September 2005

he conventional image of a business leader is one we see all around us—the commanding, visionary person who takes charge in a time of crisis or transition and leads his or her company to victory over daunting odds. The tales of these “celebrity CEOs” and their successes make great reading—as does their failures.

Yet, for several years, a slowly growing body of knowledge and experience has begun to suggest that another approach—under the heading “quiet leadership”—may be ultimately more effective at achieving sustained high performance in organizations of all kinds.

While that may be good news for those of us who are not natural media stars, don’t be misled: Quiet leadership is a challenging management approach that requires a keen understanding of your business and the people in it to achieve its promise.

For starters, quiet leadership isn’t clearly defined. Certainly a bedrock of quiet leadership is leading by example, of eliciting the behavior you want by demonstrating it, rather than just telling others to do it. But a deeper understanding of what it means to be a “quiet leader” is emerging as management researchers and business coaches delve into just why it is that certain types of leaders tend to produce better results, in more varied conditions, over longer periods of time. And quiet leadership isn’t just for the person at the top, but applies across the spectrum, from the leader to all levels of middle-management, as well as solo entrepreneurs and their team of subcontractors, and small business owners with a small staff.

In Good to Great, author Jim Collins first documented that transforming a mediocre company into a stellar performer seemed to require in every case a leader who was the polar opposite of the “celebrity CEO” archetype. Collins described five leadership levels, with his “Level 5” leader repeatedly showing up in the best-performing companies.

< continued on page 2 click here >