Several years ago, when I was still a very young and childish creature, I was walking along side my father in a Tottus store (he was and still is CEO of the company) and I suddenly took for granted, as immature as I was, that I was better or more special than anyone else in the store just because I was walking with the CEO of the company. To my father, he was just another person in the store, so I asked him: “Dad, why don’t you just tell someone to bring you the things you want and why can’t we just cut the line to pay, I mean, you're the CEO”, and he answered, “Nico, you need to understand that it doesn’t matter that I am CEO of anything. It doesn’t mean that we deserve more than anyone else here. We all have the same rights and I don't consider myself more important than others. People don’t need to know that I am CEO, I’m just another person in this store”. It was so weird to me, at that time, how he could be so naive and put the benefit of the company before his own ego. All my life I have been surrounded by people, either in school and specially in television, who put their egos before everything else, that I didn’t understand why my father was different. Today I finally understand that behaviour that my father showed so much time ago and it's all thanks to the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. In this book, Jim Collins talks about how to take a good company and make it a sustained great one. He conducted a 5 year long research with an amazing team in order to unravel the mysteries of companies that become great. Though there are so many important ideas and concepts to talk about, one has truly captured my attention in the first chapters and it the Level 5 Leadership. This is a very important concept and a crucial one for making a great company. Using Collins words, a Level 5 leader is that who “Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will”. In contrast to other leaders, Level 5 leaders are those who don't seek for fame or being in the cover of a big magazine, instead they are humble leaders who seek for a company of greatness and no personal recognition. Level 5 leaders take the entire responsibility to themselves and do not blame others in case of failure, they accept the fact that they could have done better. And in the case of a success, they thank others before crediting themselves. Most leaders set up others for failure so that they can be seen as exceptionally great, that’s why their companies don't last long. Eventually, this concept becomes pretty logical why it works and why it is so effective, but it seems that very few people are able to understand it. Just in about 30 minutes of cruising the web and watching tv I was able to find countless people who overcredit themselves and label themselves as “kings”. These are some YouTube and Vine users I found: Scumperjumper KING, King Bach, Mannyking, KingKunta. In tv I always see people like Conor Mcgregor, Floyd Mayweather, Ronda Rousey, Kanye West and Dj Khaled who always say they are the best at what they do. So, who really is the king or best in something if they all call themselves that? Well, that's not important, what is important is that this made me understand that it is very rare to find a Level 5 leader behaviour and therefore there are few people that make great things. But, why would it interest me right now as a teenager to learn about leadership? Well, in one aspect I feel that these concepts will stick with me and serve me when older, but right now I have another duty to serve and that’s to lead our Innovation Academy magazine project as CEO. My greatest concern right now is if I have what it takes to lead this project and more importantly, if I’m a Level 5 leader. Well, I know neither of those and honestly I know almost nothing about leading a project like this! Although I think I do have the will to organize, understand my peers and lead a role of example, I feel that I have so many classmates that could do the job even better than me. I must admit it did feel very uncomfortable to see my name at the top of the board as CEO and I am not very used to demanding things from people. That's another thing I am worried about, that people will expect or depend too much on me. A couple of weeks ago, after one of the last IA classes of the semester, Valeria Wu came up to me and told me “Hey Nico I didn't see you standing up and leading the class today” and that's exactly my point, I don't want to limit people from going to the board and writing down what they think is important just because that should be my job. What I am trying to say is that although I will be the best leader I can be, if someone can do something better than me then go ahead and do it! There is always the right person for the right job and I can’t do all the jobs.There are so many things that will be new to me that it’s scary, but also extremely exciting because I think it will be a great opportunity to learn. The great thing is that I will have several guides during the process like the book Good to Great itself, Nicolas Woods who was the last years CEO and my father. The book is just filled with exceptional ideas and concepts that will be critical for me. Nicolas Woods was in the same position I'm in and I could ask him for some advice. Finally my father is a person who I truly admire and the person closest to a Level 5 leader that I know. In order to more precisely measure my role as a leader, I will compare myself to this sort of rubric of a Level 5 leader taken from the book: In the end I will still try to keep a good dose of being independent, figure things out by myself and try to make my work unique.
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