something to inspire me to work towards

chanced about this inspirational passage on leadership and decided to share it on my blog. i have reflected on the topic before, and this story serves to add to that wealth of knowledge.

of particular interest for leadership in contemporary times is a post-heroic approach that focuses on the subtle, unseen, and often unrewarded acts that good leaders perform every day, rather than on the grand accomplishments of celebrated business heroes. during the 1980s and 1990s, leadership became equated with large-than-life personalities, strong egos, and personal ambitions. in contrast, the post-heroic leader's major characteristic is humility - being unpretentious and modest rather than arrogant and prideful. humble leaders dont have to be in the center of things. they quietly build strong, enduring companies by developing and supporting others rather than touting their own abilities and accomplishments.

a key characteristic of level 5 leaders is an almost complete lack of ego, coupled with a fierce resolve to do what is best for the organization. level 5 leaders are shy and unpretentious. they accept full responsibility for mistakes, poor results or failures. they give credit for successes to other people.

darwin smith, who led kimberly-clark from 1971-1991, is a classic example of a level 5 leader. few people have ever heard of him - and that's probably the way he wanted it.

smith was somewhat shy and awkward in social situations, and he dressed much like a farm boy in his first JCPenny suit. he was never featured in splashy articles in Fortune magazine of The Wall Street Journal. yet, far from being meek, smith demonstrated an aggressive determination to revive kimberly-clark, which at the time was a stodgy old paper company that had seen years of falling stock prices. anyone who interpreted his appearance and demeanor as a sign of ineptness soon learned differently, as smith made difficult decisions that set kimberly-clark on the path to greatness. when smith took over, the company's core business was in coated paper. convinced that this approach doomed the company to mediocrity, smith took the controversial step of selling the company's paper mills and investing all its resources in consumer products such as kleenex and huggies diapers. this, coming from a man who when being promoted to CEO, questioned the board's directors whether they really wanted to appoint him because he didnt believe he had the qualifications a CEO needed.

this reminds me of an earlier blog post, in which i mused how perhaps the best leaders are those who did not seek or desire the position.

over his 20 years as CEO, smith turned kimberly-clark into the leading consumer paper products company in the world, beating rivals scott paper and proctor & gamble. the company generated cumulative stock returns that were 4.1 times greater that those of the general market. when asked about his exceptional performance after his retirement, smith said simply, "i never stopped trying to become qualified for the job".