63 pages • 2 hours read
Jim CollinsGood to Great
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “Level 5 Leadership”
Collins opens this chapter by highlighting Darwin E. Smith, the former Kimberly-Clark CEO who led the company from good to great. Smith is a prototypical example of what Collins calls a “Level 5 leader.” According to Collins, a Level 5 leader is a necessary ingredient for any company moving from good to great, as this type of leadership is generally more focused and results-driven than a CEO with a magnetic personality and charisma. The defining qualities of a Level 5 leader are humility and resolve; they are ambitious not for their own gain, but on behalf of the companies they represent and lead. Furthermore, Level 5 leaders have the foresight to understand that another leader will eventually replace them.
When Collins and his team researched the direct comparison companies, they often found leaders who had “gargantuan personal egos” (39), and who were quick to take the credit for success. On the other hand, Level 5 leaders are often the last ones to claim credit for their company’s success, even suggesting that they simply had “good luck.”
Collins likens these differences in claiming or diverting credit to using a window versus using a mirror. A Level 5 leader looks out the window when things go well, searching for factors outside themselves that led to the company’s success, and in the mirror when things don’t go well in order to understand their own role in the company’s failure. Ineffective leaders tend to do just the opposite, blaming outside factors for failures and claiming credit by looking in the mirror when things go well.
Collins suggests that Level 5 leaders are actually all around us, but that there is no prescribed formula for becoming one. Becoming a Level 5 leader is “something worthy to aspire toward” (38), but outlining a step-by-step process would package the concept in a disingenuous manner. The Level 5 leaders Collins cites, such as Darwin Smith, didn’t follow a formula; they simply acted according to their own convictions and beliefs, which their individual personalities and temperaments influenced.
Chapter 2 Analysis
In this chapter, Collins begins to develop two of his major themes: the power of people and guiding principles as universal truths. By emphasizing the importance of having a Level 5 leader at the helm of a good-to-great company, Collins illustrates how individuals who are in key leadership positions (i.e., CEO) can make a lasting, significant contribution to the growth of a company. Additionally, Collins addresses a potential misconception that readers may have about the kind of leader necessary to revolutionize a company. As Collins and his team found negative correlations between celebrity CEOs and company performance, the data corroborates the value of having a Level 5 leader at the helm.
This concept of Level 5 leadership is a principle, but the overwhelming strength of the research indicates a more universal truth—that “great” companies feature Level 5 leaders, who are humble rather than ostentatious by nature. As Collins writes in the final paragraphs of the chapter, “like all basic truths about what is true in human beings, when we catch a glimpse of that truth, we know that our own lives and all that we touch will be better for the effort” (38). By equating the efficacy of Level 5 leaders to “basic truth” about humanity, Collins is implying that the evidence from his research should speak for itself.
In terms of specific terminology, Collins establishes a precedent with “Level 5” leadership that is not consistent with the rest of the terms he selects to represent key concepts. In later chapters, as he uses terms such as the “Hedgehog Concept,” the “Stockdale Paradox,” and the “Doom Loop,” Collins attempts to communicate an idea by grounding it in a central image or person. Here, however, the term “Level 5” is conventional and hierarchical, which does not contradict the rest of his terminology, but does represent a clear difference. The term’s implied hierarchical nature captures the central paradox of the idea itself—namely, that what makes a leader great is behaving as though they aren’t great.
