On the Levels
The Tale of a Level 3 Leader's Trial by Fire
The most Level 3 leader I ever knew was a senior corporate executive, who showed me that humility didn’t undermine authority, it increased it. “Thomas” ran a large unit of a major corporation, and his Level 3-ness came down to the simple fact that he liked people.
“Liking people” may not sound like a recipe for strong, executive leadership, and it certainly won’t get you far if you can’t do your job. But Thomas proved that, so long as you had a firm foundation of competence, a consistent regard for people allowed you to lead them through the most difficult of times.
There was no doubt Thomas’s fondness for others was genuine. I don’t know if it was his natural disposition or a virtue forged through discipline, but he treated every person he met as though he or she was both interesting and important.
He never spoke ill of anyone, in public or in private. The meetings he led were refreshingly free of ridicule and detraction. Even if you were prone to those sins yourself, you didn’t commit them in front of Thomas. |
More than 2,000 people worked in his organization, and by effort he came to know hundreds of them personally. It was common to see him scanning the cafeteria for new people to meet, or mingling with employees at various company-sponsored events. I know leaders who’ve tried this “man of the people” approach with obnoxious results because they tend to hold court and make themselves the center of attention. But Thomas didn’t treat these encounters as your chance to get to know him; it was his chance to get to know you.
I overlooked one of his virtues for years because it was a virtue of omission: He never spoke ill of anyone, in public or in private. The meetings he led were refreshingly free of ridicule and detraction. Even if you were prone to those sins yourself, you didn’t commit them in front of Thomas.
There were other ways Thomas walked the Level 3 walk. He expanded the organization’s volunteer work. He mentored people, formally and informally. He admitted mistakes, both his own and the company’s. When you did something great, he called with congratulations. When something bad happened, he called to sympathize. The slow accumulation of all these minor acts of thoughtfulness gave Thomas the best reputation of any corporate executive I’ve ever known.
His great reputation couldn’t prevent the most painful ordeal that any leader can go through. When the corporation needed cuts of several billion dollars, his whole organization was axed in a massive downsizing.
Employees were angry and bitter because our unit had performed well, and they had a handful of ways to vent anonymously. One favorite way involved me, indirectly. Years earlier, I had given employees a tool for rating internal news stories. They began to use it to give rock-bottom ratings to stories featuring top corporate leaders. The massive, electronic thumbs-down was noticed by colleagues up and down the ladder.
A few days after the announcements, when Thomas gave a major internal address, I was worried he’d get the same hostile treatment. Despite all the free-floating anger, just the opposite occurred – a huge thumbs-up. When Thomas spoke about his concern for the pain employees were feeling, they knew he meant it. People trusted him, and nothing, not even a shutdown, could shake that confidence.
He stayed on to ensure the closure was handled as well and sympathetically as possible. There was scarcely a person who left he didn’t take time to say goodbye and good luck to personally.
From a Level 2 standpoint, which tends to split the world into winners and losers, it’s hard to reckon Thomas as a winner. He lost the game of musical chairs that gets played when companies downsize, but that loss had surprisingly little effect on his reputation or legacy. In fact, they way Thomas handled misfortune by focusing on others only heightened the esteem in which he was held.
It’s not a happy story but it carries a heartening lesson: At the end of the day, people judge you by who you are. And while none of us can guarantee success in all endeavors, we can guarantee who we are because we get to choose our identity every day.
By John Keenan, editor