Are there any Level 5 Leaders?
The key difference between level 4 and level 5 leaders is that the former promote their own ideas for new directions while the latter draw ideas for new strategies out of their teams. This is the point of the slogan “first who then what” which applies to the level 5 leader. This leader gets people together and asks them what they think in order to generate new “what’s.” The level 4 leader, by contrast, lives by the opposite slogan: “first what then who” which means that this leader first decides what to do and then enlists people to execute the strategy.
There may not be many real level 5 leaders around because most managers like to do their own thinking and make their own decisions. In fact, it is expected of managers that they must know what to do. This is a deep cultural fact about all organizations. People at all levels make their mark by offering their solutions to tough problems. It’s the core of their identity and how they get ahead. It’s like being a goal scorer in sports. A manager I was coaching said that he could see the merit of adopting a more engaging, level 5, style of working but he objected that drawing solutions out of others wouldn’t feel like he was doing real work, making a real contribution.
You can see this problem in meetings. Everyone contributes by stating his or her opinion on the issue at hand. When managers have no comment to make, they say nothing. Very few use a facilitative style, using questions to stimulate others to think in more depth about the issue under discussion.
This is unfortunate because the level 5 leadership style is far more engaging and big companies struggle to fully engage employees. Part of the problem is that organizational cultures are resolutely male and men like to use their analytical abilities to develop their own solutions. They are solution generators. They compete with others to score the most goals by winning arguments. They like being right. Another part of the problem is that this is what gets rewarded in organizations. Until a more facilitative, engaging style is rewarded more than goal scoring, organizations will be stuck with level 4 leaders and minimal employee engagement.
