Level 5 Leadership: Is your Company Charting your Career Path?

In a previous post, we emphasized Level 5 Leaders propel a company from merely good to truly great. According to Jim Collins research “the most powerfully transformative executives possess a paradoxical mixture of personal humility and professional will. They are timid and ferocious. Shy and fearless. They are rare-and unstoppable.”

Collins research returned that in a hierarchy of executive capabilities, Level 5 is the highest level. In the four levels beneath Level 5, leaders can generate high levels of success but not enough to transform a company from average to sustained excellence. It is also very important to note that Level 5 leadership is not the only requirement to transforming a company from good to great, but other factors need to be available like getting good people on the bus and bad people off the bus as well as creating a culture of discipline. Moreover, the four levels under Level 5 include “highly capable individual” in Level 1, “Contributing Team Member” in Level 2, “Competent Manager” in Level 3, and “Effective Leader” in Level 4. Those notes are very important for Optometrists because during their career as they transition from technical to managerial positions the lack of managerial and leadership knowledge may negatively affect their performance.

Peter Drucker emphasized that the time when people relied on their companies to chart their career paths has gone. Times have drastically changed, today’s managers must learn to manage themselves and their own careers by learning to develop themselves. That is by putting themselves in the place where they can contribute the most to their company and overall community: a place where they can make a real and tangible impact. This can be achieved by staying mentally alert and aware when to change the work they do in order to deliver results and sustained success by doing what they are good at and through ways that fit their ability. For this reason and in order to be able to take advantage of their fundamental strengths Optometrists who are transitioning from technical to managerial positions need to be able to answer five questions that Drucker employed to challenge new managers to focus on improving the skills they have and accepting responsibilities that fit their individual way of doing things. Those questions are, What are my strengths? How do I perform? What are my values? Where do I belong? What should my contribution be?

Today more than ever, success comes to those who understand their strength and themselves. Successful managers are those who answer those questions and understand that their careers are not planned out in advance. However, their careers develop when they become prepared for opportunities because they have answered those questions and have carefully and thoroughly determined their unique qualities and constantly worked on developing them.