The Two Sides of Level 5 Leadership

Level 5 leadership has a paradoxical core: fierce ambition for the institution combined with deep personal humility. Most leaders have one or the other. Few have both at the same time. The rarity of the combination is part of why Level 5 leaders are rare.

Professional will

Professional will is the leader’s fierce determination to produce great results for the institution.

Creates superb results, a clear catalyst in the transition from good to great. Demonstrates an unwavering resolve to do whatever must be done to produce the best long-term results, no matter how difficult. Sets the standards of building an enduring great company; will settle for nothing less.

What professional will looks like in a school

1. Holds high standards. Mediocre teaching, mediocre results, and mediocre culture are not acceptable.
2. Makes hard decisions. Removes underperforming staff. Cuts programmes that do not work. Confronts uncomfortable truths.
3. Stays focused over years. Does not get distracted by fashion or by political pressure.
4. Refuses excuses. Acknowledges constraints but does not let them become reasons for accepting mediocrity.
5. Pushes through resistance. When the school needs to change, she does the difficult work even when it is unpopular.

A school head with strong professional will produces results. Test scores rise. Teaching quality improves. The school becomes a better place over years.

What undermines professional will

1. Avoiding hard conversations. Allowing weak performance to continue because the conversation would be uncomfortable.
2. Drifting to safe targets. Setting goals that can be met easily, instead of the goals the school actually needs.
3. Settling for short-term wins. Accepting modest improvement when significant change is possible.
4. Following the latest trend. Switching focus every term based on what is fashionable.

Many school heads have moderate professional will. Few have the fierce, unwavering kind that drives institutional change.

Personal humility

The other half of Level 5 is personal humility. This is where Level 5 diverges sharply from the celebrity-CEO model.

Demonstrates a compelling modesty, shunning public adulation; never boastful. Acts with quiet, calm determination. Relies principally on inspired standards, not inspiring charisma, to motivate. Channels ambition to the company, not to self.

What personal humility looks like in a school

1. Modesty about her own role. When things go well, she credits the team. When asked about her achievements, she names other people’s work.
2. Quiet style. Not flashy. Not loud. Not seeking attention in staff meetings or parent gatherings.
3. Calm under pressure. Does not panic in crisis; does not lose her temper publicly.
4. Standards over charisma. Motivates through the institution’s standards, not through her own personal magnetism. Staff do good work because the school’s standards demand it, not because the principal is inspiring them personally.
5. Ambition for the school, not for herself. Her own career advancement is not the driver. Her name on the building is not the goal.

A school head with personal humility is harder to recognise from outside. She does not stand out. The school stands out instead.

What “humility is not”

C.S. Lewis named what humility is not:

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less. (C.S. Lewis)

A humble leader does not have low self-esteem. She is not insecure. She knows her own value. She just does not spend much time thinking about it. Her attention is on the institution, the team, and the work.

A leader who is constantly self-deprecating but actually anxious about her own status is not humble in the Level 5 sense. She is performing humility. Genuine humility shows up as comfortable attention to others, not as displays of self-criticism.

Why both must be present

Either side alone produces a recognisable but lesser kind of leader.

Most leaders fall into one of the first two combinations. They are either driven and ego-centred, or modest and low-impact. The third combination is mediocre and common. The fourth is Level 5 and rare.

A self-check for any school principal: which combination am I currently? The honest answer is often “high will, lower humility” or “high humility, lower will”. The work of becoming Level 5 is the work of growing the side that is weaker.

The bedrock test

The handout names a useful test for the humility side:

You can accomplish anything in life provided that you do not mind who gets the credit. (Harry S. Truman)

Level 5 leaders look out the window to give credit to factors outside themselves when things go well. If they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck. At the same time, they look in the mirror to apportion responsibility, never blaming bad luck when things go poorly.

The window and the mirror test:

1. When things go well, where does the leader look? Out the window. She gives credit to the team, to external factors, to good fortune.
2. When things go poorly, where does the leader look? In the mirror. She takes responsibility, never blaming circumstances.

A leader who reverses this (mirror for credit, window for blame) is the opposite of Level 5. She is the leader who keeps the credit and shares the blame. Many leaders in any field show this pattern.

A school head can test herself: in the past year, when test results improved, where did she look? When a programme failed, where did she look? Honest answers are uncomfortable. They are also useful.

Legacy thinking

A final piece of the humility side:

They think about legacy on their way into a position, rather than on their way out of one.

A Level 5 leader thinks about what she will leave behind from the day she arrives. She designs her work for the long term. She develops successors. She builds systems that will outlast her tenure.

A non-Level-5 leader thinks about her legacy only at the end, when she is retiring or moving on. By then it is too late. Legacy cannot be built in the last year of a tenure. It is built across the whole tenure.

For a school principal in her first year, the Level 5 question is: what will this school look like ten years after I leave? The honest answer shapes her decisions today. A principal who answers “I do not know, I am just trying to get through the year” is not yet operating at Level 5. A principal who answers concretely, and works backwards from that picture, has started.

Flashcard

What are the two sides of Level 5 leadership, and why must both be present?

Tap to reveal

Answer

Professional Will and Personal Humility.

1. Professional Will. Fierce determination to produce great results for the institution. Holds standards, makes hard decisions, refuses to accept mediocrity.

2. Personal Humility. Modesty about her own role. Channels ambition to the institution rather than to herself. Quiet style, calm determination, credit shared.

Either alone is not enough:

• Will without humility produces the celebrity CEO: driven but ego-centred.
• Humility without will produces a modest, well-liked but low-impact leader.
• Both together is Level 5: drives change while keeping the institution at the centre.

The window-and-mirror test: a Level 5 leader looks out the window to give credit when things go well, and in the mirror to take responsibility when they go poorly.