Insights Into The 5 Levels Of Leadership

  

Image: pexels.com/Andrea Piacquadio

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.

 

1. You Can Move Up a Level But You Never Leave the Previous One Behind

 

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.

 

2. You Are Not on the Same Level with Every Person

 

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.

 

 

3. The Higher You Go, The Easier It Is to Lead

 

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.

 

4. The Higher You Go, the More Time and Commitment Is Required to Win a Level

 

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 makingsacrifices and giving their best.

 

 

5. Moving Up Levels Occurs Slowly, But Going Down Can Happen Quickly

  

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.

 

 

Source: 

The 5 Levels of Leadership, John Maxwell pg. 23-30

Share this post