Patrice Bergeron nhl hockey jersey

Patrice Bergeron nhl hockey jersey -

In his book “Good to Great” Jim Collins headed a research team to look at what drives average organizations to take a great leap and become great. The research concluded that a crucial component of greatness is a group of leaders with a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. These leaders who Collins describes as Level 5 leaders channel their ambition away from themselves into the larger goal of building a great company. All of the companies in the study that went from good to great had Level 5 leadership in key positions, including the CEO, at the pivotal time of transition.”


However, Collins couldn’t answer a critical question; how to develop Level 5 leadership?

“I would love to be able to give you a list of steps for becoming Level 5 but we have no solid research data that would support a credible list”

The inner development of a person remains a “black box”. In this article we will attempt to suggest ways that you can unlock the black box of great leadership. Our key is a set of capacities that we call awareness and communication capacities.

Collins’ Five Level Patrice Bergeron nhl hockey jersey Leadership Hierarchy

Level 5 – Level 5 executive

Builds enduring greatness through paradoxical

combination of personal humility plus professional will

Level 4 – Effective Leader

Catalyzes commitment to and vigorous pursuit of clear

and compelling vision; stimulates the group to high

performance standards

Level 3 – Competent manager

Organizes people and resources towards effective and

efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives

Level 2 – Contributing team member

Contributes to the achievement of group objectives;

works effectively with others in a group setting

Level 1 – Highly capable individual

Makes productive contribution through talent knowledge,

skills and good work habits

Each higher level builds on the lower level so that the Level 5 leader incorporates all five levels. A Level 4 leader incorporates all level apart form Level 5 and so on.

Collins’ model is a fine first look at leadership and this model can be significantly improved by locating it within an integral approach. You can learn about the integral approach by clicking here. In what follows we assume that you will be familiar with the terminology of the integral approach.



An effective leadership Patrice Bergeron nhl hockey jersey formation program needs to be able to help people form the awareness and communication capacities that are the key to reaching Level 5 of Collins’ model.



In addition to each of the companies having Level 5 leadership at the crucial times there were a series of steps the leadership of the Good to Great companies implemented.

Getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus

The first step these companies took was to hire the right people. Collins talks about this as getting the right people onto the bus and the wrong people off the bus, or alternatively re-positioning someone to a place within the organization that suited their talent. Once the leadership had the right people on board and in the right positions they set about deciding about their future direction.



Confronting the brutal facts, (but never lose faith) <

Each of the Good to Great companies faced up to the brutal facts they confronted. In order to achieve this critical step three awareness capacities are critical. These three awareness capacities are:

1. Treating everything that arises as an opportunity to learn;

2. Accepting unconditional responsibility for the choices made;

3. Achieving emotional mastery;

Treating everything that arises as an opportunity to learn is about accepting the provisional nature of all of our beliefs and being ready, in the face of a better argument, to modify and change our views. This is not something that many people find easy to do, who, when their view is challenged experience it as a threat and will defend their point of view “to the death.

A striking feature of Level 5 leaders was their willingness to accept full responsibility for any mistakes they made and to use the experience as an occasion to learn. Level 5 leaders at the same time were quick to attribute success to luck or to the exceptional capacities of the people involved rather than massaging their own egos.

The Good to Great companies also never lost sight of faith in their capacity to find a way forward. This is about the healthy management of emotions and feelings. People who can manage their emotions are able Patrice Bergeron nhl hockey jersey to distinguish between the feelings of the emotion and honour those feelings, but at the same time recognise the reasons that lie behind the feelings. They are then able to take steps, by using the energy of the emotion, to deal with the reasons. They use their emotions as reliable indicators of the steps they must take. It’s part of facing the brutal facts.



The hedgehog concept (Simplicity within three circles)

The hedgehog concept is an intriguing title for one of the steps in moving from Good to Great. Collins draws upon a parable created by Isaiah Berlin who contrasted the hedgehog and the fox. The hedgehog had a simple strategy and tactic to stay safe, while the fox had all the cunning and guile in the world, but the fox could not outwit the hedgehog. Collins makes the point that all the Good to Great companies were hedgehogs. They all developed a ‘hedgehog concept” that formed the basis of their business plan.