Jesus — A Level 5 Leader

If you’ve nev­er read any­thing by Jim Collins, he’s a for­mer prof at Stan­ford who’s hit it big (huge would be a more accu­rate term) in the world of busi­ness writ­ing. His two books Built to Last and Good to Great are devoured by busi­ness lead­ers hun­gry for an edge.

In the lat­ter book, Collins talks about the cru­cial­i­ty of lev­el 5 lead­er­ship. Lev­el 5 lead­ers com­bine humil­i­ty and strength in a sur­pris­ing­ly potent pack­age. I found this excerpt from an inter­view with him fas­ci­nat­ing:

I have absolute­ly no reli­gious back­ground at all, which gives me more con­fi­dence in the find­ings. If I had come from a strong reli­gious back­ground, I’d be more sus­pi­cious. After the book came out, I kept hear­ing peo­ple say to me, “There was this ulti­mate Lev­el 5 leader who lived 2,000 years ago. The things he talked about in the Gospel have great com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with what you say.” Of course I had heard about Jesus, but as a result of find­ing out about Lev­el 5, I was inspired to begin read­ing the New Tes­ta­ment to see for myself. read the whole inter­view