Leadership at its finest
Posted by Asa Beavers on Fri, Apr 17, 2009 @ 05:15 AM
Like many of you, I am in awe of the level of leadership exhibited by Captain Chelsey “Sully” Sullenberger, who piloted the US Air flight to a successful crash landing into the Hudson River, and now Captain Richard Phillips of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship, whose crew fought off the Somali hijackers and allowed himself to be taken hostage to reduce the risk to his crew and ship. The stories are so remarkable they give me shivers to think about how I might react in the face of such a life or death scenario. Would I be up to that level of leadership?
I love how Jim Collins in his book, Good To Great, defines Level 5 Leadership. Level 5 Leaders exhibit a combination of extreme personal humility with intense professional will. They look out the window to attribute success to factors other than themselves, and when things go poorly, they look into the mirror and blame themselves, taking full responsibility. That’s exactly how these two brave captains handled their duties.
Now, quite honestly, plane crashes and Somali priates aren’t necessarily how I would want my leadership to be tested and I’m sure it wasn’t theirs either. But each of us get thrust into situations in our businesses and lives that test our leadership, and how we handle it comes through in our actions and decisions.
Preparation for these tests come from our collective experiences, the training we take, the books we read, and the people we associate with. Here at Redline Business Solutions we provide tools that help you in your preparation for tests that we hope won’t be as exteme as the two captains’ experiences, but still equally important to each of us in our own context.
Please take a moment to consider the tools we have for you this week. The Business MasterMind is an opportunity to interact with other business leaders discussing important and relevant business issues. And in the Vibrant Business workshop you’ll learn more strategies than you can implement in the next 6 months, but it only takes one done right to get massive results. Both are definitely worth the investment of your time.