Now that you are acquainted with the levels, I want to share some insights that will help you to understand how the levels relate to one another.
Now that you’ve seen the levels and learned the basics about them, you may assume that a leader climbs them, leaving one to arrive at the next, similar to the way one moves up a staircase. But the truth is that you never leave a level behind after you’ve achieved it. Instead, you simply build upon it. If you think about it for a moment, you’ll agree that it makes sense. If you start out with a leadership position and you build relationships with the people you oversee, do you resign your position to do so? No. You don’t leave your position to advance, but if you win Level 2 correctly, you never need to rely on your position again.
Once you’ve built relationships with people and move to a higher level of productivity, do you abandon or neglect those relationships? You had better not! If you do, you’ll find yourself back down at Level 1 again.
Leaders don’t trade one level for another. They add a new level to the previous one. It is a building process.
Leadership is dynamic, and it changes from relationship to relationship. The same is true for the 5 Levels of Leadership. I may be on a different one of the 5 Levels with each of five different people at my job. Someone the first day on the job will acknowledge only my position, while someone in whom I’ve invested and whom I’ve raised up to lead will likely put me on Level 4. If I’ve been a good father at home, I may be on Level 4 with my children. If I’ve been an absentee dad, I may be on Level 1. With my next-door neighbor, perhaps I’m on Level 2.
Have you ever cast vision with your team and had a variety of responses to the same piece of communication? To what do you attribute that? Different backgrounds of the listeners? Different intelligence levels? Different levels of training or experience? Different personalities? I believe all of those factors can come into play, but often the most impacting factor is the level of leadership you’re on with each person. People will respond to you based on the level of leadership you’re on with them. And that is subject to change.
People will respond to you based on the level of leadership you’re on with them.
Achieving a level of leadership is not like earning a degree. Nor is it like setting a record as an athlete. You don’t achieve it and leave it. It’s more like having to run a race every day to prove your ability. The lone exception is the Pinnacle. Leaders who rise to Level 5 are sometimes given credit for being on that level by reputation instead of just personal interaction. But it’s important to note that at any level, a leader doesn’t always automatically stay at that level. You must earn your level of leadership with each person, and that level can go up or down at any time.
Here’s some good news. As you work to climb up the levels of leadership, you’ll find that it gets easier to lead people. Each advance allows you to be more effective in leading others because your influence increases as you go to a higher level. As your influence increases, more people follow you more readily. Limited influence, limited leadership. Greater influence, greater effectiveness. That’s common sense. However, there’s also some bad news: it’s not easy to climb the levels of leadership! If it were easy, everyone would be a Level 5 leader.
Which is harder? Being given a leadership position (Level 1) or getting people’s permission to lead them (Level 2)? That’s pretty obvious. It takes time, effort, and commitment to develop positive relationships with people. How about moving from Level 2 to Level 3? I believe it is harder to become consistently productive than it is to make friends. It’s even harder and requires much more time to go to Level 4, where you develop people to become good leaders. And it can take a lifetime to become a Level 5 leader who develops leaders who in turn develop other leaders.
Years ago I remember seeing a Ziggy cartoon by Tom Wilson in which the hero of the strip was on the road to success, and up ahead he could see a sign that said, “Prepare to stop for tolls.” That would be good advice for anyone wanting to rise up the 5 Levels of Leadership. There is no easy way to get to the top. And each time you go up, you pay. You have to be more committed, you have to give more, you have to use more energy, each time you want to go up a level. And so do your people. Nobody achieves anything great by giving the minimum. No teams win championships without making sacrifices and giving their best.
As I’ve said, it takes time to climb up the levels of leadership. I’ve had people ask me, “How long will it take me to become a Level 5 leader?”
“A lot longer than you think” is my answer. Building always takes a lot longer than destroying. A lot of things have to be right to climb to a higher level, but sometimes it takes only one thing going wrong to cause someone to fall. For example, think about how long it takes to build a great relationship with a person. But if you do something to lose trust with that person, the relationship can become permanently broken in the blink of an eye.
A lot of things have to be right to climb to a higher level, but sometimes it takes only one thing going wrong to cause someone to fall.
While it’s unsettling to think about how quickly one can fall from a level of leadership, I hope you can take solace in this: once you’ve climbed up to higher levels, the ones below you function as a safety net. So the more you’ve advanced up the levels, the more secure your leadership is. For example, if you make some bad decisions on Level 3 that ruin your productivity or that of the team, the relationships you’ve developed may save you from being fired. The only level without a safety net is the lowest one: Position. You don’t get too many chances to make mistakes on that level. That’s another good reason to work your way up the levels of leadership.
You may give more to climb to higher levels of leadership, but you get more, too. As a leader, your return on investment increases with each level. On Level 2, you earn trust and the right to lead. On Level 3, you add to the productivity of the organization. On Level 4, you multiply that productivity because every time you add another leader to an organization, you add all the horsepower of that leader’s team. On Level 5, the growth and productivity become exponential as you add leaders to the organization who not only lead others but also create generations of leadership development that keep on producing.
The better the leaders are in an organization, the better everyone in the organization becomes. When productivity is high, chemistry is good, morale is high, and momentum is strong, then the payoffs increase.
Each time a leader moves up to a higher level of leadership, greater skill is required. For that reason, each step of growth requires further development on the part of the leader. But here’s the good news. Each level of leadership achieved functions as a platform from which the leader can grow into the next.
Here’s how this works. To grow to a new level, leaders take risks. At the lower levels, the risks are smaller and more easily won. For example, to make the climb from Level 1 to Level 2, leaders risk initiating relationships. When leaders get to higher levels, the risks get bigger. For example, on Level 3, leaders may rally the team to try to accomplish a lofty goal only to fail; that could cost the leader credibility, stop momentum, and demotivate team members. But here’s the good news: every risk at a higher level is a natural extension of the skills that leaders have by then developed. Outsiders might look at a leader and say, “Wow, he really stepped out and took a big risk.” But those observers may not see the growth that has occurred in the leader. By the time the next risk must be undertaken, the leader has grown into it.
Growing as a leader requires a combination of intentional growth and leadership experience.
Growing as a leader requires a combination of intentional growth and leadership experience. If people rely only on experience without intentionally learning and preparing for the next level, they won’t progress as leaders. On the other hand, if they only prepare mentally yet obtain no experience through risk and reward, and trial and error, then they still won’t progress. It takes both—plus some amount of talent. But you have no control over how much talent you possess. You control only what you do with it.
You see this dynamic when athletes try to move up from the college ranks to the pros. They all have a degree of talent. What helps those who succeed are intentional growth and experience. The athletes who rely only on their college experience often don’t make it. And the ones who prepare mentally and physically but never get actual game experience often have the same negative outcome. It takes both to be successful.
If you possess a natural gift for leadership, you probably have a passion for growth. You like to see things build. It’s part of your wiring. Go with it. If you have a more modest amount of talent, don’t lose hope. You can make up for a lot by becoming a highly intentional student of leadership, thereby making the most of every opportunity. Either way, remember that success at any level helps you to be successful at every level. So work hard to win the level you’re on now. It will prepare you for the future.
The Law of the Lid in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership states, “Leadership ability determines a person’s level of effectiveness.” In short, your effectiveness in getting things done and your ability to work through others is always limited by your leadership. If your leadership is a 4 out of 10, then your effectiveness will be no higher than a 4. Additionally, the Law of Respect says, “People naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves.” That means that if you remain a 4, then you will never attract and keep any leaders better than a 3!1
One of the burdens of leadership is that as we go, so go the people we lead. Reaching our potential sets an environment for others to reach theirs. When leaders stop climbing, two questions need to be asked: “Can they improve?” and “Will they improve?” Some people can’t; they’ve reached their limit. Others won’t. Capacity is not the problem: choice and attitude are. If people are willing to choose improvement and change their attitude, the sky is the limit.
One of the burdens of leadership is that as we go, so go the people we lead. Reaching our potential sets an environment for others to reach theirs.
Your leadership ability today is whatever it is. You can’t change the past. However, you can change the future. You have a choice concerning your leadership ability from this day forward. If you learn to climb the Levels of Leadership, your leadership ability will improve. And that will positively impact your overall leadership capacity. However, if you choose not to grow as a leader, you better get used to being wherever you currently are, because your situation isn’t likely to improve.
What happens when leaders make a job change and begin leading a new group of people? If you assumed that they stay on the same Level of Leadership, you are mistaken. Every time you lead different people you start the process over again. People don’t recognize you as a Level 4 People Developer when you haven’t worked with them. You have to earn that. The same goes for Levels 3 and 2. You start over at Level 1. However, there is good news. If you reached Level 4 with some other group of people, you already know how to get there. And because you’ve done it before, you can move up the levels much more quickly than the previous time.
Each time you go through the process with a new group of people, you become even more skilled at it. And after you’ve done it enough times, you won’t be discouraged by the prospect of having to repeat it with others. For example, for twenty-five years I led in the religious world. In that time I worked in four different organizations, and in each I had to climb the levels of leadership with the people there. Fortunately, in that world I was able to reach Level 4 with many people, even many who were outside of those particular organizations. However, when I started teaching leadership in the business world, everything changed. I started back at Level 1 with many people. I didn’t let that intimidate or discourage me. I was willing to prove myself and work my way up through the levels again. And now, fifteen years later, I’m enjoying the credibility I’ve earned by developing relationships, being productive in that world, and developing leaders.
Positional leaders are reluctant to have to start over. Because they think of leadership as a destination instead of a process—a noun instead of a verb—they want to hold onto what they have. Their hope is to do it once and be done. Good leaders are willing to re-earn their way back into leadership because they understand that the leadership life will almost always require them to start again at the bottom more than once.
“Leadership is accepting people where they are, then taking them somewhere.”
—C. W. Perry
One of my favorite sayings is, “If you think you’re leading but no one is following, then you are only taking a walk.” That thought captures the true nature of leadership and also expresses the most important insight about the 5 Levels of Leadership. To succeed as a leader, you must help others follow you up the levels. If people aren’t following you, you’re not moving up from Level 1 to Levels 2 and 3. If other people following you up the levels aren’t becoming leaders themselves, then you haven’t reached Level 4. And if the people you’re developing aren’t on Level 4 developing generations of leaders, then you will not achieve Level 5. The entire process includes other people and focuses on helping them. As Quaker leader C. W. Perry said, “Leadership is accepting people where they are, then taking them somewhere.” That’s what the 5 Levels of Leadership is all about!
I trust that you now have a basic understanding of the 5 Levels of Leadership and how it works. But I’m guessing that by now you’re asking yourself, What level am I on with most of my people? I make this assertion because every time I teach the 5 Levels, that is a question people want answered.
I’ll help you to do that in a moment, but first let me say this: understanding the 5 Levels of Leadership and knowing what level you are on with each person will determine how you lead them. Good leaders do not lead everyone the same way. Why? Because every person is different, and you’re not on the same level of leadership with every person. Effective leaders interact with followers based on:
Each of these factors comes into play as you evaluate your leadership and work to develop it.
I believe every person has the ability to improve in leadership. Becoming a leader isn’t a mystical subject. It can be approached very practically, and everyone has the potential to move up to a higher level of leadership.
What is your potential? Do you have the capacity and the desire to become a Level 3, 4, or 5 leader? There’s only one way to find out. Accept the leadership challenge, give growth your best effort, and dive into leadership. If you’re willing to pick up the gauntlet, you’ll never regret it, because there is no better way to increase your positive impact on the world and add value to others than to increase your leadership ability.
I believe this book, with its guides for growth at each level, will help you to navigate the process and help you climb. So good reading, good growing, and as my friend Zig Ziglar says, “I’ll see you at the top.”