into something that is bigger and more enduring than they are. Level 5s lead in a spirit of service, and they subsume themselves and sacrifice for that.