“In 1996, when Jim Collins began the research that led to the book Good to Great, the aim was to identify characteristics that led average companies become outperformers,” Greg Satell writes for Forbes. “Many of the results were surprising, but perhaps none more so that his description of what he called the Level 5 leaders, executives who, among other things, act with ‘quiet, calm determination’ and rely ‘principally on inspired standards — not an inspiring personality — to motivate.'”
“In other words, someone very unlike Steve Jobs with his famous ‘reality distortion field.’ Collins saw that ‘celebrity CEO’s’ are often not effective executives and that those who blended personal humility with intense will outperformed their spotlight-loving brethren,” Satell writes. “I’ve often thought of Tim Cook as a Level 5 leader. While Steve Jobs was a visionary of historic proportions, Apple is much more than a vision driven company, it is an operational wunderkind, excelling in cost leadership, quality and service.”
“Tim Cook is a first rate operational executive whose skill and determination played a major role in making Apple one of the greatest companies in history,” Satell writes. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t answer the question of whether Tim Cook can lead Apple into the future.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in February:
“Those who underestimate Tim Cook do so at their own peril.”